The Faceless Forest

6

"Are you guys ok?" Emily struggled to say as she desperately tried to get up,

She screamed when she saw the faceless beside her only to remember that it was Lilly, "sorry Lilly, it's been a lot," she said with a suppressed smile,

"It's ok, I understand the feeling," Lilly replied, she felt like she should have left then and there but something made her stop, maybe it was the bond between her and her friends that stopped her or something else, maybe she even believed that her friends could help her hold on to some good she still had left, even though deep down she knew she should have just left.

Over a course of five minutes they had recuperated from their hallucination with the occasional one every so often, but it seemed that it was the end of that.

The group had walked miles before they decided it was time to put it in for the night. Zoey hadn't had any dreams other than her and her friends sitting down at a table eating lunch discussing how they wish school would be over.

It was Emily to be the first to awake, Lilly wasn't there which surprised her, she heard a snarling behind one of the trees nearby, she thought nothing bad would happen if she checked it out so she did.

She peeked her head around the tree, what she saw almost made her throw up on the spot. It was Lilly, ripping off a rabbits lmb one by one and then eating it's guts. Emily ran back to where her friends were and sat their at some point she decided to pretend to be asleep. She didn't want Lilly to know that she was awake and saw what she had been doing.

Emily had eventually fallen back asleep, not like she had gotten much more, she had had gory dreams of people and animals getting teared apart with Lilly's teeth.

When Emily woke up Lilly was their and Zoey was also up, it looked like they were discussing something.

"Hey," Emily said with noticeable drowsiness

"Hey," the both replied with a grin

Emily sheepishly walked over and sat down next to Zoey. "So whatcha talking about?" Emily asked

"What trail we are going to take," Zoey replied bluntly.

"Oh ok, so what one are we going to go on?" Emily asked

"We haven't decided yet," Zoey said

Zoey hated lying to Emily but she had to for the sake of one of the many secrets she has.

When Emily left Zoey resumed talking to Lilly about what she actually wanted to talk about, her dream. Even though she promised herself not to tell anyone she thought it wouldn't hurt with telling someone who was leaving soon and knew the forest.

All Lilly knew was that Zoe thought she was leaving them, and Lilly was pretty sure that's the only reason she came up to her and started talking about her weird dream. She knew where the place in Zoey's dream was, it was the all the way at the back of the forest, it would take about 12 days to even get their, not mentioning the other things that lurk in the forest.

As Emily walked back to where she was sleeping, she got this feeling it felt bad, like they were lying to her, "which is probably true," she thought.

When the whole group woke up, Lilly and Zoey were back to where they were sleeping as if nothing had ever happened between them.

"Morning," Zoey said in a almost cheery voice.

"Morning," they all replied

"We're going to have a long walking distance for today so be prepared," Lilly said

Grunts and sighs administered from the other group members.

"I will have to warn you, you will see and hear some freaky stuff, it's either a) a hallucination or b) a crazy person."

"There's crazy people!" Emily blurted

"Yeah they try to come up to you and bring back to their little shack, just shake them off if they get to close," Lilly replied as if that happened everyday.

As they started their trek into the woods once more, Emily was the first one to have a hallucination. She saw herself being a crazy person, trying to grab people who decide to walk through the forest, bringing them to her hut and burning the alive, maybe she's read Hansel and Gretel a few many times.

Zoey was the second one to have a hallucination she saw herself being trapped out in the forest and slowly and painfully starving to death while watching all the animals go past her just out of her reach.

Ethan tripped over a rock and fell, when he looked up he saw a serial killer from the 1990s staring at him with a knife ready to be plunged into him at any moment, he blinked and the serial killer was gone, it was only Zach.

Zach hallucinated that Emily was rejecting and then slapping him over and over again, only on the last one she had a knife in her hands she plunged it into him he let out a small gasp and he blinked she was gone and he was sitting on the ground sweating.

Josh kept on getting beaten by everyone, it first started out as his dad then his mom, ten his grandparents then his dog, then it became more personal, his friends would tell him he was worthless and then beat him, he put his hands over his eyes but that wouldn't stop them from beating, only after what felt like hours but was really 10 minutes it stopped. He uncovered his eyes and everything was back to normal, he breathed a sigh of relief.

As it turned out Lilly was the only one not to hallucinate, but that was her reaching one step closer to the evil inside her where the forest was her home and people were her food.

Once again they all had ended up on the ground, except Lilly. They slowly got up and blinked more than they should have.

"Oh wow, those ones were strong," Emily said leaning against a tree steading herself.

"Yeah," Ethan said, looking towards his friends, smiling.

"We should keep moving," Lilly said out of the blue. At this point she was becoming more and more one of the faceless.

"Ok," Emily said standing up straight.

They walked for an hour with countless hallucinations and breaks.

"I can barely take this anymore," Emily thought after her 5th hallucination.