Paw Upon My Heart

I'm just paraniod..

The forest behind my house held many wonderful memories and now one gut wrenching one. Max, with his kind heart, volunteered with an animal rescue organization on the edge of the forest. One day after feeding Keikei the orphaned brown bear, she managed to escape and make it out of the compound and into the trees. Max, feling guilty about not closing the cage properly, barreled into the forest behind her.

That's where the security footage ends and the rest are rumors from the rangers that found his body, torn to shreds and scattered throughout a wolves den. He was missing for weeks before our search party had found him lying in the cave. Feet from the mouth of the cave, lying in a trail of his own blood. I can still picture the blank stare in his eyes and the look of horror and pain on his face. That was the last time I felt emotion other than dread, heartbreak and fear.

That was a year ago..

I shake the thoughts from my head and shift on my bed and start flipping through pictures on my phone. For months I've been trying to work up the nerve to delete our pictures but every time my finger hovers over the delete button I feel a wave of hot tears stream down my cheeks. I look at his joyful, carefree smile and put my phone back down. I laid against my pillows and sigh to myself. I'm starting twelfth grade alone.. In a town I don't know anything about and the only boy I knew here is gone.

Max and I had lived in the same city, before he moved out here three months into our relationship. I moved out here at the beginning of summer and we only had a few weeks together before he went missing.

At first My mom tried to convince me to go outside and try to move on, meet new people. Eventually she gave in and I was home schooled. But that was last year and this year my mother refuses to keep me home and hide from the world.

I suppose my moms going to get her wish tomorrow, there's nothing I can do to avoid every person in school on the first day. Im the 'new' girl, the dead kids girlfriend.. rather, ex-girlfriend. I can guarantee there are fresh rumours going around about me now that I have finally left my house. Igniting any old whispers again.

I used to hear my dad and mom gossiping every now and than when they thought the kids and I are asleep. Talking about things they had heard that day. "They think she lured him into the forest and tied him up." "I heard them saying they both got attacked and she left him there tondie without telling anyone." "Mrs. Masons daughter kept going on about how they think she killed him and than hid the body in the forest.."
Every new rumour breaks my heart a little more and makes even more terrified to face these monsters at school.

With one last look at Max's smiling face I put my phone down and went to turn off the light. As I crawled under my blankets, I snuck a glance at the forest outside my window and swear I saw two glowing yellow eyes in between the trees, watching me.