The Golden Locket

Chapter One: The Disappearance

Chapter One: The Disappearance

The forest glowed dimly with the light of the full moon. Clouds overhead blocked out most of the stars that night while the tall, skinny trees did the rest. Dry leaves cluttered the ground and a cool wind whistled through the tree branches signaling the arrival of autumn. A young boy stood alone in a small clearing, his feet planted firmly on the dry dirt. His ears perked up listening for something. What that something was, even he did not know.

The boy looked around himself, trying his best to see through the darker section of the woods to his left. There, the trees were closer together and mostly made up of pines that blocked out even the light of the moon. He squinted and tried to listen closer. He breathed in, covering his mouth with his right hand. Suddenly, he heard it. A loud crunch and the sound of a twig snapping directly behind him made the boy practically jump out of his sneakers. Another twig snapped closer this time, maybe thirty feet behind him and the boy got a strange sense of someone watching him, hiding in the shadows.

The boy took off running towards his left, hoping to lose the watcher in the darkness, He dodged the pines here left and right, ignoring their sharp needles as they poked into his skin. A few more twigs snapping and the crunching of leaves soon told the boy that whoever was watching him had now given chase. He tried increasing his speed making it harder on himself to dodge everything around him. He almost tripped over a fallen log while doing this but he jumped over it just in time and then listened behind him, hoping his attacker wouldn't be so lucky.

Ahead of him, the boy saw the end of the section of pines and a particularly low oak branch. He ducked his head trying to avoid it and winced as its hard body smacked into him anyway, causing scratches on the top of his forehead and getting dry, dying leaves caught in his short, brown hair. He brushed them out quickly as he continued forward. A drop of sweat fell from his head, his breaths got louder and shorter, and his sides began to hurt. He saw another log in his path and hurtled over this one with ease. He listened behind him hoping again to hear the person falling but this time, he heard nothing. Not even the sound of the wind moving around the trees reached the boy's ears. He slowed down to a complete stop and bent over, putting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.

Out of nowhere, the sound of the person following him came back, the boy turned around and watched as the figure bolted right past him, running off further into the forest. The boy saw that it did appear to be a male.

"WAIT!" Shouted the boy, taking his hands off his knees and taking off after the man. The boy pumped his arms and moved his legs faster than he ever thought he could and still, the man moved further away. The boy soon noticed that, as he ran, the person seemed to be leading him to a much denser part of the woods that blocked out the moonlight so much so that he could barely see even the outline of whomever he was chasing. Still, he chased on in a desperate attempt to find out the identity of the person, once again dodging trees and low branches.

Without any warning at all, the figure the boy had been chasing finally tripped over a fallen log, kicking up dirt as he hit the ground. The man tried to move to get back up but he realized with dread that his ankle had twisted. He gave up his struggle and collapsed on the ground wheezing as the boy caught up to him.

"Please. Don't kill me." The man rasped.

The boy reached forward and grabbed its shoulder hard, feeling its pulse speed up. The boy, wanting to know the identity of the person, spun him around so he could see the man's face. He realized with great confusion who it was. The man had brown eyes, the same eyes the boy had.

"Dad?" The boy wanted to ask. Except those weren't the words that came out of his mouth. Instead, the boy made a sound almost like a growl. Taken back by the sound of his own voice, the boy let go of his father's shoulder and noticed that rather than having a human hand, his own hand was hairy and had claws instead of fingers.