Lost Library of Absolute Fucking Horror (Whumptober 2024)

DAY 1: The Hanging Tree

THEME: Race Against The Clock
PROMPTS: Panic Attack/ Search Party/ "If only we could hold on."
PROMPTS USED: Panic Attack(??)/ Search Party
SUMMARY: Saki looks for her brother in the forest. Things don't go as planned, but..

She brought this upon herself. Now she has to face the consequences of what she saw.

WARNINGS: Graphic depictions of gore, blood, death

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A note.

A note. That was all she was given. A note.

Since then, it had been around a week since Tsukasa went missing. When Saki found a letter sitting on Tsukasa's chair.

When Saki discovered the letter, her heart had dropped. The envelope had no clear address on it- in fact, all that was written on it was a thick, smudged smiley face with what didn't look like ink. Nor did it seem like paint.

It was brown. As if its colour had faded since it had been slathered onto the white paper.

Saki didn't like that.

She had opened the letter, noticing how her heart was pounding in her chest, how her head suddenly felt lighter, how her body had this strange tingling sensation as she took out the paper inside the envelope.

There wasn't much written in it. Unlike the extremely unsettling smiley face on the envelope, the words inside were scribbled on with an actual pen- a red one, at that. There were a few smudges- it looked like it was from a gel pen.

..Saki had no idea why she was focused on that.

She read through the vague contents of the note, her lips pursed and hands shaking. The shaking did not help.

[Do you remember when you went for walks around the forest near your house?

I wonder if you ever played hide and seek there.

Maybe if you're quick enough, you can find him before someone else does.]

It was signed off with a smiley face.

Saki read the letter once more.

Then again, and again, and again. She kept reading, she kept rereading the letter all over again.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

Who was this letter from? Who wrote this- what did mean?

Given the implications, Saki's brain pieced two and two together quite quickly.

Tsukasa had gone missing. He had been missing for a week.

Behind their neighbourhood was a forest, a large one.

...Hide and seek.

Find him.

Before someone else does.

Saki sucked in a sharp breath.

In a flash, the pianist had found herself jumping up from her spot, taking the note along with her as she sprinted across the house to her own bedroom.

She had to find him.

She had to find her brother. She had to find Tsukasa.

Honestly, Saki wasn't trying to look fashionable here. She just saw whatever worked inside her closet and took it. The quicker, the better, after all.

The sun was setting when Saki left the house, phone in her pocket and note squeezed inside her hand.

Realistically, Saki should have told someone about this. She should have been more careful, maybe texted her friends, maybe Tsukasa's, her parents, anyone.