My Short Stories/Story Prompts ✔️

Path in the Woods

I've never liked collecting firewood. I know it's an easy job but I have the habit of dropping everything I touch. Twigs jump out of my hands as i trip over yet another log. Why does this always happen to me?

For the first time I look out at my surroundings only to find that I don't recognize them. Panic courses through me as I pick up a handful of sticks and twigs. I feel like Dorothy among the apple-throwing trees except there's no yellow brick road to lead the way. My feet pick a random direction and start running on their own.

I don't know how long or how far I run. By some miracle I only stumble a few times. Through the trees I see daylight fading fast which only motivates me to get back more. Weird noises rustle through the branches and my anxiety is through the roof. The fact that animals feed during this time doesn't comfort me in the slightest. No wonder I'm an indoor person.

I glanced behind me for the third time. I swear someone is following me. A shadow appears on the tree in front of me, a girl by the looks of it. I twist so fast she doesn't have the time to move. Before me lies a girl a few inches taller than me around my age, wearing only Brown shorts and tank top despite the Autumn chill. How long brown hair is braided into formal crown on her head. Though simple I have no doubt she can find directions without falling on her face.

"Were are you following me?" I ask.

"Yes." She replies.

"Why? Who are you?"

"That's none of your concern. You're lost, aren't you?"

I scoff. I'm not going to admit to a girl no matter how pretty-did I seriously just think that?-that I'm lost."Nope."

"You just asked yourself how someone could get as lost as you are for the sixth time in the last hour."

Does this girl have bat ears? "Would it make you feel better if you showed me how to get home?"

"I think it would make us both feel better. Follow me." The girl starts forcing her way through the thicket, causing me to keep my arms out so I don't get death by pine needles written on my headstone. I'd stumble as I follow her. It is now dark enough that my vision starts to play tricks on me and I stumble multiple times. Props to the girl for not laughing out loud.

By the time we get back to my cabin we're holding hands. It is so dark that this is the best option and I do not know how she was able to get back to the cabin. I turn to thank her, but she is gone, another mystery in this neck of the woods.