Suicide Forest

Chapter 7: Fallen

I wake in complete and utter darkness as I groan. I attempt to get up but my legs fail me and I fall back down.

Looking up, I see the glimmering light of the moon and just lay on the ground in a daze, staring up at it. I even try reaching up to the moon as if I could pull myself up, but my arm flops down.

Sighing, I use what little energy I have left to get up. Dusting myself off, I look around for any possible ways to help me get out of this hell hole.

The full moon was shinning bright tonight and luckily it gave off just enough light so I could see my surroundings and attempt to make a plan to get out of here.

"You can't do it, you're too weak," a voice taunted in my head and I shook off the pessimistic thoughts, knowing now definitely wasn't the time to be scared.

I saw roots sticking out of the soil and lightly tugged on them, causing a lot of the soil to fall which indicated that it wasn't reliable.

Glancing at the soil around me once more, I tried to think outside of the box to find an effective way to escape.

Panic began to blossom deep within me once I realized getting out of here was nearly impossible.

It felt as if the walls were closing in on me and suddenly dirt started falling on top of me. Looking up, I was met with the unruly sight of an old woman humming while shoveling dirt into the hole.

"Stop! Please! Someone's down here!" I screamed at the old woman, but she didn't seem to hear me as she continued humming 'Go tell Aunt Rhody'.

I tried jumping up and down while waving my arms to get her attention, but she continued humming as more and more dirt was thrown onto me.

I looked up to yell for the woman to stop once more, but as I looked up, dirt was thrown directly onto me and I coughed as I tried wiping the dirt out of my eyes.

"Go tell Aunt Rhody! Go tell Aunt Rhody!" The old woman started to sing louder and louder, causing me to scream and cover my ears, trying to block out reality and also her dreadful singing.

My heart thumped in my chest as fast as a cheetah running and I felt at any moment, I was going to either pass out or lose my mind completely.

I blinked and suddenly darkness surrounded me, causing me to panic and soon I realized it was because I had my eyes closed. As soon as I opened my eyes, the familiar forest trees surrounded me and as I looked down, I realized I wasn't in the hole anymore and there wasn't even any hole in the ground to begin with.

An uneasy feeling ran through me as I realized I may have just hallucinating something that felt so real, but ended up just being all in my mind, a mere illusion to throw me off, but why?

I pulled out my phone and unlocked it to use the compass app that came with my phone and strangely the compass wasn't working at all. The soil of the forest must be rich with magnetic iron, which if I remember correctly, does interfere with GPS systems, and even compasses.

I looked around to get a sense of which direction to continue walking in and a strange feeling in my gut was telling me to go North-east. As soon as I walked in that direction, it felt as if something was drawing me closer to finding something.

What could it be though? A way out of here, someone to help me or was it just my mind playing tricks on me again?

As I continued walking, I noticed a figure climbing onto a tree and blinked to make sure this was reality and not just another illusion. Sure enough, as I approached the figure and I could make out more clear features, I realized it was an actual person.

"You're not alone," my mind announced and I couldn't help but to let out a breath I didn't know I was even holding.

Now only a few feet away from the person, I could instantly tell it was a guy from behind judging by his saggy blue jeans, clearly a size too big and his Calvin Klein boxers that was showing.

He had a plain white shirt on and from what it looked like from the back, a James Dean hair cut and a pocket knife in his mouth as he climbed up the tree with little effort.

I stood there in a daze, just watching him as he finally reached the top of the tree and held onto a branch with one hand as he took the pocket knife out of his mouth with his other hand and used it to cut the rope off what looked like a corpse rotting that was hanging from the tree.

I felt vomit rising in my throat as I closed my mouth and covered it to prevent from the bile rising up.

The corpse dropped down to the ground and the guy let go of the tree, causing me to let out a small squeal before he landed perfectly on both feet. Surprisingly, he didn't notice me as I quickly hid behind a tree and peeked out from behind it, being cautious since I didn't know who this guy was or what his intentions were with that dead body. For all I know, he could've been the one to kill that person and hang the body on the tree.

I watched as he crouched down beside the corpse and did the procedure people do to you at airports where you use both hands to feel around a person's body. He stopped when he felt something in the person's pocket as he pulled out what looked like a wallet.

He opened the wallet and searched through it to find whatever he was looking for, subsequently finding a 20 dollar bill. He practically ripped it out of the wallet and held the 20 dollar bill towards his nose and sniffed it, giving me instant relief that I wasn't the only American out here. He let out a loud moan as he pressed the money to his noticeably pink lips.

I took this as my cue to try and slowly run away as I backed up and stepped on a twig that made a loud crunching noise, causing the guy to quickly stand up and pull out his pocket knife.

"Idiot!" I cursed myself in my head and broke into a sprint as I ran with whatever energy I had left. Unfortunately it wasn't enough as my legs began to get tired and curiosity got the best of me as I looked behind me and saw the guy running like a full on athlete, causing me to groan, knowing he was going to catch up with me eventually.

I turned back around and tried speeding up, but my legs were starting to give out as someone appeared beside me.

"Mom?" I asked, not really believing it was really her since I haven't seen her in years.

"Keep going sweetie," my mom encouraged me and I nodded before turning my head back to look at the path in front of me before my head banged hard against something and from there everything went black.