A Strange Assortment of My Worst Nightmares
My father, Rick, is a military ranger. He left home to investigate a forest. Silly, right? Why did they send a decorated military ranger instead of an actual explorer? I remember him complaining before he left. “I could be leading a troop in war right now, but they have me exploring a forest! It’s a waste of my time.” “Calm down, Rick” My mother said, “You'll be out in no time. What’s it about this particular forest anyway?” Dad started playing with his hands. “They say it popped up out of nowhere. There was nothing there but an empty field, and then bam. A deep forest came out of nowhere.”
That was three weeks ago. They estimated that he would be home in 3 days, a week at most. It’s been THREE. WEEKS. My mom is anxious out of her mind, my aunts and uncles are all here at our very small suburban house that can not at all hold 11 people. My brother and I go over to my friend's house because it’s too crowded. His name is Rowen. I want to go alone but Mom is making me take him along with me. I need a ride over there, and since he’s 18, he can drive. I’m newly 16 and only now getting my learner’s permit, so I can’t drive by myself. My friend, Skylar, informs me that she invited the whole friend group over. A total of 6 people, not including Rowen. So 7 people. There’s Rowen, Skylar, May, Hector, Core, Jasper, and me. Once they all get here I tell them all about what’s happening. Everyone is really concerned, but I look at Rowen and he’s smiling. Not a happy smile, but that mischievous smile that I’ve known so well for so long. I remember being little and seeing his smile as he made a snake out of paper mache. He tied some fishing line to it and dragged it from under a door to scare my mom. He looked around at all my friends and I. “I have a dare for you guys.” He said. Everyone looked around at each other and slowly nodded their heads. “You should all go to the forest.” He grinned even wider now. “You’re out of your mind!” I shouted. But everyone else smiled and nodded. “We should do it!” Core said, “Yea, we can go find your dad, Ashley.” Everybody unanimously decided they wanted to go, so I reluctantly agreed, and we got packing. Everybody brought some essential items like food and water, and we brought some personal items too. Jasper brought some books and I brought a journal. Rowen decided to sit out of this adventure to “cover me” while I’m gone. He’s always been the kind of person to tell other people to go out and do things while he stays home eating potato chips. May and Hector both have cars, so we ride with them to where the news says the forest is. There’s a crowd of people there, all behind security guards and yellow police tape stopping people from getting in. “Ok… so how is this going to work” May says. “That’s a good question.” Core responds. Everybody looks at each other, searching for that spark of an idea. “Where’s Skylar?” I say. Immediately everyone gets really worried and starts looking for her. “I’m over here guys!” she yelled. “I got an idea.” “What’s up?” Jasper asks. She points to a giant snake. “AH OH MY GOD” Core screams. “What could we possibly do with that?” “Well you see, if we just pick it up,” Skylar pauses to pick up the snake, ”then we could place it by the crowd and they’ll be scared and distracted enough for us to run to that ditch” She points to an indent in the plains. They wouldn’t be able to see us there.
The screams are loud after Skylar puts the snake down by all the people. We all sprint towards the ditch, and thankfully we make it without being noticed. We wait until dark to start crawling towards the woods. They don’t notice us because it's dark out, and they’re busy looking at the crowd of protesters. Our crew gets close, and it looks like a normal forest. “Ok, let's go in.” Hector says with a sigh. We all look around at each other and begin to crawl towards the woods again. As we go closer and closer, it starts to pull us in, like the ocean when the waves go back. We enter the forest, and everything around the border changes. Where it used to be a small patch of woods, it now looks like miles and miles of forest. But there’s something strange about the particular forest.. All the colors are different. Instead of green trees they’re shades of pink and red. May has a look of understanding on her face. “Every color that’s here is the opposite of what it’s supposed to be on the color wheel.” May loves art, and so does Core. She nods and says, “Oh my god, you’re right! That’s so cool.” They look at each other for a moment, and then we all move on. As we walk further and further into the woods, I get this feeling that there’s something watching us. Everybody asks why I keep looking behind me, but I just tell them I’m paranoid. “AHHH” Skylar screamed. Everyone went over to her in a hurried frenzie. “What’s wrong?” Jasper said urgently. Skylar shakely points towards something in the trees. There’s a snake, but it’s worse than normal. N This snake has wings. “Holy-” Jasper says, but gets cut off by a bark. Everybody turns to see- nothing. Nothing but a cute purple bird. Then we noticed. It… barks? A bird in a forest of inverted colors with flying snakes, barking. After getting over the initial shock, we remember the impending death bomb of a snake with wings. We turn to see it coming towards us, like an eel in the ocean. I scream and run. So does everyone else. The thing is, not all of us run in the same direction. We get split up. I know that I saw Core and May together, but everything else was just a blur. I’m alone. I start to walk through the trees and see something moving. I grab a stick and break it to make a spike. I inch closer and closer. I’m hiding behind a tree, and I can tell that it senses I'm there. It steps on the ground right next to me, not yet seeing me. I quickly turned around and hit it like a baseball bat. “OW” yellsJasper. “OH SHOOT I’M SORRY” I scream. “I thought you were some kind of creepy forest monster.” “That’s fair enough,” He said. “it doesn’t even hurt that much.” We walk around for a while longer, looking for more people.
“AHHHH” We hear a scream. “It sounds like Skylar!” He said anxiously. I’ve known for a long time that Jasper has a crush on Skylar. I even did a whole astrological chart reading to see if they’re compatible, which they very much are. Jasper being a Gemini and Skylar being a Libra makes for a very interesting couple. We followed the sound of her scream, it wasn’t very far, and quickly made it to her. She was extremely pale, and breathing heavily. She didn’t say anything, just simply pointed to the ground. Jasper and I looked at each other for a second, then to where she pointed. A body- of poor Hector. He was lying there with a giant gash in his neck, not breathing but still gushing blood. “Oh my god- what happened?” I asked as Jasper comforted Skylar. “I i it-” She stutters. “It was… just a butterfly.” She said, “I pointed it out to Hector and said I thought it was pretty… th- then it just…” She paused for a moment, reliving what happened. “It bit him. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true! It fluttered over towards him and BAM. I barely saw it, it was just there, then he fell to the ground all fleshy and stuff and I looked back and the butterfly was gone and he was gushing blood and I tried-” She needed to catch her breath because she was talking so fast, “I tried to save him…” Jasper hugged her and held her face to make sure she didn’t look at Hector again. I picked a flower to put over him and said goodbye, then we left. None of us could bear to look at the already rotting corpse any longer, we needed to move on. At least now we know that those stupid butterflies are dangerous, but I only wish we could’ve found out another way.
We keep walking and yelling, hoping someone will hear us. Skylar has recovered a bit, but she’s still very shaky. “Hello? Helloooo!” We hear someone yelling. “HEY!” I shout back. “OMG ASHLEY IS THAT YOU?” I can hear her voice better now, it’s May. We follow the sound of each other’s voices and eventually find each other. “Hey Jasper, hi Skylar!” May says. “Here, follow me. Core and I found a cave to shelter under. There’s berries around too, but we haven’t tried any yet. No luck finding Hector?” Skylar shivers at the comment. Jasper holds her and says “Hector is dead.” “Oh my-” She says. I can tell she’s avoiding tears. “H-how?” I look at Jasper and then at Skylar. “Uhh, how about we fill you in later. You said Core is here?” She nodded, and led us to the nearby cave. “Hi guys!” Core yells excitedly, completely oblivious to the fact that everyone is very unsuccessfully holding back tears. “You all look so sad, what’s wrong?” May goes to whisper in their ear. I assume that she told them about Hector because Core immediately found a melancholy face. “Oh-” She whispers. “That’s terrible.” “Best not to talk about it now” I saw, nodding my head towards Skylar who is on the verge of having another mental breakdown. She nods in understanding. “Follow me.” We’re led to the berries May had mentioned. “You guys must be hungry, I know I am. I was thinking we could all have some berries for dinner.” I smiled “That’s a great idea. I’ll help you pick them.” We get the berries and have them for dinner, then go to sleep.
A few hours later, I wake up to the sounds of someone throwing up. I go to check on who it is. I see Jasper, hurling the most disgusting mix of what looks to be the berries we ate earlier. “I feel like I’m dying,” He says. I think he meant for it to be a joke, but there was definitely a hint of seriousness in his tone. I also notice I have a stomach ache, but I’m not throwing up… yet. It’s almost dawn, so we go to wake the others. We all sit around, insanely tired. Believe it or not, stone is not a very comfortable mattress. We’re able to start a fire using May’s glasses, and all sit around the flames staying warm. I hear a stick break behind us and immediately turn around. Everyone else sees me looking and does the same. I see my dad come out behind a tree, all beaten and battered. “DAD!” I yell. I run over to hug him and drag him over to the fire. He sits down. I thought he would yell at me for being in the forest, but he’s just glad to see me. All my friends greet him and I tell him what happened to Hector. “Oh I’m sorry kids. That happened to two of my men as well. A terrible sight to see.” “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish none of us had to see that.” Core runs away with no notice and starts to throw up. “That’s weird,” Jasper says “I was sick to my stomach earlier, and I’m still not one hundred percent.” “My stomach hurts too.” May says, followed by me saying “same.” I glance over at my father, and notice a worried look on his face. “You kids didn’t eat those berries, did you?” We all slowly nod our heads, and Core returns to the circle, looking deathly pale. “Good God…” he says. “Those berries are very poisonous. We need to get you all treated before-” He pauses. “Before what, Dad?” He looks at me for a moment before saying, “before you all die.”
We almost immediately start running, in a group this time, to find a way out. “Here!” May yells. “There’s a tuft of Skylar’s hoodie.” We all look at Skylar. “I remember that. We hadn’t been in the forest that long, we came from that way.” She points north. We sprint that way as fast as we can, finding more clues like strands of hair and marks on trees. After a while we see a tree in the distance, but this tree is special. It’s not red like all the other trees that we’ve been used to for the past couple days, it’s green. I start to run for the tree, but May yells “Wait!” and gestures to Jasper who looks like he’s about to throw up his lungs. Skylar is comforting him, and I see that Core is also looking like she wants to puke. All of us are poisoned, but it seems like it’s affecting Jasper and Core the most. May seems very concerned for Core, and Skylar keeps an eye on Jasper. We all take a breather and start to march towards the tree. After what feels like an hour, we’re almost there. The trees around us seem to be blurry and glitching. We feel a tug, the same kind of tug we did when we first entered, like a magnetic pull. We go through and see the plains that we saw when we first arrived here. For a glorious second we feel the freedom of our world again. Then it’s broken up by flashes and talking and yelling and questions and cameras being shoved in our faces. The news reporters are all asking us questions even though all of us might as well be zombies. My dad tells them to get an ambulance for us. Before one shows up, I hear a thump. I look behind me to see Jasper on the ground, shaking and foaming at the mouth. Skylar gasps and goes to help him. The ambulance comes at that same moment, and we all head to the hospital. They treat us with some medicine, how they know it’ll help I have no idea. We all go to separate rooms so none of us know if the others are ok. A few hours pass, and they let us go visit each other. Everyone meets up and heads to Core’s room. “Where is Jasper?” Skylar asked the doctor. “Unfortunately we were too late. Jasper is in a coma and it’s very likely that he will die. I’m sorry.” Skylar screams the most heartbreaking, earth shattering scream that has ever reached my ears. She’s taken over to her room to talk to a grief counselor. The days pass by, our relatives and friends come and go. We all go home after about a week. May has to stay a little while longer because she’s in more serious condition. After a couple days of being home, I get a call. It’s from Skylar’s mom, so I assume that she wanted to ask me about things that Skylar wasn’t able to say. I answer the phone, and hear sobbing. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Skylar- Skylar died last night. The police say it was suicide, but I think they’re wrong. I think it was murder.”