WENDIGO

Chapter One

It was a normal Minnesota day and I was freezing my ass off. My name is Nichole Ferguson, I'm 18 years old, and me and a few friends were hanging  out in the snow. We were on our Christmas Break, so running around and throwing snowballs at each other was called our fun.

Larry, one of my guy friends with a funny looking red beanie with a white puffball on top, threw a snowball at me and I had to take a dare. In this game, if someone gets hit by a snowball, they had to do a dare of that person's choice. "Alright, Nicki," he smirked, "I dare you..." "Don't have it be too crazy," said my cousin, Adrian. She was always anxious and tried to protect both of us from harm. "He won't, will you, Larry?" asked Jaxon, who was concerned about everyone's safety.
"Ah, don't worry about it. Nicki, I dare you to go into the Snow Woods and stay there for an hour. Take this yarn with you, and tie it to that tree over there." I gasped and furrowed my brow. Snow Woods was known for its horrible myth behind it: the Wendigo. It was said that in 1989, there were two kids that ran into the woods, playing tag. One of the kids saw a large goat-like figure and crept closer to it. The second child heard them screaming, so they went deeper into the woods, only to find their friend's dead body. There was only one thing missing from the body:

The child's skeleton.

I don't even know why we were around the woods in the first place! "Whoa whoa whoa," said my usually lost and confused friend Ray, "Go into the woods? Are you crazy? Dude, don't you remember the myth?!!" "It's okay, guys. It's just an hour. Besides, I got hit by a snowball, so I do the dare. Those are the rules of the game," I reassured him and held his shoulder. I stepped up to Larry and took the yarn, tying one end of it to a nearby tree. I took up the spool of the rest of the yarn and headed into the woods. "Please be careful, Nichole!" Adrian hollered at me. I waved goodbye and walked away.
Luckily, the snow was still falling, and it was quite light out here. You know, just like how it snows and the sky is white. The trees were covered in soft, warm blankets of cold slush. I happened to look upon a cedar tree with beautiful strings of icy droplets. They sounded like wind chimes when I clinked them together. "Amazing," I said in awe; the inner beauty of the Snow Woods was breathtaking. How could I be so wrong? How could I think that something as beautiful and amazing as this be so evil and scary? I still wouldn't come here at night, though.

I looked down at the yarn that I was still holding on to and thought my friends gave this to me so if I got lost, they could follow the string and find me. Quite smart on Larry's part. My watch read 12:40. I only had 20 more minutes out here left, so I decided to go back the way I had come. I turned around and noticed that the string of yarn had been cut. "What?" I could see the remainder of it, so I decided to pick up the left over string and follow it back to the entrance of the woods. When I got to the entrance, however, I didn't see any of my friends or my cousin. The tree with the yarn was still there, but I was alone.
"Adrian?! Larry!!" I screamed, scared out of my skin at what might've happened to them. "Jaxon!! Ray, I'm not playing games anymore!! Where are you guys?!" I ran my fingers through my hair, petrified at the thought of losing my mind over this. Where could they've gone?! It's not like my clock was wrong... was it? I remember leaving for the forest at 12:09. I stayed in there for 40 minutes, right? I hit my watch twice and found out that my clock was wrong- it was actually 2:48 in the afternoon now!

"OH MY GOD!!!" I screamed and threw my watch in the snow. Adrian probably freaked out and left for the police station with the boys! What if she told them I was missing? What if they set out a search warrant for me and arrested the boys?! Did they go in the woods and get lost, or hurt, or worse?! They'd probably never see me again!! I screamed in distress and ran for the tree so I could take the yarn. That was when I heard someone else crying. It was a soft, whimpering sort of cry and I turned around to the woods. "Who's out there?" I shouted. Nothing answered me.
"I'm gonna say it one more time! Who's out there?!!" I repeated with a little bit of aggravation. The whimpering sound grew louder and then I saw a small figure coming towards me. "Larry, if that's you, you're so dead when we get back to town!" The figure came out of the woods and I stared in shock and disbelief.