Only In Whispers

Chapter 1 - Detective

16th of July 2022.

"Okay, ma'am, calm down. I need you to take a deep breath and tell me what happened." The detective questioned, a glint in his eye. It looked more like fear than concern for the poor girl. The missing child reports stacked beneath his desk, buried under the floorboards. Six. Six children disappeared that night. They couldn't hide it for much longer, but no one can ever know what happened in that dark, eerie forest. No one would dare enter. Not the bravest soul on this earth. No cop has taken that case, and none ever will.

"Josh! Josh!" The girl cried with great urgency. She spoke in an unfamiliar accent; sometimes it was hard for her to get words across. She had a long string of torn flesh hanging from her lip. She was hard to read. Of course, you could feel her panic from a mile away, but her words could only be heard as a jumble of sounds and cries. She cried the name 'Josh' over and over, each attempt becoming harder to understand; her disjointed thoughts became disjointed words and sentences. "Josh! Onde você está? Onde ele está!?"

"I need you to take a deep breath and slow down, ma'am. Who Is Josh?"

"The- the forest. The forest... the forest, the forest." The girl mumbled under her breath. "No... no... no..."

She appeared quite young. Sixteen, maybe. Her clothes were ripped to shreds; covered in chunks of blood, flesh, mud, and vomit. She was wearing what presumably used to be a pale white shirt with the word "HAPPY" engraved on it. Ironic. The left sleeve had been ripped clean off and a large chunk was torn out of the area made to cover her stomach. She wore light blue slim-fit jeans, which now appeared brown and red from the blood and dirt. Her knee was bandaged from a severe dislocation, and her arm was held in a sling. Band-Aids covered her body from head to toe, a pathetic attempt to cover the overwhelming accumulation of cuts and scratches. She had thick, brown, messy hair and dull, bloodshot eyes which poured with tears. Her voice was almost gone; breaking and fading in and out as she spoke. Her face was covered in light freckles, although they were hard to see through mud that flooded her face. Her wrist was filled with deep barcode-like, infected gashes, some down to the bone. Self-afflicted. She claimed the forest made her do it.

Information about the forest itself is only partially known to the FBI and kept completely out of reach from the public. Black Oak Forest was rumoured to be... broken. Ever-changing. A place where time is conceptual. This story was only a rumour to those without personal experience.

"Okay, I need you to pause, take it slow, and try to steady yourself. Take a deep breath and walk me through what happened. Forest?" The detective inquired, his tone measured and reassuring.

"Josh! It's Josh! He's—" Her voice quivered, choked by emotion, and she crumbled to her knees, consumed by sobs. She was utterly shattered, a fractured soul.

"Alright, Josh. How old is he?" The detective held a steady gaze, observing her closely. She paused, inhaling deeply before managing a response.

"Seventeen. He's seventeen."

"Can you tell me when and where he was last seen?" The detective's voice remained calm and patient, coaxing out the crucial details amid her anguish.

"We uh- we were staying in uh- Black Oak Hotel. The one by the forest." Her speech trembled, punctuated by sharp breaths. "It was about eleven o'clock at night. We went on a walk down the back of the hotel. Josh... he found some secret, overgrown path that led down to the beach, so we just had to go. We decided to run back to- um- back to our hotel room to grab... well you know, beach towels and stuff. Josh walked out the door to the balcony to take in the view of the forest. We had the top floor, so it was really pretty up there- but anyway uh- I came out to get Josh; I was packed and ready to go down to the beach. He was just staring at the forest. No expression on his face. He looked... almost lifeless. I was yelling in his ear and clicking my fingers in front of his face to get him to snap out of, but it was all useless."