In the Woods

I open my eyes and all I can see is darkness. It takes a moment, but my eyes adjust and I can begin so see; I am in the woods. It feels like I snapped out of a trance but then it all started coming back to me—we were camping, me and my friend Eliah. I remember a bottle of vodka, which might explain how I ended up here, passed out lying on the damp forest ground. It hits me that Eliah is nowhere to be seen, and frankly I have no idea where we made camp, all around me are only trees and rocks. I stand up. It’s odd—I feel disoriented but I don’t feel like I had been drinking. It is puzzling, but I shrug it off as nothing.

Soon I notice light coming from among the trees, it must be our camp, I deduce. The fire is apparently still burning, maybe Eliah is still awake. I can't think of a good reason why he didn't wake me up. I push my mind aside and walk towards the light that doesn’t seem to be far away.

Soon I reach a small opening and see our tent and campfire. I notice my bag next to the fire, maybe a bit too close. I move it next to the tent and look around—Eliah is not here. Maybe he too is passed out somewhere out there? Somewhere near to where I woke up perhaps? I dig a flashlight from by bag and venture back towards the way I came.

The forest was dark, that much I can see. My flashlight does not do much to remedy that, it is starting to be low on batteries. I call out to Eliah but get no response. The ground was damp and my shoes were starting to be much of the same. I reach the spot where I woke up and see nothing around me, until the light from my flashlight reflects back from something. I walk up to the glimmer and find another flashlight—this must be Eliah’s. I call out to him a couple more times but hear no response. Upon further thought I don’t hear much of anything, the forest is deadly silent. Still, I have a strange, eerie feeling, like someone is watching me. I shrug it off as just more of the same dizziness or some animal, maybe an owl.

I walk around, occasionally calling out to Eliah, for what feels like hours, but have no luck. He is nowhere to be found. I reach a trail; it is the very same we followed here from the edge of the forest. I call out once more, no response. I have been searching for so long with no luck that I decide to turn back, maybe I will have better luck in the morning, or maybe he has gone back to camp?

I retrace my own footsteps back towards the camp, they were quite well defined on the moss and mud much of the area was largely covered in. It was impossible to recognise any landmarks in the pitch-black darkness, so I was entirely left on relying my own tracks.

After a while I freeze as I register another pair of footprints alongside mine, only these seem to be barefoot. Upon further studying the footprints I noticed they were very fresh, and at times went over my own. They follow my tracks, trying to find me for sure. They also seem erratic, zigzagging for a while and then continuing in some other direction. It was surely Eliah; it has to be! He must’ve lost his shoes and might be panicking, trying to find me. I call out to him again but again, hear no response, not even an echo. I decide to follow the footprints, it would be a sure way to find him.

The prints continue for ages, forming erratic patterns along the forest ground. At times there were larger prints where he has seemingly tripped and fallen over. It was all a bit creepy. My confusion just grows larger for every thought I give to it all.

A little way off the prints seem different somehow, like he had fallen but not quite. Then they continued like he has been crawling forward. Then I feel my heart skip a beat as the tracks start very clearly looking like something—or someone—is being dragged along the ground. Like everything up to this point had been him running away from something, and here that something finally got to him. I keep following the trail, until it stops like to a wall, only there was no wall, it was in the middle of the forest.

I look around, no more tracks to be seen. I call his name, getting no response. I start to panic, barely able to breathe. Then I flinch as something hits my cheek—it was like a drop of water, only it was warm. I wipe it off with my hand and see it coloured red. I can feel my heart almost cease to a halt. Slowly I turn my head, look up only to see a sight I wish I hadn’t; it is Eliah, my best friend in the whole world, hanging on a tree branch like some fresh-slaughtered animal.

His clothes are gone and his jaw torn off, many fingers missing, the entirety of his left foot too; wounds cover much of the rest. He is dead, there is no question about it, and what remains does not tell a painless story.

No matter how much I wanted to, I am unable to look away. I am in shock, frozen, paralysed. I can’t wrap my mind around it all. Who? Why? How? So many questions I cannot answer. It is like a scene in a horror movie, but this is no movie—only pure horror. Blood continues to fall onto my face, one drop at a time, colouring it all red, still I cannot move. Memories, a whole life, flash before my eyes. I remember when me and Eliah met, I remember us hanging out, spending time together. I remember when he had his first girlfriend, and when they broke up, I was there for him. I remember his mother taking me in after that car accident, treating me like her own son. I remember Mrs. Wilson’s biology class and how we used to play cards there, how we had to redo that course because of it. All those memories, are they all that remains?

I hear sounds coming from somewhere behind me—that feeling of being watched is back. I cannot move, I feel like a stone statue—destined to remain still for all of eternity. Still, I know whoever, whatever did this is now looking at me, I am to be next. If I do not move, I will surely die. But even with that knowledge, I cannot move a muscle, I cannot even close my eyes.

It couldn’t have been more than a moment, though it felt like an eternity. First there is Eliah’s lifeless body, then there is nothing as my senses fade into darkness.

I open my eyes and all I can see is darkness. It takes a moment, but my eyes adjust and I can begin so see; I am in the woods.