Mysterious Forest

There sat a girl, in her room all alone. The room was silent but the rest of the house was loud. The girl wasn’t content in the slightest with her silence. She liked being a part of fun, loud conversations, especially with her family. However, the loudness she heard was not like the rest. In fact, it could be classified as bicke​​ring, and the girl certainly did not like bickering. She could hear bits and pieces from her room. The only words she heard repeated were money and debt. From that, she deduced that this argument was about the family's increasing financial struggle. This wasn’t the first time this conversation had arisen, and every time it did, it was like a bombshell. She and her parents could be having a perfectly happy conversation and then something would come up regarding funding and then the conversation would take a turn for the worse. When the girl got a chance she would exit the conversation and retreat to her room. This was one of those times. The girl wished her parents wouldn’t argue about those things. She was perfectly content with her life and she thought her parents, for the most part, were as well. Nothing seemed enough for them though. They were always sorry they couldn’t do this or that. The little girl did not care for this way of thinking.

It had been almost half an hour and the shouting had no indication of stopping. The little girl didn’t know what to do. Her room was plain and grey with nothing to look at. She thought about playing, but she only had one toy. It was a doll made by the loving hands of her mother, when the little girl was just a baby. However, the little girl was still young and so her attention span was short and she got tired of the doll quickly. So she sat on her bed and waited for something to happen. She didn’t care what it was, as long as it disturbed her from the silence. To her shock, in that very moment a glimmer of light caught her eye. She turned towards where it came from and found herself looking out her window. She had to squint her eyes, it was so bright. When her eyes finally adjusted, she saw the most immaculate thing. Off on the horizon, lay a forest. It wasn’t a dark depressing forest with dark, foreboding green pine trees, but a happy forest with an array of sunny greens. She ran up to her window to get a closer look. She couldn’t believe her eyes; the forest hadn’t been there before. It was as if it had appeared from thin air. Her marvel was interrupted by a fit of screaming coming from her father. She scoffed at the sound of his voice and decided that she would go to this forest. She tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t really budge. It made sense, considering that the window had never been opened. The girl shook the window loose and managed to make it go up. She was worried about the noise it would make; however, to her surprise the window was silent. She climbed out the small window and landed with two feet softly on the grass below. She looked up at the forest and marched forth.

She walked and walked, but the forest never seemed to get any closer. Eventually she could see it getting bigger and clearer. She was very shocked. The Forest was beautiful. The trees were a beautiful light green and tinted yellow by the sun. The grass was soft and moist. Most importantly, the air was different, bearing a faint smell of fresh flowers. This was new to the girl, for the only smell she really knew was the smell of a rotting wood that was used to build her house. The girl was enchanted by these things as she walked into the forest. She traveled some way into it before stopping in front of a glistening pond. The pond was in front of a rock with a slit from which water poured, making a miniature waterfall. The water was as blue as the ocean and as clear as a window. When she went up for a closer look she saw elegant fish of warm bright colors swimming about. The water felt so cool on her sun kissed face, she didn’t ever want to take it out. She was able to open her eyes slightly and see the exciting fish swim about. Alas, her breath ran out so she had to return to the surface. Unfortunately, upon lifting her face out of the water her foot slid back and she lost her balance. She tried to regain her standing but to no avail and tumbled into the water.. The water was deeper than expected and the little girl didn't have the faintest clue on how to swim. She struggled some, but nothing seemed to keep her head above water. After a minute she was giving into the suppression of the water. She wanted to cry. She just kept thinking how unfortunate it was to die in such a beautiful place. She didn’t even get to climb the trees. She was about to completely give out, but all of a sudden she felt something tug sharply on the back collar of her shirt. She was yanked violently from the water onto the ground, almost as if the water had spit her out. When she regained her wits she looked around curiously for the culprit. There was a big deer with antlers like branches of a tree standing over her. She figured that it was this creature that had saved her. She got up swiftly and went for a hug. Before she could stop herself, he realized the deer would probably run off because of the sudden movement. However, it stayed and let the little girl hold onto it. She began to caress it as well, which seemed to please the deer greatly.

The girl spent the next couple of hours enjoying the pleasure of the forest with the great deer. They sang with the birds, played with the fish and even created a whistle from a patch of grass. Even though the deer was not like a human friend and couldn’t do most of the things the girl did, she greatly enjoyed the company. It was like having a friend who was just there to listen. No talking back, no arguing. She wished that she could take the deer home, so that they could hang out together all the time, but she understood the limits of their friendship.

The little girl and the deer grew tired and decided to take a rest near the pond. The girl was about to close her eyes and fall asleep to the calming noise of the waterfall, when she heard something. She opened her eyes and looked at the stag. It’s ears were peaked and it was on alert. The girl got up and listened closer. The sound came again. It was the cry of a desperate man. He kept repeating the same thing over and over again, each time with more desperation. The girl knew immediately that it was her father calling her name. She looked back at the deer with reluctant eyes. The deer looked back at her with understanding eyes almost as if it knew what had to happen. The little girl turned forward and started running, struggling to push back tears. When she had made it some ways away she looked back to see if her friend was still there, but her friend had vanished. She turned back slowly and began to run again.

Eventually the girl reached the opening of the forest to find the back of her tired, slender father. She called out his name and he whirled around as fast as lighting. The desperation and the sorrow instantly vanished from his face as he ran to embrace her. Tears built up in the pair's eyes as the little girl's father asked where she was. She turned to point to the forest, but to her shock nothing was there. It was just empty plains as far as the horizon. There was no time for her father to receive her answer, for he needed to appease his wife’s worry over their daughter’s disappearance. They walked briskly, and the little girl looked back now and then just hoping that the forest would reappear, but it never did.

Once the celebrations over the little girl's return were over, life went back to normal. However, the girl did notice the tiniest of change in her family. Her parents no longer complained of money or anything else either. The girl was curious and wanted to ask them why this change had occurred but feared that it might reverse it, so she stayed quiet. However, she couldn’t help but think it may have been the final act of the mysterious forest.