What Lurks Behind The Trees

Red eyes

They froze in shock and terror. That was it. They could never get away now. The creature was spine-chilling, its arms were long and dragged on the floor, the only thing on its small face were two red, glowing eyes, back hunched over and fingers long with sharp, pointy claws. Its skin was sooty grey, it looked bloodless, sickly almost like a dead person.

Gregor felt his heart stop, breath becoming short, he couldn't think of what to do next. And before he could even blink, the creature grabbed him by the throat causing him to let out a breathy gasp. It carried him by the neck so that Gregor was directly facing it, looking at him with dull circles. Gregor was quickly starting to lose consciousness, his eyeballs were rolling back and his hands were holding on to the creature's claws' trying to rip them away but to no avail. He felt something grab his foot and pull at it. His mind was becoming fuzzy. Celia was trying to pull him away from the creatures grasp until something grabbed her leg, dragged her along the grass. she let out an ear splitting scream, digging her nails into the mud to try and get away.

"Greg! Greg help! please-"she sobbed. When she looked behind her she saw them. Dozens of red eyes. Staring at her. The one holding her leg carried her upside down and stared straight at her. Celia couldn't open her eyes, her face was covered in mud and tears, braids hanging down.

Gregor was on the verge of passing out, he blinked several times to straighten his vision. He reached his hand for his pocket, took out the dagger his father gave him and hid it under his sleeve. He brought his hand up slowly, and once he set his eyes on the target he took out the dagger and drove it in the creatures wrist. The creature bled black and quickly let go of Gregor who coughed and gasped for oxygen. Once his breathing was descent he took out his bow and an arrow and with shaky hands aimed it at the creature that was holding his sister. He let out an exhale and let go of the bowstring, shooting the creature in the eye. This time Celia fell to the ground and scrambled away.

"Celia! Get away now!" Gregor was desperate to at least keep his sister alive.

The other dozen creatures started walking towards them. Celia and Gregor were surrounded. Some of the creatures went to the two creatures that were bleeding and started tearing their limbs apart. That's when they saw it, a mouth with sharp teeth under the eyes that appeared out of nowhere. They started to devour the remains of the bleeding creatures. And with this distraction, the two siblings could not hear the figures approaching them from behind. Until Gregor felt excruciating pain on his shoulder and looked to see a creature with its teeth dug deeply into his left shoulder. Gregor let out a pained cry, his head fell back and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Celia took out an arrow from the quiver, jumped from behind Gregor and pierced the creatures eye, and when it didn't let go she stabbed its other eye with quick, swift movements. The creature's jaw went slack, it stood up, seeming unaffected by the strikes and gave a blood-curdling screech. A shiver ran through Celia as she screamed and covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes, hoping it would stop. The other creature stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the one screaming, all their eyes glowing red and evil. They all stood up and walked away dragging their arms as they made their way deeper into the Stygian forest.

Celia's opened her eyes to see that they were gone, she looked down and saw her brother face down on the ground. she crouched down and turned him over, "Greg! Greg, please wake up! They're all gone now, please!" she examined his shoulder which had an awful bite with black liquid seeping out. Gregor was beginning to look paler and his left arm had swirls of black veins. Celia scrambled to tear the hem of her dress, lifting her brother's shoulder onto her lap and wrapping the piece of cloth from under his armpit and around his shoulder and knotting it to stop the blood.

The forest was still pitch black, with no sign of life. Celia decided it was time to build a fire since her brother was becoming colder by the second. The fire started with difficulty and she dragged her brother closer to it, placing his bag under his head to pillow it. She sat back and hugged her knees close while she checked her bruised and bleeding ankle.

When she looked back at her brother, his eyes were open, he was staring at her, but one of his eyes was red.

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