The Backroom and Other Short Horror Stories

Won't You Stay With Me?

The forest looped around his head multiple times. He continued to run, though he never seemed to get tired or sore. He must've been running for hours at a time, trying to escape this confusing labyrinth. But the only thing that appeared before him were more and more trees, shrubs, mist, and the dirt path he was running on. How he began to hate the skinny and long trees blocking everywhere he looked, except the path in front of him and behind him. Only solid mist covered his sight in those directions.

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In another part of the forest, a single girl was playing hopscotch with the trees. Her wolf ears twitched, telling her there was a new playmate not far from her. Eagerly, she jumped through the trees and followed the scent of the new playmate. A regular boy, in his early twenties, well sanitized in appearance and strength. Yes, he would make a splendid person to play with. Coming up to him now, she could see that he indeed was fit to play games. He was running from something, but she didn't know what. She headed down to find out.

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Something rusted in the nearby trees and shrubs next to him. He immediately halted, praying it was a human and not a hungry creature. But confusion struck him when a girl with peculiar ears and tail emerged, smiling as bright as the sun. She looked like a regular girl in her late teens, wearing a beautiful white dress with all sorts of flowers embroidered on it. Many cuts and bruises were seen on her tanned skin. Her hair was a shiny light brown, and her eyes were sparkly emerald green. But the light brown ears and the light brown bushy tail told him this girl was unlike the others.

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This man was indeed strange to the girl when she closely looked at him. He appeared completely human, for he had no ears or tail as far as she could see. He wore strange clothing items as well. A plain white shirt with buttons on them, and black pants that sat tightly on him. Strange white things were covering his feet. But his hair was a silky black, and his skin was a nice tone of white. Although a beast in her tongue, she still saw him as a lovely playmate.

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Confused, the man asked where he was and who she was. The girl replied that her name was "Alla," and that the two of them were in a forest. The man asked what kind of forest. She looked at him strangely, and kept telling him it was the "forest." Sighing, the man asked how he can leave. The girl smiled.

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The girl hummed a lovely tune, and harmlessly told the man the forest went on forever. There was no way to leave or enter another area. Trees and bushes and dirt go on endlessly in this forest. She claims she has been to the tops of trees and as far as her legs will carry her, for the story was true. But never has she seen an area that wasn't a forest. 

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Panic spread throughout the man like wildfire. He will never go home, nor will he ever witness the birth of his own child. He will never love his girlfriend until the day he dies, nor will he see humans inhabit Mars. A great sense of dread filled the man to the brim, to the point he felt nauseous and weak to the knees. Desperately, he asked if there were more people like Alla. Maybe they could tell him how to get out of the forest.

-

Alla happily lead the man back to her home, a large village not far from where they were standing. She took the man by the hand and glided them both through the trees, never minding the messy forest ground below. The man freaked out and hung onto her tightly, but she could not understand why. The only thing she knew was that this man was not from around here; he was an outsider. This pleased her.

-

The village's people were not different from Alla. They all had ears and tails of a dog, the species varying from wolves to foxes. When the two entered, everyone stared at the man, their furs standing on end. Alla explained to them about him, and they relaxed a little. However, a tall grey-furred villager with many scars stepped out of the crowd and eyed the man suspiciously.