The Forest

Chapter 28

I could hear Suzanne's sobbing in my ears. She was hyperventilating and when the tears choked her up she started to cough hard, like she was suffocating.

I grabbed her shoulder, "Suzanne breathe" I tell her. I was taken back too at Caroline's body, but I could not let it consume me entirely.

"What the hell just happened?..Where are we?" she asks in a whisper like someone was listening.

"I don't know" I answer her. We were in the darkness. Alone. It seemed as if we've been pulled into different locations by force. It's like a vortex somewhere that we're being forced to be sucked into.

"What's that?" Suzanne asks me pointing to something white sticking out of the box that I hadn't noticed before. I walked toward it, Suzanne slowly creeping behind. It was a note.

"Try to find me Matthew. You don't have much time" it read.

"What does it say?" she whispers into my ear. I show it to her.

"What does that mean? What's going to happen soon?" she asked me, but I think it was a rhetorical question.

I glance around the darkness. What was I missing? This is obviously another game. It's something that I need to solve or find. As I walked around I felt a tug at my foot and I fell to the ground.

"Matthew are you okay?" Suzanne panics, running toward me.

"Yeah...I just tripped over whatever was on the floor" I answer her, picking myself up. I bent down to see what it was. A key.

Suzanne and I marveled at it. A key? Where would a key go in this empty room?

"I don't understand...what is there to unlock?" Suzanne ponders.

"Keys...you use keys to unlock a door" I say, thinking out loud.

"What door?" she asks and I struggle to find any door.

We searched, but it was very hard to see each other let alone a door.

"Move the box" I hear Suzanne say and I stare at her.

"Why?"

"I just want to see what's underneath" she says and I try to subside my suspicions.

I try not to look at Caroline whose body had been dismantled and placed poorly in this box. Such a horrible death...being torn into pieces..

I place the key in my pocket and push the box as gentle as I can, but it gets snagged onto something on the floor. I glance over at Suzanne whose eyebrows have narrowed. I try to push harder, but it's stuck.

"Let me help" Suzanne remarks and makes her way around my opposite side of the box. She tries to pull, but it's still stuck.

"We have to lift it up" I pronounce and we both pick up our sides. As we do this the box starts to leak with blood. Suzanne covers her mouth with her left hand. You could hear her choking up. She lets go of her side and vomits on the floor. The smell from the blood intensifies and I could feel my stomach turning. I try to support the whole box due to Suzanne's absence and blood slowly drips down my arm. I feel myself gagging. I drop the box on the other side of the floor. I start to shake a little.

"Suzanne..." I say as she wipes her mouth with her sleeve.

"I'm sorry...that's- it's disgusting..how could a person do that?" she asks

"Jasper isn't a person, nor is he human. Not anymore" I tell her and her face sinks.

I try to feel across the floor for what was caught on the box. I felt an object that had a round shape. I lean closely to see what it is. it's a door lock.

"Do you have the key?" she asks me, and I nod. I take it out of my pocket. I try to place the key in the correct way due to the difficulty with the darkness. As soon as I get it in I hear a slight click. The door springs open like a Jack In The Box making both Suzanne and I jump.

That same mist that we saw when we first came into the forest came flooding out of the door opening. It came like water flowing upon a shore within a heavy storm. We wanted to escape the fog, but there was nowhere to go. I started to see Suzanne's eyes close. My head was spinning and I was fighting my eyes to stay open. I could hear a faint laugh from above me, but no one was there. I tried to pick myself up, but I fell over and over again. I didn't have control of my arms anymore as they became weak and numb. Then the world went black.

I regained my consciousness. My entire upper body heaved upward and I fought for air. As I looked around I saw Suzanne laying her body up against a tree. She was shaking and looked like she had tears in her eyes. I crawled over to her.

"What's wrong? What happened?" I ask, wondering if something had happened while I was in my sleep.

She was quiet. She looked above me so intensely.

"Suzanne...answer me.." I say, touching her face softly as another tear rolls down her face.

Suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

I looked over and it was...Suzanne. She looked different. She was bruised all over her body. She had blood all over her clothes and her hair was covered in leaves and thorns. I tried to make sense of what was happening. I was sitting right next to Suzanne, but she was also hovering over me.

"This is your fault! You're to blame for Jasper's life being taken away! Why didn't you help him?" the Suzanne that hovered over me screamed. Was I looking inside Suzanne's subconscious?

"I did try!" the Suzanne sitting next to me answers sobbing. "I did..but what was I supposed to do? I was only a child! I was terrified of him! You know that...he wanted to kill me"

"You are selfish and you deserve to die just like Jasper's soul!" the Suzanne hovering over me responds.

What was this? Was this some form of guilt inflicting? I tried to shake Suzanne's shoulder, but she doesn't respond. She doesn't see me or feel my presence. This must be a form of torture. He was inducing her with pain, the pain she felt that haunted her. She blamed herself for Jasper's life being taken away. She was fighting her inner thoughts.

As they continued to argue, I couldn't help but notice the Suzanne hovering over me say, "Now it's your turn to feel guilt Matthew".