Mystery of the Boundaries

Chapter Four

On the outside, it looks like a dark sinister canopy of trees, but on the inside, it's much, much worse. The slight chill in the air and the eerie silence are enough to sent my teeth chattering, although I don't know if it's from the coldness or the fright. The warmth of Jim's hand is immensely reassuring, and gives me the courage I need to keep on going.

"Are you alright?" I ask Jim, who is shivering in the cold.

"Y-yeah," he whispers, "j-just d-d-dandy."

I laugh, and it echoes around the whole forest, "You should have brought a jacket," I gloat. To prove my point, I wrap my own furry jacket around myself tighter.

He just simply glares at me. Fine, ignore me then.

When he stumbles over the root of a tree, he begins cursing under his breath rapidly. I stifle a giggle at the unintelligible words and try to help him up--but boy, was he heavy! It didn't help that the mysterious root was curling slowly around his ankle. What the heck?!

"D-don't you at least have s-some sort of sharp w-weapon?" He grunts.

"Oh yeah!" I realize, and take out my dagger. After a few minutes, I finally manage to saw the root off his foot (don't worry, I didn't cut his leg) and we headed back to the ghostly trail.

Only thing was, the trail had disappeared.

"I'm pr-pretty sure the darn thing was h-here a f-few seconds ago!" Jim says furiously. Does the arrogant troll need anger management? I didn't think I am helping by correcting him though.

"A few minutes ago, you mean." I stare at him weirdly.

"It d-doesn't matter," he groans, "d-do you think we have to w-walk through the f-forest?"

"Duh," I roll my eyes, "Are you stupid or what?" He goes back to his day dream of me being in a volcano of dinosaurs.

We begin walking again, except we had no idea where we were going. Without the path to guide us out of the forest, we were as lost as Handsel and Gretel when they were busy trying to spy a candy lodge (although it's more like candy hell for them, whereas Jim and I are trying to spy a way out of this voodoo forest). In reality, there were also monsters that could rip you to pieces in the blink of an eye and creatures who could paralyze you if you stare at them long enough.

On more than one occasion, one of us jumped like a frightened kangaroo because of the eerie shadows that moved, creating the illusion that someone was there. It also began raining cats and dogs at one point. The huge blasts of wind howled and shook the massive trees, whipping my hair sharply against my cheeks so much that it hurt. The splattering rain ceased to end, and soon, a huge mist of water poured down on us, causing our eyesight to be completely useless.

"Ow!" Jim whined.

"What?" I hiss as we stumble across the wooded landscape to who-knows-where.

"Stupid tree branch hit me in the face!" He complained. "I think I'm bleeding!"

"Well, I'm sorry that you have to put on your big boy pants and suck it up!" I tell him, annoyed by his attitude.

I hear no replies. There was another deafening roar of thunder, then a huge bolt of lightning strikes the very tree beside us, blasting it apart with fury.

"Run!" I shriek. And we do, blindly, as the trees appear right out of thin air due to the thick fog. We almost always run straight into them, stumbling on the gnarly roots. Branches shake and twist madly, thorns scrapes our skin, creating thin scratches that's causing us to bleed.