Caught In The Forest

The Gray

My name is Penny, and I was a normal teen. Was. Life was a simple bliss, it had its up and its downs. I was average, just like you. I woke up every morning, did something in between, and went to bed every night. The "something in betweens" occasionally had a big change, like bumping up a grade or a party or a holiday and so on. But I never expected my mornings, something in betweens, and my nights to change as drastically as they did that one fateful day.

     "Ugh," I groaned, waiting for my mother at the bus stop. "Where is she," I mumbled. All the other kids had long been gone, or already got a head-start to walking home. I would be utterly by myself if I walked home. Impatient and grumpy, I walked along the cracked road, home-bound and not waiting another second. House after house, lawn after lawn, I walked. I began to shiver as I passed the one apartment complex in my neighborhood, after that was the woods. A long band of lush trees, concealing who knew what. Those trees had always scared me for an unknown reason, I would always begin to see these blank shades of fuzzy gray in my head. But it never made any sense.

     "Just walk past it," I encouraged myself. My pace moved briskly along the road, and I never dared to turn around. But to this day I wonder what if I had. And as soon as I noticed a shadow, that I so naively pretended was the waving trees, what if I turned on my heel and stared at what followed? But no, I kept walking, I walked and walked and walked, consoling myself. When I reached the edge of the wooded area I sighed in relief like a child who had finally found their lost teddy. "Almost home," I whispered gladly, leaving the greenery behind.

     With the woods outside of my concern, I began to feel the weight of my backpack, stuffed with books and miscellaneous paperwork. I remembered that all my teachers had "so kindly" dolled out pounds in homework. "If mom was here, I'd already be done with that English paper," I grumbled. My words were the only sound around me, not even the hum of a passing car. Silence encased me like a thick sheet, blocking me off from civilization. And while I was thinking and mapping out my schedule for when I got home, I didn't notice the shadow of "those waving trees" lift a blunt object of some sort above my head.

     CRACK. Whatever it was it hit me in the head, and trust me when I say it hurt. The last my vision saw before I passed out  was a solid shade of gray. Lonely, frightening, real, and deadly.