MINE || 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐘 [✓]

bonus chapter - 20k special

[🍊] message from apricotjinnie:

Thank you all for 20K reads my lovelies!! 💕 I cannot believe this ff has come this far..... I am seriously grateful for everyone who has read it, and for all the comments and advice!! 😭 I hope you enjoy this lil special chapter I wrote for you guys and thank u so much again!!! (๑˙❥˙๑)
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

The woods have never scared me before. The tall, towering trees and the dark shadows they cast upon the ground always felt like a warm welcome to me.
I often spent my days in the woods, walking around and enjoying the breeze. Just being there, it relaxed me.

I met my first and best friend in the woods, so it happens. It felt like it was only a few days ago, and yet so long. Time is warped, and it's not really a necessity anymore to me.

I was perhaps 12, nearing 13 when I first met him.
I had come to the woods to clear my mind of a few things, and sat underneath the trunk of the old oak tree. I sigh, and ran a hand through my hair.

"You okay there?"

A pair of shoes dangle just to the left of my face, and I look up.
He sat on one of the low hung branches of the oak tree, looking at me with a perplexed face.
I shake my head.

"It's life." I glance up at him, shrugging my shoulders.

"Ah, I get you." He replies, looking off into the distance. He eyes a rabbit, hopping a few metres away. His face twisted into a sick grin, before returning to normal.

"So.. what's your name?" I ask, trying to ease the awkward tension between us.

He thinks for a moment, as if he didn't know his real name. He pauses, before answering.

"It's Brian. You?"

"I'm Tim. Nice to meet you." I stretch out my hand to shake his, but he just stares at it in confusion. I quickly put it down, slightly embarrassed.

"Hey Tim, wanna see something cool?" He asks, jumping up.

"Sure!" I say, happy that he liked me enough to talk.

He drops off the branch to the ground, landing with a small this, and heads towards where the rabbit was earlier.
"Follow me." He says, motioning with his fingers.

I do so, and he leads me through the bushes towards a stream which I had never seen before, despite coming here often.

Brian heads towards the stream and stops, raising his head up in the air. He looks around, twitching his nose as if he was trying to catch a sent. It was strange the way he moved. He was sort of hunched over, his hands merely hovering above the ground. He looked sort of like a wild wolf or fox, hunting their prey. It disturbed me.
Brian's head snaps up and his pupils dilate, his nose flaring, and he dashes off into the bushes, further into the darkness of the woods.

"Wait, Brian! Not so quick!"

I sprint after him, but the sheer speed Brian was going at was too fast for me to follow after. I quickly run put of breath, clutching onto my chest and heaving out breathes of air. I walk in the direction he went, and continue on looking for him. The sky had gotten darker, even though I remember setting off to the woods around five, and it shouldn't have been much more than half an hour since I had been here.
It got to the point where I had to start squinting to see where I was going, having no source of light with me anymore to help.

My clothes get stuck on a branch, and I try to pull it off, but it felt like the tree itself was holding on to the fabric. It eventually let go and I keep going until I hit a clearing.
I'd never gotten this far into the woods before, so I had no idea where I was or where Brian had disappeared off to.
I look ahead to see if Brian was anywhere near, but no one was in sight. I take a few steps forward until I hear a sound.