twenty one pilots one shots

Trees

A/N: I'm baaaaack!!

People Involved: Tyler and Josh

Warning(s): death

When the boy was walking down the forest path to clear his muddled mind, he didn't know he was walking to his death.

The boy's name is, er, was Joshua Dun, though he preferred the name Josh. Josh was only seventeen that fateful day, but he wasn't planning on living for very long anyway.

He tried to soothe his frayed nerves by listening to the sounds around him.

However, the forest was silent as death despite the time of day.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon.

Not a bird chirped. Not a bug buzzed. Not a twig snapped. Not a leaf was ruffled by the wind.

The eerie silence only worsened Josh's anxieties.

It was like in the movies right before something bad happens. It's quiet... Too quiet.

He licked his lips, trying to remind himself that nothing bad would happen to him. It was almost winter, so the animals are going into hibernation.

Josh sighed, the exhale muffled by the sound of a dry, dead twig breaking beneath his weight.

He sighed in relief at the sound breaking the silence.

He hated silence. It was discomforting.

He went to the forest often. He didn't feel claustrophobic in the open air; the space gave him room to scream and to vent.

And he had a friend here.

Right before his family moved into their current home, he found this urban legend on the Internet about a boy his age that was killed in the very woods Josh was roaming right now.

The tale told that the boy's name was Tyler Joseph, and he was just going off to explore one hot, summer afternoon.

He never came back.

His family found him in the lower branches of a tree, a long, broken off branch poking through his chest.

No one knows how he could've been impaled in such a way. Some people online say it was some haunted spirit in the trees. Others say the poor boy simply fell as he was climbing the tree.

After hearing this story, of course, he was determined to convince his parents to move to a different house.

He knew the story could be completely made up, but he didn't want to risk moving to a house that potentially be haunted.

His rhetoric didn't work, however.

Josh nearly had a panic attack as he was left alone in his new room to unpack his things.

He could almost feel a presence in the room. He knew it was his anxiety is talking, but anxiety is hard to deafen.

When a week by without anything happening, Josh's anxieties eased a bit, but he still didn't quite trust his new home.

Almost two weeks after moving in, his parents decided to spend the Saturday hiking in the woods.

Josh's easing anxieties suddenly sky-rocketed; if that Tyler kid died in those woods, surely that would be haunted.

He spent the whole day looking over his shoulder and resisting the urge to scream.

He and his family were having a picnic in a small grove when he saw an almost translucent being lying in the lower branches of a tree, part of it poking out of his chest.