The Haunted Houses part 1

Red sun rises

A cold breeze coming from the open tent door woke Carrie up. She had a headache so she was just laying with her eyes closed, not moving an inch. Eventually her headache was just too strong so she decided to take some painkillers. She realized Jeremy wasn't in the tent immediatelly when she opened her eyes and got up, but she wasn't worried. Jeremy probably had just woken up earlier than her. She took her pills and stepped out of the tent to a early sunrise. The sun was bloody red, like someone had painted the sky with red paint. Carrie thought the color was unusual and disturbing, she didn't really like it.

Carrie looked around the camp hoping to see Jeremy, but he was nowhere to be seen. She then turned her eyes towards the tent where Dave and Alice were, but their door was closed. She wondered if she should wake them up, but then considered that idea again when she realized how silent and peaceful it was in the camp without two screaming and running people. The only thing she was worried about was the location of Jeremy. She thought about going searching the nearby forests, but decided to have some breakfast first.

While she was eating, Dave and Alice came out of their tent. Carrie wasn't really in the mood to talk to either one of them so she picked up a book and pretended to read. The feeling of growing insecurity about Jeremy was now seriously disturbing her. Alice and Dave were so focused on each other they didn't even notice he wasn't there. Carrie wondered when she had felt as alone and worried as she did this morning, and couldn't think of a time. Her life had always been safe and secure, making her call it boring more than people even wanted to hear. Compared to her current emotions, bored was a thousand times better.

Alice had finally realized Jeremy wasn't anywhere in the camp and started asking if Carrie knew where he was. "I don't know", said Carrie, biting her lower lip. "He wasn't here when I woke up."

"Well what are you going to do about it?" Alice asked with a bossy tone on her voice. Carrie felt the sudden desire to throw the book in her lap straight into Alice's annoying little face. Jeremy was Carrie's boyfriend but it didn't mean that she would just magically know where he was or how to find him.

"Again, I don't know", Carrie replied quickly. "I think I'll go into the forest once the sun comes fully up. Truthfully, I want to get the fuck out of here and if he was here now I'd do anything to get us to leave, But he's not here and I'm not leaving without him."

Alice laughed a little. On a normal day, she could've sounded like any other young girl, but here deep in the forest where anxiety seemed to flow in the air, she sounded like an evil witch. "Stop being so overly dramatic! He's probably fine. You're just being your usual nervous self. You really should learn how to take it easy."

Carrie looked at her with deep disgust. "Yeah, fine. Whatever." She was so done with Alice, Dave and the whole weekend. She even felt a little annoyed by Jeremy. Where was he? Why did he have to just disappear and leave her with these two douchebacks? She had never felt so homesick. She just wanted to feel safe again.

She stayed in her tent for about half an hour, until she couldn't control her growing anxiety anymore. She decided to go find Jeremy so they could leave the forest for good. She looked out of her tent and realized Alice and Dave were either gone or very silent inside their tent. Since they were never able to be silent, Carrie thought it was most likely for them to be gone. Realizing she was now completely alone made her feel really isolated and even more scared than she had been before. She picked up a small bag and filled it up with snacks and a big water bottle. After this she left the camp, fighting tears that were caused by all of her mixed emotions.

For hours she wandered in the forest. At first she was sure she knew exactly where she was, but as the shadows grew taller and the sun was turning red again, she realized she was hopelessly lost. There were no signs of neither Jeremy nor Alice or Dave. Eventually Carrie just couldn't take one more step. She sank into the ground, leaning against a big rock. She couldn't fight the tears anymore. All that had happened was just too much for her: finding a bloody packbag that obliviously belonged to Chad, being constantly disparaged by Alice and having a fear of finding dead people behind the next corner was just too much for her. She sat there, in the slightly wet ground, for over ten minutes and just cried until all her tears were dried out. Then she got up, cleared the little leaves out of her clothes and took a long sip of her water. After wiping the tears on her cheecks with her sleeve, she looked down on the ground. And as if the tears had ripped out a veil of blindness in her eyes, she saw Jeremy's keys lying in the ground few meters to her left. She went over there and picked them up to make sure they really were his. Suddenly she also noticed a path right next to the keys. She wondered how she could've been so blind to not notice it before. She had basically been sitting almost right next to it. After looking at both directions Carrie chose to turn right. It seemed to be lighter in that direction, like there was an open area or a field somewhere there. Besides, if Jeremy's keys were here he couldn't be far away either.

With new courage and determination Carrie started to walk the path forward. The trees were leaning in and constantly touching her hair and even getting stuck in it painfully, but Carrie was still convinced that she'd find the open area and then Jeremy. Her first expectation became reality when the path suddenly ended to a big open field. What she saw there took her breath away.