For your sleepless nights (Scary short stories)

My companions...

Once upon a time, four friends arrive at a small, uneventful forest, were children enter to play and lovers to show their affection to each other.

It was an early sunrise when they began to exit the vehicle to begin their hiking to the desired spot:

The leader, courageous and smart, entered first in order to show the others in the group how to progress throught the compact forest.

The companion, loyal to the leader, was big and as strong as a bear, and always followed the leader's orders as best he could.

The beauty, small and resourceful, always had her eyes towards her best future, and her beauty was only for the companion.

And lastly, the ignored, Silent and caring, she worries about the whole group, but cares about the leader the most, though he never realizes this, and her feelings go bottled and unanswered.

They slowly made there way through the forest until arriving at their destination. A small clearing next to a lake, where they can clearly see the blue sky, smooth stones decorated the floor before the water, and tall pines hid the exit like a curtain of greenery. As the group each did their duties, the companion assembled the tent under the leader's supervision, the beauty gathered water and arranged the groceries they brought with them, and the ignored searched and brought the firewood but stayed out of sight.

Night descended quickly on the group. They sat aroung the fire, the leader was smiling and laughing with a beer in hand, the companion had a blissful smile while having the beauty in his arms, the beauty was teasing the ignored, and the ignored sat a little farther away, nervously scratching her arm that lie concealed under a black sweater, stuttering slightly thanks to the shyness caused by the leader. The group went on without noticing that they were not alone.

From the bushes, they were being stalked by the hunter, a lonely man resentful of humans, and watching them being together and having fun sickened him, with each laughter his bloodlust grew, until finally he snapped, and the hunt began.

The firt victim was the leader, without him, the group would just go into chaos. he waited with his hunting knife until the leader took a break to go pee, the hunter had a rifle, but using it wouldn't be fun for him, his bloodlust was that of an animal. When the leader went to a nearby tree, away from the group, the hunter crept up behind him and snapped his neck, the body fell to the floor in a silent thud.

The hunters blood lust made him want to have more, the next would be the companion since he's the strongest, so he came up with a plan. He took his knife and started gutting the leader like a common animal. Starting from the stomach, he slowly cut to the opening of the ripped cage, and from the now opened corpse, he started scooping out the internal organs, then ripped open the ribs, he wanted it to look as gruesome as posible for the best effect, then threw the body into the view of the remaining group.

The first to react was the beauty, letting out a loud screech and then vomiting due to the grotesque sight. The companion, after the initial shock, stood in rage and dashed, without thinking, towards the woods like the hunter had planned. The companion was ambushed and quickly died with both the hunter's thumbs in his eye sockets.

The beauty, who was hiding in the tent, started calling for his beloved to no avail, and died next as the hunter, with one of the lit firewood, set the tent on fire, and the beauty screams filled the forest as she slowly borned to death, unable to escape the tent.

The last one was the ignored, who was standing, eyes wide open and skin paler than usual, staring down at the corpse of the leader, and she saw the hunter walking slowly towards her, and he had a grin that was stretching from ear to ear, to her suprise, even though he was going to kill her, and she knew this, she couldn't help to notice tha the hunter was actually young and handsome.

The ignored finally reacted and tried to turn around and run, but was, face first, pushed down to the stoned covered floor, she grabbed a stone and smashed into the ground, successfully breaking it into a sharp edge, but she couldn't turn around to defend herself, and she knew what he was trying to do when he was struggling with her jeans. The ignored came to an extreme desicion, she took the jagged stone and pierced it into her throat, and slowly slit it, ending her unavoidable suffering before it began. Then the hunter, fully satisfied, walk toward the outside of the woods.

As soon as the hunter left, from the shadows, a human shaped beast emerged and started walking towards the site. The creature was so grotesque and bizarre that it shrugged at its own reflection in the water, it had watched the whole thing, and for some reason grabbed all the bodies and carried them to a small cave, were it sat them in different positions and then sat itself infront of them. The creature was finally happy, after years of loneliness, it had finally gotten companions of its own, and what appeared to be a smile appeared on it's face.

The creature, enthusiastic but yet calm, took a deep breath, and started to say...

"... Once upon a time, four friends arrive at a small, uneventful forest..."

Moral of the story: Be careful of shadows, you may never know what lurks inside them.