SUSPENSE IN THE WOODS

The early morning sun started to peek through the trees as they opened their eyes.

"Aargh." Idris yelped in pain.

"Take it easy, the leaf will work its magic on your left shoulder." Wong kar Mun said.

"I think we're safe in this forest." Prithvi said.

"I doubt." Paul disagrees with Prithvi, he bent down like a sprinter, his nose only a few inches from the humid earth.

He lowered his chin and stared at the traces. Thoughts crossed his mind as he perceived the footprints to be that of a creature, perhaps an imaginary creature.

Then dog - like, he stepped forward and stopped. The silence of the forest was more oppressive than the heat, and at this hour of the day there was not even a whine of insects.

Suddenly the silence was shattered as birds flew out from the tree, they all were scared shitless. Paul himself shrank with a hiss of indrawn breath.

He noticed the droppings of blood on a tree, his breath came short, there was even a passing pallor in his face, and then the surge of blood.

On getting there, Paul lifted his head and screamed.

His scream made the others to run there as they saw what made him scream.

The body fell down, the hair of the body covered the face.

The body was a girl with a blond hair just like Erika.

Everybody's thought flew to Erika but when Prithvi separated her hair, it was another body.

"Fuck. God knows how many people have had to survive or die before us." Prithvi said.

Paul walked along the path. The trees were close together, letting in little, if any, light at all. It didn't intimidate Paul, as he thought that being attacked by a gang of grey squirrels armed with flick knives was highly unlikely.

He followed the footprints on the ground, walking along the grassy path, brushing the old branch away from his face.

It felt like the trees had taken a couple of steps forward, as the outstretched branches seemed to have stretched further across the path, slapping him in the face to his annoyance.

The path seemed never ending, until it reached a point where the grassy path forked. The one leading left, led back to a dirt path. The one leading right, led deeper into the woods.

The first fifty yards of the path was condensed with too many long branches, as if the trees on either side were reaching out to each other, if he had been two foot shorter he may have considered the path but opted for the dirt path and proceeded left.

He ran with his head slightly lowered and spotted something in the distance, he raised his head to get an enhanced look.

There was a figure, all in black, standing on the dirt track and looking directly at Paul.

It was about forty yards and the face could not be seen clearly, as the figure had what looked like a thin black waterproof jacket, with the hood of the jacket over the individual's head.

Paul and looked at the figure; the figure was motionless.

The large figure started to walk slowly in Paul's direction, which made him even more nervous than before.

He turned away from the approaching figure.

Still brushing aside the army of branches away from his face erratically, the path became darker as the trees became thicker and bended to the right, in which he enthusiastically followed.

His breath had now become practically non - existent, and he knew that if he continued with his spirit, he would collapse.

He stopped, and was holding himself up against a tree with his left hand, and finally managed to consume oxygen as he coughed and wheezed, but was still baffled by the mysterious stalker.

Running as fast as he could and ran into the others.

"Your scared, what happened?". Annabella asked.

Paul stammered, "Him."

"Who?"

The figure appeared across the woods, they screamed in fear.

"Hey it's me, Williams." He shouts, approaching them.

"Where the fuck did you get the costume from." Paul asked.

"From a dead man. The forest's full of dead beings."

Suddenly they heard the noise of disturbed trees getting closer and closer.

Their breathings became heavier and they took a quick look around.

Williams felt a sharp stinging pain across his left ear and fell to the ground, clutching the left ear, they watched in horror.

He moved his hand away and saw small drops of blood dripping onto his knee. "It's a pest."

"Oh... cause I was scared." Wong Kar Mun said.

There was a distant sound of something making their way through the wooded area.

They could see about three or four trees in the waving of the lower branches that had been disturbed in some way, the tension was now becoming unbearable.

Paul's hands were shaking with terror, he noticed the others also demonstrating their tension.

Suddenly a figure burst out the wooded area and they released a frightened scream.

As the fox zoomed past and crossed the path with ferocious speed and went into the wooded area on the other side.

"Micheal, Bae Soo-Mi." Prince expressed shock as they appeared from the woods.

They hugged I and Bae Soo-Mi.

"What of Erika, where is she?"

"Dead." Bae Soo-Mi said.

"We couldn't find her in the house but then we found ourselves in a graveyard and we saw her name on a grave stand, then a female corpse attacked us but we managed to escape."

"What's going on." Annabella's eyes gouged out.

We all peered into the writing on the ground.

DEATH IS LURKING.

ERIKA.

We read it out loud, it then suddenly varnished.