Forest

9.

|Adam|

As Mel and I dash through the underbrush of old, fallen leaves, we hear a tormented scream. Melody freezes immediately, skidding to a stop and dropping my hand like a hot pocket. I immediately feel the coldness of the air incinerate the warmth where her hand had been. 

"Melody? Are you okay?"

She keels over, putting her palms on her knees as her ragged breathing intensifies with every second. My heart drops. 

I dart over to her side, enveloping her shoulders in a hug and trying to sit her up to see what's the matter. She shrivels under my touch, simultaneously tensing and disappearing. Her deep brown hair sticks in every which direction, plastered to her temple and sticking up above her caramel face. Her previously so neat ponytail now replaced with a half-assed messy bun. 

"Don't fucking touch me," she snarls under her breath, pulling away from me and glaring daggers into my soul. I flinch backwards, not from her harshness, but from the blank, empty look lingering in her eyes. As if she's looking right through me. 

"M-Mel?" Her name evaporates into the damp air before me. She whips her head back and forth, eyes like UFOs, as if seeking something out in the forest. Her eyes visibly squint suddenly as she narrows in on something in the distance. 

"Hey, Mel, are you oka-"

Without warning, she takes off sprinting away from me, letting out savage snarls and demonic-sounding pitches of noise. Leaves kick up in her wake, her backpack hurtling to the forest floor. As she moves further and further away from me, I see her shadow morph, distorting into a creature with lanky, stretched-out limbs and hideously long legs. 

I tell myself it was just the trees making me see things. But nothing could excuse her weird ass behavior merely seconds earlier. Goosebumps viciously attack my body, wracking me with terror and rendering me immobile as I collapse to the damp ground. I can't seem to pull myself back together, so I just sit there. Alone in the forest.