Oh The Darkness (Almost) Got A Hold On Me

Lost

Everyone knows the Whingeing Woods are the best place for hunting. The forest always seems to be so full , with birds chirping and squirrels skittering about during the day. If someone went hunting and came back empty handed, it was their fault. Most huntsmen could go out for an hour and come back with multiple birds for dinner.

But everyone also knows that sometimes people don't come back at all. Those that have killed more than they needed to, wasted part of the animal, and shown no respect for the woods? They'll leave the woods staggering under the weight of an animal carcass, proud of their kill. But the next time they enter the woods, they won't come back.

It isn't just those that deserve it either. Children go missing, disappearing when their parents look away for mere seconds. Usually they're found. Sometimes they're found alive. Sometimes they aren't found at all. If you go into the forest after dark, you aren't expected to be found.

The Whingeing Woods hide something. Something dangerous, and occasionally deadly. But the town is blessed with game that keeps families from going hungry, and the danger is a price Nevermoor is willing to pay.

____

Jack has listened to Fenestra tell tales of glowing red eyes and disappearing travelers. He knows the legends. Everyone in Nevermoor knows the legends! But that's all he's chalked them up to; legends. Sure, people went missing in the woods, but what woods did people not go missing in?! Jack hadn't believed in the legends, but if he had never shot down anything bigger than a pheasant than that was his business, no one else's.

He hadn't believed in them. Jack was wrong. So very, very wrong, he isn't scared to admit it. When Fen had told him stories from hunters that had seen something and gotten out to tell the tale, he should have committed their words to memory and followed their steps.

But he hadn't. And him and Uncle Jove had separated, promising to meet back up at noon, but his compass had stopped working and noon had passed hours ago and it was almost dusk now and the woods had started to make the whining noise and why did it sound so human like what happened to the birds oh god is there a predator near- and Jack is panicking.

He's been walking south for what had to have been hours. Jack's compass had stopped working before the sun had reached its zenith, and he'd turned around and started walking back in the direction he'd come from once it did. Jack and Jupiter set off into the forest around 10 o' clock in the morning, and Jack had walked for around 45 minutes.

If it made any sense, he would have been out of the Whingeing Woods well before noon. But since then, Jack realized that the forest stopped playing fair. He'd done the only things he could do: stop for a beef jerky lunch, and keep walking.

The noises had started around 8' at night. Up until then, he could still hear the birds, frogs, and insects. But those noises had steadily quieted until the other noises started. The Whingeing Woods weren't called the Whingeing Woods for nothing. Groans. Horrible, horrible noises start filling the air.

Jack tells himself that it's just the wind, just the knotted wood of stooped trees bending. When he reaches up into the air to prove that it is just the wind, he feels nothing.

It's then Jack starts to run. The forest isn't even that large! He got turned around, of course he did, if he just keeps running in one direction he'll be out soon. He has to be.

Jack sits down on the ground, out of breath. Leaning against one of the grotesque, gnarled trees, Jack pulls his water bottle from his backpack and drinks.

"Well, forest," Jack whispers before pausing. It feels wrong to speak, wrong to purposefully make noise -to draw attention to himself in a place like this. He draws his compound bow from his backpack. It feels less like a shield and more like a target.