Chapter 1: The Beginning.
"I want you to start over from the beginning." The officer said to me.
By now, I'm annoyed. I just got done telling the reason I am in the hospital. The only reason why he wanted me to stay it again: so he could record it on tape. I know because I saw him pull out a tape recorder out of his pocket. He wasn't dressed like other cops. He wore a black shirt, blue jeans, and a Cardinals cap on his head. He didn't wear his badge like other cops. Instead, he kept it in his pocket like some sort of undercover agent. He put the tape recorder on the counter next to my bed.
"O-Okay. But just...one more time, p-please." I stuttered.
"Of course."
"Okay. It all started when I got home."
...
I sat down on my couch in my living room after a long day of school. Relaxing my tense muscles. Today was nothing but tests and last-minute studies. There was also teachers bitching about the fact that students didn't study enough for the tests that we did. I was really tired and just wanted to sleep. So I spread myself out on the couch. I closed my eyes and allowed sleep to overwhelm me. But something kept me from sleeping. I felt a cold breeze wash over my body. Strange. The AC isn't even on. I felt something land on my face. I opened my eyes and saw a leaf. The color of Autumn. Wait! A leaf? I took the leaf off of my face and saw that I was under a tree.
I'm outside? But I was still on my couch. "How'd I end up here?" I asked out loud to nobody.
"Conner?" A familiar voice said my name. I fell off the couch from the unexpected voice. "Didn't mean to scare ya."
I stood up and searched for the voice until I set my eyes on a boy the same age as me. "John?" I knew who it was. I wasn't sure until I saw his face. "How the hell did you get here?" I asked.
"I was hoping you'd know. But apparently you don't know either."
I started to look around my surroundings and noticed that we were in a forest. When I looked down, I noticed I was standing on a dirt trail. It led only two ways. Forward or backward. I realized something else. "Where the fuck did my couch go?"
John started to look around his surroundings. He looked at me and we made eye contact. "I-I don't know."
"What in god's name is going on?" I asked aloud.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
There was a sudden scream. But it wasn't your ordinary scream. It was a scream that said "Bloody Mary" in it. I recognized that scream. It was Mark. But why was he screaming? My answers can be answered by one thing: explore. I started to walk down one end of the dirt trail. I walked past John and he grabbed me by my arm. I stopped in my tracks and turned to look at him. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"Where do you think you're going? We don't know what's out there, nor do we know if it's even Mark screaming."
"You know damn well that's Mark and he's in trouble. He needs our help from whatever it is he's gotten himself into." I released my arm from his grip and turned to walk away. "Now, you're either going to come with me or stay here." I slowly started to walk forward.
I heard him sigh and footsteps closing in on me. "Wait up!" He yelled.
I stopped long enough for him to catch up with me and we continued our progress to wherever we were going. I didn't know what to expect, nor did I know what we are about to run into, all I knew was: Mark is in trouble and we gotta help him out with whatever he gotten himself into. "Any clue is to what we're getting into?"
"No fucking idea. You?"
"I'm just about as clueless as a newborn baby."
...
After what felt like hours, we started to smell some sort of awful smell. The air reeked of burning flesh. I looked at the dirt path and stopped dead in my tracks. I saw a line of blood across the dirt path. I followed the the line all the way to the right side of the path and noticed that it wasn't a line of blood: it was a trail of blood. John didn't notice that I stopped until I said his name. "John stop." I said.
He stopped and looked at me. I pointed at the trail of blood and his gaze shifted to the unusual sight. "Maybe it was animals?"
"Was that a question or a statement?" I asked.
"I don't know." He replied. His gaze started to follow the direction that the trail led to. "There's only one way to find out." He started to follow the trail and I was a couple steps behind him.
The stench kept on getting stronger and I could barely refrain myself from puking. Eventually, I saw fire. But the fire was acting strange. It wasn't spreading. It was staying in one area. It seemed like it was surrounding something. We got closer until we started to realize where the stench was coming from. Mark was inside the fire. I couldn't stand it any longer. I threw up right on the fire. The fire rose to higher levels for a moment and quickly started to calm down. I looked at Mark and noticed that he looked like he was standing out. But his arms were stretched out like as if he just got out of bed and needed to wake himself up by stretching. There were chains around both of his wrists and the chains were hooked onto tree branches above him. There were big cuts that started from his wrists all the way down to his armpits. His eyes were wide open and blood was dripping out of his nose. He had no shirt on. But he was wearing blue jeans. There was a black circle with a big X on his chest. It didn't look like a cut mark, no, it looked like it was some sort of black tarp.
I was so disgusted at the sight of my friend who obviously died of a gruesome and painful death. But I couldn't look away. Something about the sight kept me staring. Maybe it was because of the cuts on his arms, no, it was because of the mark on his chest. I know that I've never seen that mark before but I felt a strange sense of dejavu. John cupped his hand onto my left shoulder. "Conner, are you okay?" He asked me.
"Yeah." I whispered. I turned around so I could stop looking at that damn mark. "Yeah, I'm okay." I said in my normal tone of voice. "Let's just get back to the trail and try to get out of this forest." I suggested.
John nodded. "That sounds good." He looked back at Mark. "Anywhere but here."
I looked on the ground and noticed something odd. "That's strange." I said.
John looked at me with a concerned look on his face. "What's strange?"
I looked up at John. "The bloods gone." I said.
John looked down at the ground. "What the hell?" His breathing started to get heavy. "But how do we find our way back to the trail?" He started to panic, I could tell. "How, how, how, how?"
I placed my hands on his shoulders. "John, calm down." He looked at me. Eyes wide, and fear mixed with worry spread across his face. "Take deep breaths." I inhaled the awful air through my nose and he did the same. I slowly exhaled it out of my mouth and John did the same. "Let's just go in one direction and I'm sure that we'll find the trail eventually." I said calmly. "Okay?"
He took another breath and blew it all out of his mouth. "Okay, yeah, okay." He slowly nodded his head. "That sounds like a good idea."
I looked to my left and back at John. "Let's go this way." I took my hands off of his shoulders and started to walk aimlessly into the forest. John followed me very closely. I noticed something strange about this forest. There were no animals. A forest without animals, strange. All of a sudden, I heard the sound of wings flapping. I looked up and saw multiple crows flying over us. John moved closer to me like a frightened child hiding behind his mother. I didn't mind John getting closer to me-in fact-I actually felt more comfortable with someone close to me at the time being. I couldn't help but get this strange feeling that we were being watched. But I didn't know by who or what we were being watched by. But what I do know is: we'll find out sooner or later.