9/13
Seungcheol was at school as long as the sun was in the sky and laughing. He didn't mean to stay at school so late, but there was a lot of paperwork he had to finish for his mother so that his sister would be able to graduate early. By the time he set out from school, the sun was setting. He didn't live too far from the school, so he was hoping that he could check out the area by the forest and get home before the moon was shining in the sky.
The air was cooler as Seungcheol left the school. He readjusted the straps of his backpack on his shoulders and started into a light jog- he liked to exercise as often as possible to keep up his stamina- and soon enough, he was at the forest. His feet suddenly stopped him from going into the forest; Seungcheol didn't know if it was because he was scared or because he knew it was dangerous in the forest. He took two trembling steps forward, his legs weak with fright. Ultimately, he turned away and continued along the path home. Jeonghan was right: Seungcheol really shouldn't do anything stupid.
The sun wasn't in the sky, and the moon was just starting to rise up. Seungcheol looked at the rising moon as he walked home. The moon was right in front of him as he headed home. Seungcheol kept staring at the moon. The moon was grinning- the moon was always grinning- but the moon's teeth looked a little off. Seungcheol looked at the moon's teeth and wondered what was off. He was so enthralled in the moon's stupid teeth that he didn't realize that he was walking straight into the forest that he wasn't supposed to be going into. Seungcheol didn't even realize that he headed back towards the forest; the moon tricked him.
The thing about the forest was that there was no end to it. There was never another end to the forest- the kids in the area tried to find one once, but they had been walking through the forest for so long that the sun started to set and they needed to get out of the forest before they got lost. The weirdest part of the forest was that they seemed to wander for ages, but they were always able to get out of the forest from the way they came within minutes. Seungcheol was one of the kids to test the forest once, and he, too, never found another end to the forest. It seemed like he never would find another exit to the forest.
Seungcheol stopped looking at the moon and looked in front of him to see that he was in the forest; he was lost in the forest. Quickly, Seungcheol took out the spare flashlight he left in his backpack and shone it around him. He had stopped jogging and turned around to the way he came from. He hadn't wandered too far into the forest- he could see the exit right in front of him. Although he could see the exit, he also seemed to see a dark figure blocking the exit. He walked closer to the exit, and the darkness disappeared. His flashlight probably wasn't bright enough.
As he walked through the forest, Seungcheol shone the flashlight around him and in front of him. He shone the light at the ground so that he wouldn't trip over a fallen tree branch or a stray rock lying on the ground. He should've been shining the light in front of him or behind him because if he did, then he would've scared away the phantoms that surrounded him.
Phantoms have feelings too; they tend to have three main feelings: boredom, fear, and hunger. They decided that they were going to attack only when Seungcheol looked up. It was a game they liked playing often. Seungcheol didn't look up until he neared the entrance of the forest, and he looked up because he saw something peculiar- Seungcheol saw a skull.
He shone the flashlight in front of him. The phantom in front of him disappeared, which meant the phantom behind him got to consume him. The moon bled and laughed as Seungcheol's flashlight fell on top of the skull on the ground and cracked it. The moon bled as the phantoms vanished into the night.
