The Tragic Occurrence
Night with ominous feeling of troublesome crept in, the sky above was filled with numerous stars that sent off mellow white light, depressed feeling was covering up the whole village. The night was so dead quiet, almost creepy, furthermore, chilly and uncomfortable feeling was all over the village.
Three of them were gathering in Darwin's room, thinking over what had happened this morning. The room wasn't big, just enough for the three of them, a table in the middle and three to four chairs around it.
"Where do we start with the investigation?" asked Rachel while the other two seemed to be submerging in their thoughts.
"Darwin, I know you like reading books, do you happen to have any books regarding the forest?" asked Matthew.
Darwin stood up and went over to the shelves in the left corner of the room. "I almost forgot I do." From there he took out a map and laid it out on the table.
The map showed a big green picture, like a forest, with a lot of x marks on it, indicating some message hidden in it.
"Is this what I think it is?" Rachel looked over the map.
"Is this the map of the forest?" asked Matthew, expressing the look of amazement.
"Yes, it is, I have been looking all over the library for it, and found it hidden in the shelf of the folklore section where no one would really go," replied Darwin with a sense of satisfaction.
"What do the x marks mean here?" Matthew asked with excitement.
"I think it means where the bodies were found all through the ages," Rachel answered with disdain.
"So do I," Darwin answered almost instantly showing he had been studying this map for quite a few times now.
There were 53 body counts in total, and the foot notes showed that they were all villagers who were trying to explore the forest, the foot notes were dated 2022, which was last year, that meant it would be more than 53 bodies by now.
The feeling of bloodbath was suffocating all three of them, neither could speak at this point.
"Help, anyone there?" shouted a voice outside the room, a voice that was so familiar.
"It is him, the man from this morning, the one like an animal," Darwin looked out the window. "I am going to get him."
Darwin went down the stairs to open the door and waved at him. "Over here, buddy."
The man was muscular and tall, his hair was black, and had several injuries all over his body. He was wearing the clothes he was on this morning, apparently he didn't go back home, he just came out from the forest.
The man quickly went over to him, he was limping and fatigue, he couldn't even walk steadily, he almost fell down several times before joining the three of them in the room upstairs.
The man showed sign of relief when he saw the three of them. "I am so glad all of you made it out of the forest alive."
"You have no idea how terrible it is, the forest," continued the man with deep breathes like he was still trying to calm himself down.
"I am going to make some coffee for all of us, take a rest first, buddy, you seem in quite a shock," Darwin went down to the kitchen.
The other two just kept looking at the man, trying to get some clues from him, but the longer they looked, the more confused they were.
Darwin went up after several minutes. "What happened out there, buddy?" asked Darwin while serving him a cup of coffee.
"It was a terror, real terror, all of my team died, it was like there was an outbreak of pandemics."
"Can you tell us the whole story?" Darwin asked while patting him in the back.
"My name is Alex Lovegood, I went in the forest after I met all of you, trying to rescue my team."
"I felt like I was an animal, my urge to kill and eat were surging through my veins, and like you have seen, I was out of control at the first sign of rabbit in my way," continued Alex with horror in his eyes. "I can still remember the satisfaction I felt when I made the kill."
"After that, I continued my search, and that was when I heard someone calling my name and I was sure it was my team,'' he continued after sipping the coffee.
He covered up his face with his palms, as if he was trying to maintain his composure, because he couldn't believe the scene he had seen.
"I went straight ahead, excited, because I thought I was going to reunite with my teammate, however, what I saw was eerie enough to make me throw up."
"All of my teammate were covered up in fungi, to be more accurate, fungi grew out of their bodies, they were in pain," Alex showed his mobile phone to them.
Body twitching and swivelling, big visible spore coming out of their mouth, as if the fungi were trying to spread, to make its own population, to conquer that particular area.
The fungi were yellow in colour tinted with red colour from the blood, they were giving off fusty smell, the sticky liquid were oozing down the stem, eroding the skin it landed on, thus the skin of the team were all somewhat degraded.
All four of them were petrified by the bizarre scene, and neither of them had any clue as to what could cause this.
"I have heard from my parents that there is some research going on in the forest," Darwin told them with disdain.
"That is what we are going to find out," Rachel looked at Alex.
"I wanted to carry my team out of the forest, one by one," continued Alex, terrified. "But one of my teammate warned me not to touch them, he said the infection could spread easily upon contact."
"I was too afraid to go close, thus I ran away despite the fact that my team was in serious need of help," said Alex, guilty look all over his face.
Three of them didn't know what to say to comfort Alex, if they had been in the same situation, would they do the same?
"What happened to you after that?" Matthew asked.
"I kept running, as far away from them as possible, because I didn't want to hear their scream, I couldn't stand the fact that I abandoned my teammate."
He slowly sipped his coffee. "I finally sat down after I reached a distance that I couldn't hear the scream anymore, I was desperately trying to figure out a way to help my teammate, but I couldn't think clearly with the terror still inside my head."
Three of them listened quietly without interrupting him.
"I finally calm down after around 15 minutes, and that's when my transformation suddenly subsided, I didn't know why but it did, I felt more human but weak, as if the transformation had taken up all of my energy," said Alex, still fragile. "I ran as fast as I could to the exist."
"After about half an hour, I finally saw the exist point, I was so excited as if it was a life saver, but suddenly I heard the troop around me, the heavy, creepy footsteps."
"The troop? We saw them too, and the old man with the lab coat, they chased us away," interjected Darwin.
"I heard them shout that they saw subject 1006 running to the exit, " continued Alex.
"Were they talking about you?" asked Rachel, totally disgusted with the troop.
"Of course they were talking about me, I was the only one in my team who escaped. I was so afraid, I didn't want them to catch me, I didn't want to end up like my teammate, so I hid in the bushes to keep them from finding me," said Alex, completely terrified. "I hid as quietly as possible until the troop gave up on searching for me, then I ran out of the forest."
Alex stopped, breathing heavily, he needed a rest from all this enigma. He put down his coffee cup, laid back on his chair, looked up at the ceiling, thinking quietly, clearly he was too tired.
"They were performing some kind of illegal research on your team, that's why all of us in the village aren't supposed to go anywhere near the forest," said Darwin, furiously.
"What were your team doing in the forest in the first place," Matthew looked curiously at Alex.
"We were sent by the government, we were told there was something in the forest spooky enough that it needed to be taken down," replied Alex sadly, apparently still couldn't get over the fact that he left his teammates.
"What spooky thing?" Rachel sat straight, eager to know.
"We weren't given the details, our order was to destroy and kill what we saw, like it was the top secret, and we didn't have the clearance to know it."
Four of them were drowned in despair and fury, the pure black of the night gave off the sinister sense, the endless darkness with mystery was haunting them, the abysmal secret was looming. The dark secret in the forest that worth killing so many government agents, the intimidating danger that spooked everyone in its way, destroying the path to revealing the truth.
It was late, they were all tired after a long day, they decided to go back home and sleep.
"Alex, you can sleep in the next room, it is empty," said Darwin, patting Alex in the back.
"Alright, thanks pal."
"We will continue this tomorrow, they won't get away with it," said Darwin to the other two before they left.
"Sure, we will find out the truth," replied Matthew.