IT LIVES IN THE WOODS
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HEADS UP: This story was originally written in 1st person narrative. It was my first time writing in this style and it's really difficult to do. Stories like The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent, Percy Jackson, are all in 1st person narrative, but they knew how to do it right, lol. So I changed it to 3rd person to suit people's tastes.
Is it better? Leave a comment if you want me to continue or I can switch it back to first person.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the "Choices" games by Pixelberry or "The Labyrinth" by Jim Henson.
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Chapter 1 – Wake Up Call
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"Bzzzz!"
Sarah is brought to awareness, drifting between that space of conscious and unconscious. What has brought me awake? She thinks, laying there. Listening. The option is still available to her of sinking back into the warm oblivion of colorful dreams or waking up to the reality of her room. She waits.
"Bzzzz!"
The vibrating buzz decides for her and her green eyes open into slits. A pale light illuminates her dark room, casting shadows on her belongings and posters. It's coming from her bedside table. She turns her head with bleary eyes to stare at the glowing notification screen from her cellphone.
Moaning in annoyance, she rolls to her side, "Uuggh, who's texting me at—", she looks at the time on the screen, blinking away the pain, "- 3 in the morning?" Another groan. Whoever it is, they better have a good excuse or else….
The screen opens and the sudden, harsh light burns her retinas. But she wakes up a little more fully, however, as she read the words on the screen. Her eyebrows scrunch in confusion.
Dan 3:06am
Hey are you there? It's Dan
I messed up. I'm so sorry….
Dan Pierce?! She forces herself to concentrate and send back a text, trying to punch in the correct buttons so it doesn't come out a sleepy mess.
Sarah 3:07am
Dan? It's…been a while. Are you ok? What happened?
She rubs her eyes worriedly in an effort to focus while she waits. Why is he texting me? Why now? His next words feel like a bucket of ice water being dumped over her head. She freezes, staring at the screen and disbelievingly texts back.
Dan 3:08am
I went back into the woods.
I had to be sure. I had to prove to myself that it was all in my head….
But it isn't, Sarah, it's all real. HE'S real.
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Sarah 3:09am
Dan…are you drunk or something?
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Dan 3:09am
I heard him whispering…just like when we were kids.
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Sarah 3:09am
No! Stop it Dan! We made all that stuff up.
The Goblin King was just a dumb kid's game that got out of control.
He doesn't exist. He never did.
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Dan 3:10am
He does.
He's here with me now.
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Sarah 3:10am
Wait...where are you?!
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Dan 3:11am
I can hear him in the trees….
I can hear him whispering
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A harsh TAP! TAP! TAP! on the window's glass sends Sarah jumping a foot into the air as her heart gives a painful squeeze of adrenaline. She can't help the gasp-scream that escapes her throat, "G-aAhhh!"
A dark shape looms outside the window. She fumbles for the lights, her heart hammering inside her chest. She doesn't know what to think except for whether to 'flee' or 'freeze'. 'Fight' doesn't even register in her brain in this moment of panic. What makes it worse is that her dad, Karen, and Toby are out of town. Out of the country, even. She's all alone...
The light finally floods the bedroom, shining brightly and chasing all the odd shadows away. It streams through the window to reveal….
"Dan?! What are you doing here?!" She exclaims, relieved.
"Sarah, can I come in?" He asks.
"Uhhhhh…" Relief changes to confusion. She stares at him, having a strange disconnect in her brain. It's been so long… "Yeah, I guess so…hold on.", She moves to the window and pushes up until it slides open enough for Dan to climb inside. Once he's inside, she just stares at him some more, her brain moving sluggishly at 3AM.
Dan is currently the quarterback on the football team, and it suits him. He looks good, now that he's all grown. Sarah used to have a teensy innocent crush on him but it had never sprouted into anything. They had both slowly but surely gone separate ways. Until now?
"You've got some explaining to do, though." She puts her hands on her baggy, pajama-clad hips in a 'Sarah's-trying-to-take-control-of-the-situation' pose. The window lets in a slightly cold breeze which goes right through her tank top, making her cold. "First off…How did you get up to my window? Because we are definitely on the second floor right now…"
"I climbed." Dan says.
"Uh…. okay, Spiderman." She blinks, eyes wide. "You sounded really freaked out in your texts..."
He looks like he always does. Gym shorts. Blue hoodie. Hair that curls at the ends from wearing sport caps too often. And yet, something's off...
"It's nothing. I'm fine." Dan says. "Come on, we need to go get the others."
"What others?" Am I dreaming? This feels like a dream.
"Our friends! Jane, Emily, Taylor, Luke, MJ, and Sean. I've got something to show you. But we've got to bring everyone. The whole gang!" Dan says, his face lights up with excitement.
Oh, I get it! This must be one of those 'we're going on a quest' kind of dreams. Then his words sink in and her stomach plummets. Wait. The…the gang?
"Dan…." Sarah bites her lip as memories begin to bubble up. Memories that Sarah Williams does NOT want to remember. Let them stay in the deep abyss of the mind until they've moldered away to dust.
"I've barely spoken to anyone in…the gang…since we were kids! No one's kept in contact. Not since what happened to Jessica-"
Dan's face becomes angry, "But they have to come, Sarah! EVERYONE has to be there. That's the rule."
The hair on the back of Sarah's neck stands up. But before she can answer him; her phone buzzes again, vibrating against the fluffy carpet. She didn't realize she had dropped it when Dan had scared the crap out of her. Sighing, she walks over and picks it up.
"Dan, I want to help you. But you're honestly freaking me out right now." She rubs a hand over her eyes and forehead. Is it too much to get some sleep around here? "Look, we've got our first day of school in, like, 6 hours. We'll talk then, okay? Sound good?"
The phone buzzes in her hand again, sending another notification. She glances down at the sender, and feels a cold jolt in her stomach…
Dan 3:20am
Are you still there? I think I'm lost
Dan 3:21am
Sarah? My battery's almost dead, pls help me!
"Wait…." The world starts to tilt scarily. Like, Twilight Zone scary. A shaky breath escapes her.
"We have to go back to the woods, Sarah." he speaks.
The lights in the bedroom begin to flicker rapidly as a chill wind sweeps through the open window, causing Sarah to give a shiver. The lights stop flickering and just completely die. The whole room is suddenly bathed in a suffocating darkness so thick you could cut it with a knife. Only the cellphone offers any semblance of light.
Hands trembling, she looks up from her phone to the person standing before her. "…D-Dan?"
A smile spreads across his shadowed face...stretching wider than it should. "Sarah?" he mocks.
She starts to back away…but Dan's hand shoots out and clamps around her wrist. She panics, yanking her arm, but he grips painfully tighter with an almost inhuman strength.
"Hey!" She cries.
Without thinking too much about consequences, she slams her fist against Dan's jaw and pain shoots up her arm. He barely even flinches... but she definitely felt it. "Ow! What the—"
Dan throws her to the floor with a painful THUD, pinning her back against the carpet.
"Don't make my job harder than it needs to be Sarah! You can't escape this. You can't escape Him."
Him? She stops struggling for a moment and stares up at Dan, her eyes grow wide as what he's saying finally registers. All she can do is whisper in horror, "No…Dan! Don't…"
"We all have to go back. Don't you remember?"
"Get off me!" She bucks and struggles underneath him. He leans in closer, smiling…
"Everyone plays together, Sarah."
In what seems to be her last defense, she seizes an iron locket dangling around her neck. Lifting it up, she slams it onto his face.
"ARRRRGGGGHH!" He shrieks in pain. The sizzling sound of burning skin confirms what she already knows by now: This isn't Dan. Dan is out there somewhere, probably in as much trouble as she is.
"You're going to pay for that you little b****!"
The creature's glamour melts away to show the inhumanly beautiful face of a man with long brown hair. Sarah breathes an internal sigh of relief that he's not the blonde creature that she knew well. A nasty burn, black and smoking, is on his cheek right where her iron locket chemically reacted.
In one quick movement, he grabs the locket and tugs, snapping it off Sarah's neck. She reflexively grabs his clenched hand so he can't let go of the toxic metal. He screams again with rage and pain as his hand begins to smoke, but he uses the other hand to grip her throat. He clenches.
"Ahhgg-" Her scream ends in a choke.
"Stop. Fighting. Me!" He hisses, beyond angry.
Sarah's focus turns from burning him to protecting her voice box that he's crushing. Both her hands come up to pry his hand away. Unfortunately, quick as a whip, he throws the iron necklace far away from either of them and brings his other hand to join the first one. The creature's hands tighten around her throat….and her vision begins to blur. Shadows seem to wreath and bleed in the dark room. She can almost swear she hears the hushed, worried whispers of Goblins.
It's now or never.
"You have n-no... power…over me" She chokes out.
She has no more breath. She simply sinks, paralyzed by terror, into a cold black nothingness while an inhuman sound of rage is the last thing she hears.
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I didn't know what to put for the "theme" of this story. It's originally HORROR, but I'm really not into scary movies, as I'm more of a comedy writer. Basically, this story is a little bit of Horror, a LOT of Suspense, a spot of dark Romance, and a whole butt load of Friendship. So I put in the two most common themes: Suspense and Friendship. Cause, you know, Friendship always helps you defeat the villain. My Little Pony taught me that. Lol.
I got this idea after playing a horror game in "Choices" by Pixelberry and thought, what if I took the story and made the monster "Jareth" and the main character "Sarah"?! And thus, "It Lives In The Woods" was born!
I really want this to feel like a book, rather than a fanfiction if that makes sense. This is a SLOW BURN between Jareth and Sarah, which is the best in my opinion. You gotta let the tension build in order to release the spring