You jolted awake.
Dull colors of green and brown blurred sloppily together around you as you panted, a shaky fist embedded on your shirt where your heart was beating rapidly. You couldn't remember what your dream was but it must have been on the bad side, rattling you up like that. The wind felt icy as it met your skin, sending chills all over your sore body. Vision blurred, your hands shot up to rub at your eyes, blinking open again at a second attempt to get your bearings.
You were in a forest, you realized, head turning aimlessly from left to right as you took in the clearing you were currently sitting in. The grass felt wet under your palm from where your hands had landed to prop you up. You were surrounded by nothing but trees, standing so close that you couldn't see past them, couldn't make out what was looming behind their trunks. Thick fog was hanging loosely above the ground, painting the open area in a ghostly white where dark green plants and brownish leaves should have been.
The sun had long set, but you could still make out a few shafts of its light through the thicket, casting lanky shadows of trees all over the clearing. Or maybe what you were witnessing wasn't dusk but dawn, you didn't quite know if it was late or early.
Looking away from the scenery and down you saw your roughed up clothes. Your blue jeans were so muddied they appeared more brown than anything else now, countless holes gracing their surface making your skin underneath them just as dirty. Your eyes wandered further down and landed on your shoeless foot. Your sock was still there, albeit soaked, but your footwear was nowhere to be seen. The right shoe was still in place, sitting at the end of your other leg where it belonged. You let out a mildly frustrated sign at the sad discovery. The temperature was so low that you could see your breath.
Shuddering, your eyes traveled up, landing on your horrifying excuse for a shirt. It too entertained various holes, different in size. Some small and barely noticeable, others big, looking like someone had ripped them right open. Mud and grass stains graced the damp fabric now, merging together into an ugly brown with the bloody handprints where the twitching boy had grabbed you.
Wait.
Your eyes flew open wider than they ever had been since you'd woken up. Slowly, a single hand rose, searching shakily and finding the filthy texture of your clothes, the second hand following suit shortly after. You pawed at it helplessly, pulling the fabric closest to your collar down, trying to get a better look at the stains. Your fingers rammed themselves into the once soft textile, nails digging and scratching up the crusty mess consisting of dirt, grass, uncomfortable moisture and Luca - Oh God, they were dead, oh fuck, none of them made it out alright! And you jumped - wait... No, no you fell five flights down because that sick fuck just dropped you and you should've been dead but you weren't. You were here in the fucking middle of god-knows-where, having a mild panic attack over the memories that were rushing back in way to fast, every new thought piercing your brain like a burning needle.
Your breath hitched as you couldn't do anything but stare at your T-Shirt, the world seemingly crumbling down and falling apart around you. Gruesome images of Stacy's slit throat and Jordan's brains on the cold wall behind him accompanied you as you struggled to breathe. There was death, there was hurt, and there was fear. You somehow had to get your head clear. You needed it to stop, you needed to think.
The feelings flooding through your body as if it were a beach didn't help you at all. They wouldn't tell you why your friends had to die in such horrible ways or why you woke up in a forest rather than being smudge on the pavement. No, what you were feeling right now wouldn't reveal the way back home, only hindering you in finding it.
So you had to shove them down, preferably to never dig them back up again. But you knew that was a lost cause, very much like your mere existence right now.
You heaved a shaky sigh, cold hands letting go of your shirt and instead meeting the wet ground again in order to help you stand. Wobbly feet carried you over the grass, through the thick fog and away, into the night. You knew it wasn't early now since the sun had finally vanished during your private little breakdown.
You had chosen a direction at random because what difference did it make really? You didn't know the way out and everything looked the same. This path was just as good as any, you were sure, as hardly visible flora and the only audibly fauna rushed past you. Chirping crickets and the hollow calls of owls reached your ears, a rustling joining the wave of sounds from under your feet as you trampled down dry leaves. Sometimes, the wet ground underneath you would cave in, your sock sinking uncomfortably into the squishy mud and making you cringe. The cold pierced mercilessly into your foot as it dragged clumps of dirt, sticks and leaves with it.
Your hands wavered clumsily in front of you as you stumbled blindly through the dark woods. No star shone at the sky, and even if it had, you wouldn't have been able to see it through the trees.
Your head was clear, the forbidden memories banned somewhere they couldn't reach you, and only a single goal in mind: Survival. Though, there was one feeling that remained stubbornly, and that was spine-chilling fear. Your friends had been murdered, you didn't know were the hell you were, you'd probably never see your family again, and there was a big chance you would just freeze to death tonight. Panic shot through your brain, your heart going mental inside your chest.
And yet, there wasn't anything you could do about it. The only option was to just walk silently forward, nothing more, nothing less.
You were crying by now, desperate tears running down your cheeks, making the icy night air feel even colder. You were so scared here in this godforsaken forest. You didn't even know how you got here in the first place, you had jumped. Jumped off a roof and woken up in the middle of this jungle. You blinked away the tears, fighting a battle against suppressing darkness you knew you couldn't win. Somehow, you had to locate your way around here.
But... where were you? Where was here?!
Your mind spun restlessly around in an endless circle of doom. It was the worst fucking fear you'd ever experienced in your life. You wanted to be home.
But - to your dismay - your pitiful form, only wearing one shoe and the reminders of an once okay outfit, had to make its way slowly through the thicket. Stumbling over rocks and roots, moving toward an unknown direction.
Another shudder was attempting to travel down your spine when your foot caught onto something mid-step and you flew forward. Your tear-stained face was met with a world full of hurt as your jaw hit a particularly hard spot on the ground rather than the squishy mud you had come to associate this place with.
A light tinkle rang out from behind you, its chimes echoing in your ears and out into the forest. As soon as it started, it was gone, its only proof of existence being the anxious feeling it left in your gut. Painfully, your sore body turned around and you squinted against the darkness to make out the unexpected sound's cause.
On the branch of a tree beside you hang a little, golden bell, twinkling like a star. It was attached to a thin string that traveled all the way down to the ground and over to the tree on your other side. You had stumbled over it, triggering the bell's rings, giving out your exact position.
A trap.
Your hopes lit up. Would you finally see some other people? A hunter must know the woods and should be able to lead you out. You weren't going to die after all! It really didn't matter how you got here, the importen thing was it would be over.
It was after several minutes of just lying there and a few miserable attempts to cry for help that you started to worry. This apparent trap was pretty weird. First of all, it only tripped you. Yes, it had hurt but you weren't really enabled to keep moving, like a trap maybe should have done. It only alarmed. Like the hunter still wanted to catch their prey, which was a pretty chilling thought, to be honest. You didn't even think animals could trip over a string like that. They'd be too small or had four legs, it didn't really work. And then that bell. Its sounds surely alarmed every animal near it. A functional trap should be quiet, and not warn other potential targets. It was almost like this thing had been build for humans. Like it was made especially for you.
What hunter hunts at night?
Your eyes wandered away from the string at your feet and over to something much more sinister. There was a dark silhouette standing a few feet away from you, its height broad and shoulders wide. Hands in pockets and hood over head, it stood still as it looked at you. It was too dark to see its face.
You shuddered as a cruel wave of déjà vu overran you like a train. It was the same shadow from Jordan's yard.
Your heart fluttered as the man stood in front of you, exactly like he had this fateful night. His dark outline heaved with every calm breath. He was barely visible, but also juuust visible enough to make you figuratively piss your pants, your eyes widening in silent terror.
You bolted. Clumsily scrambling to your feet, not without slipping in the mud, you turned around and made a run for it. You couldn't see where you were going but the certainty that you were getting away from the murderer was enough to keep you on the move.
You ran, and ran, and ran - luckily for you past tree trunks, not into them, and through the forest's thick undergrowth that somehow seemed to be scheming on how to slow you down the best. You couldn't hear the man's footsteps behind you, so maybe you were losing him.
There was the slightest incarnation of hope starting to emerge into existence when you saw it.
In the sky, big, grey clouds gave way to let the moon send its silvery light through the impassible overgrowth that were the branches and leaves above you. It was a foul attempt, you knew. These woods wouldn't allow to let something as friendly and comforting as real light wander into it. And yet, one ray fought its way through the natural blanket of trees, showing you a bit of the ground to help calculate your steps and illuminating the black void around you. Still continuing to run, you turned your head to the right, following the gleam of moonlight as if it were a lifeline, and met something terrible.
There, maybe four feet away from you, a brilliant white cut through the dark-greenish color palette the forest had to offer. The hard contrast was only interrupted at some spots, where a pair of black holes and feminin lips stopped the light's bright reflection back at you. It felt like the world was running in slow motion as Masky's mask locked eyes with your own for just one terrifying second. Doubling your speed, you turned your panicking head back to the slowly fading path. It was progressively falling victim to the dark again, the moon's obliging appearance being just a short-lived one.
With the second psychopath's attempts to catch you being accompanied by the telltale signs of rustling leaves and the breaking of twigs, you had a vague feeling of how close on your heels he was and kept on strong. All while navigating through trees and branched trails, you also scanned the surrounding area as attentive as humanly possibly.
The third one had to be here, too.
Your alarm bells rang ceaselessly as you scuttled through the woods, immersed in a race of live and death. There were only three, presumably four participants, and the majority of them really wanted the latter to happen to you.
As if on cue a faint swoosh sounded out behind you. It painted the picture of something flying really fast through the air in your head. Of something rotating endlessly, a deadly blade on one end and dull wood on the other. It also very much gave you the impression that it was aiming for your brain specifically, so you dug your heels into the mud and made a sharp turn.
"Aagh!" a squeaky yelp was pressed out of your lungs when the hatchet caught a bunch of your locks and buried them with it into the tree trunk next to you. For a moment your scalp felt like it was thrown into a volcano as the weapon pulled you back by your stuck hair. It wasn't like in the average action movie at all, where the blade would cut clean through the strands, freeing you in an instance and giving you a cool haircut in the process.
No, this here was real life. And real life could be a real bitch.
So, your hair was in fact not cut lose but held back and, as an inevitable result, painfully glued to the tree. Your hands grabbed desperately around the hatchet's handle, but it didn't even wobble at your huffing attempts to pull it out, embedded too deep into the wood for your lousy strength. Panic started to rise, your head frantically whipping around, searching for help. A few feet away, you recognized the gloomy outlines of a boy stepping closer. Rolling his left shoulder, his head jerking down, the loud echo of a crack spread throughout the woods.
You swallowed.
This just couldn't be! How were you in the exact same position you remembered from the last time you were conscious? One of them shooing you into the right direction, the other making sure you kept running, and the last one being ready to end it all. This just had to be some kind of unfunny time loop and a big 'Fuck you' from the universe.
Horror struck through your hopeless, handle-tugging form as the second hatchet was freed from your attacker's belt, now held firmly in one hand instead of dangling lazily at his hip. Frozen in terror, your teary eyes held contact with his goggles a while longer, it was mesmerising to see death approaching so slowly but surely. But the pitiful looks you send him did nothing to change his heart, his intentions still set on gutting you like a fish.
At your apparent lack of an appropriate response to the killer's obvious deathliness, he stopped his approach. Five steps before you he came to a halt, hatchet sinking a little in his hand. In a slow, fluent motion his head cocked to the side, an eyebrow raising under his brown mess of hair. He was analyzing, questioning you.
Why didn't you thrash and scream? What good could it possibly do to just stand there, waiting for death to come? Why the fuck didn't you fight? You could read the questions right off of his disguised face.
Admittedly, right now it would probably be a very good thing to be the center of attention, what with needing help and all. But how likely would someone miraculously flying in and sparing you the sweet salvation of dying a second time be anyway? Either way, you weren't about to scream uselessly in your murderer's face while he was at it.
'Hypocrite, you did when Jordan died.' Shut up, you didn't need any negative self-criticism right now. Not in this situation. When it was almost over…
But the miraculous hero flying in and saving you came at last because it was the scratchy cry of a crow that snapped you back to reality, your survival instincts kicking in once more. Your hands let go of the hatchet and instead wrapped around a good chunk of your hair, pulling at it with some hearty tugs. Little by little, the strands held between blade and wood teared away, slowly freeing you from your unfortunate trap. It hurt and you cringed as you felt your hair break off. The split ends coming out of this would be insane.
You pulled and tugged and ripped, inhibitions forgotten and gone with the wind, all while being ogled by an unstable boy with a hatchet. And as the last strands of hair gave way, and you could practically taste the tantalizing flavour of freedom, you executed one more strong-willed tug. And you were-
WHOOSH CRUNCH
… No.
It wasn't your head.
It was the tree. The wood in-between your now wide spread legs, to be more precise. The hatchet Toby had thrown right as you freed yourself really left you standing there like a deranged gymnast doing the splits with her ruined hair in her hands. He had aimed the weapon down deliberately, the prick. You knew that because there was nowhere in hell that he'd miss the squishy parts of your brain by that much without intending to. Oh no, if this guy's blade almost makes aquaintances with your crotch, it was damn well meant that way.
You also knew that because of the stupid grin plastered on his face.
In the moon's faint glow three other figures appeared behind Toby, stepping closer through the fog, and coming to a halt at his side. You stared at the three masked men. There was something eerie about the way you were watching each other. Even though you were free now, you had nowhere to run, not really. And they knew that, too. A silent, mutual agreement, so very different from the showdown on the rooftop.
Your eyes blinked hard. These thoughts were dangerous and you didn't know where they came from. How were you hoping to get out of here if you weren't even willing to try?
Your gaze wavered uncertainly over the three shadows before you began to navigate your way out between the hatchets, one of which still sat awkwardly between your legs. But by putting in some well-meant effort, and not without your foot getting caught on the handle and almost bringing you to fall again as you attempted to heave your unathletic leg over it, you finally staggered away from the tree.
And then Toby, Masky and what's-his-name did something amazing. They let you turn your back on them and stumble on, back into the thicket.
It was all just a game to them.
Well, you could play, too. You didn't know the rules, or how you signed up for such a fucked up game of tag, or even how they could find amusement in this deathly version of it. But you knew one thing. You had to turn the tables.
Now you were it.
So you punched your way forward through the night, past trees and wet plants, not caring about being quiet anymore. Fuck it. They knew you were here anyway, and they let you go. They wanted to chase you? They could. They could do it again and again until the end of the night, and the end of tomorrow's night, and the night after that.
Right now, a weird kind of apathy filled your whole body. Gone were the doubts, the fear; the guilt of your friends' deaths nothing but a faint ghost of the past.
'Of the Past? They've been gone for a day! Their ghosts haven't even left their bodies yet!' The still logical-thinking part of your brain told you, but you couldn't hear it. You were too far gone in this adrenaline based mentality building up your self-worth like a skyscraper. So you adjusted your pants, squared your shoulders, and continued on this shit-hike to strike down some murderers.
And boy did you strut. You marched through the pitch black forest with all the swagger and dignity a traumatized, half blind girl with only one shoe could radiate.
You didn't quite know where these odd thought patterns came from. But since they all stood in front of you by that tree, your head didn't feel quite like yours anymore. It was almost funny. When other people lose it, they become insane or psychopaths. You just got an inappropriately daring and unwelcoming boost of confidence. Typical.
After some more roaming around, both literally in the woods and figuratively in your thoughts, you perceived the soft rushing of a tiny river. You felt around and knelt at its edge to dump ice cold water in your face, hoping it would clear your head. But all it did was make you shiver.
As you stood again, the freezing liquid dripping down your chin and onto your shirt, you heard a noise, not unlike a ringing. But it wasn't the light tinkle of the golden bell that started this hunt. It was something much more sinister.
This ringing in your ears was nothing like you've ever heard before. High pitched, but low. Growing loud, but fading. Consistent, but unsteady. It was indescribable. And it burned your eyes and ears and mouth, and for a moment all you could see was static. And all you could hear were bloody howls of Luca and Jordan, and the empty eyes of Stacy stared right back at you.
You shoved her away and fell, but you never touched the ground. You were lying and the forest was gone, there was only white noise. The world was only sound. And then you could hear the static and see the ringing and your body felt like it was burning in ice and freezing in fire.
And through it all, you could see them. As reality ripped and tumbled down around you and out of your grasp, they still wouldn't leave you alone. Watching you writhe and suffer on the ground, your hands in the mud and your body a spasming mess, you could feel their gazes on you.
But there was also something else, something… more.
A fourth presence, so cold and dismaying you could hardly fathom it. You felt it look at your cowering form. You felt it judge you. It considered something. It considered you. It spoke in a foreign language, and yet its words in your head you understood.
" "
And then suddenly, everything stopped. You blinked and sat up, taking a deep breath. It was all gone. The ringing, the screams, the ominous creature, the static, the three-
Shit.
They were still there. The man in the white mask that would haunt your dreams. The calculating giant with his gun. The twitching boy, as unpredictable as deadly. You looked up at them and felt your hopelessness return to you, all your pain and grief and sorrow.
The feelings you were experiencing right now were very difficult to put into written words. So I, the author - The pleasure's all mine - will instead be using appropriate emoticons to better describe the agitated mindset of a petrified and hormone-riddled teenager facing her hunters for the third time that night, after having just gone through a manic episode created by a mythical entity.
The world of betray and confusion you had found yourself in, could only be described as such:
ಥ_ಥ
The water on your face still hadn't dried, but as the salty drops ran into your mouth, you recognized them for what they were. The tears wouldn't stop tonight. Not now, not ever. Too much had happened and you were tired.
The three killers looked at each other, and with a slight nod, seemed to come to an agreement. Together they moved toward your shaking form still sitting on the dirty ground. Inches from you they stopped, and all you could do was to defiantly stare back.
A new kind of fear spread through your body as the man in the frowning ski mask slowly retrieved his gun, his two companions waiting patiently. The kind of fear you could only experience while staring death in the eye. You hated how it started to feel familiar at this point.
This gun reminded you of so much pain. Stacy, Luca, Jordan… They all died so pointlessly gruesome. It just wasn't fair. And only they were at fault.
No, these beings before you weren't men. They were monsters.
And as the gun was held up high in the air, metal shining silvery in the moonlight, and you realized that this wasn't a killing blow, that they still did not want you dead, you gave up. Just like on the rooftop, they wouldn't allow you to die. Not when they weren't done playing.
You didn't know what would come next, but one thing was certain: You would cheat death again.
There was only a single last thought rushing through your mind as the gun's handle came crashing down to knock you out.
'Why me?'