Fort Oakley | Part One

Prologue

When we were little kids, bedtime stories weren't about knights in shining armor or brave princesses saving the day.

Our bedtime stories weren't meant to soothe. To comfort.

Our bedtime stories were meant to scare us—to warn us.

Parents would gather us close with low voices and eyes filled with a strange mixture of fear and reverence, recounting tales of terror that seeped into our bones. Each word painted vivid pictures of the horrors that waited those who dared to stray beyond the safety of our town

Those of us who grew up in families with these bedtime stories knew not to venture into the woods surrounding our town. We knew these woods were evil, that there was danger waiting for those who didn't listen—for those who entered the woods.

Monsters, as our parents called them.

In our dreams, these monsters took on terrifying forms. They had sharp claws, glistening with the remnants of their last victim, and eyes that glowed like embers in the darkness. Their breath was hot and foul, like the stench of rotting flesh, and their growls echoed deep within our chests.

During childhood, these were not mere figments of our imagination; they were the embodiment of our deepest fears, brought to life by the stories we were told.

And when the monsters would catch us, as our parents said, they would take us to a bad place, were no one would ever be able to find us.

The bad place was always described in vague terms, leaving much to our young, overactive imaginations.

It was a place where light never penetrated, where the air was thick with despair, and where the cries of the captured echoed endlessly.

The very thought of it was enough to make us avoid the woods that surrounded our town.

I listened to the stories, never going near the trees in fear of those monsters snatching me away. But as I grew up, and friends and families dissapeared without ever going near the woods, I came to realize that the monsters were never in there.

It was a slow and painful realization, pieced together through whispered conversations and fragmented memories. The stories our parents told us began to feel like a smokescreen, a way to control us through our fear.

The disappearances were too frequent, too close to home, and always shrouded in mystery. I started to notice the patters when I was still young - the way the adults would avoid eye contact with others when someone went missing, they way their voices would sometimes drop to hushed tones, filled with anxiety.

The monsters were the ones telling us bedtime stories. Warning us away form their evil woods, when the woods were the only place we would ever be safe from them.

The woods, with their tall, ancient trees and their quiet, undisturbed stillness, began to seem less like a place of terror, and more like a sanctuary.

I started to understand that the true danger lay within the very walls that were supposed to protect us.

— C.R