Pieces

The Ghost

The night was about to fall. This was his biggest fear, as he practically pulled himself up the strange looking rocks. He mentally cursed himself for accepting the offer of a trip to the northern mountains by his friends. They were all hikers. He was only an author.

He groaned as he grabbed a hold of a root and the edge of the next giant rock, and pulled up. At this pace, it would tale all night to reach the camp at the top of the mountain. His friends were way ahead of him. He cursed them for being this selfish, too.

Farhad; the six-feet, dark haired, hazel eyed, and all muscular author; was sweating hard now, despite the temperatures rapidly falling with the setting sun. Every muscle in his body ached and his throat was as dry as bone due to the trek and he was already low in water. The one litre plastic bottle in his backpack was half empty and he only had two chocolate bars, a small bag of rations and an even smaller bag of crisps. Other than this, he had a rope, and a pocket knife. And even when these things were very light in wait, Farhad felt as if he had taken down am elephant off his shoulders as he took the bag off. He took a very small sip of water, even when he was dying to take a huge gulp. Because he knew that too much water could kill him.

He sat down on the very rock he was standing on, and looked around. The sun was already gone, as it set earlier in the mountains. The path he just came from looked creepy as hell.

The fingers of the trees seemed to be reaching out for him. Behind every trunk was a shadow waiting to lunge at him. He could swear that he had seen a pair of glowing eyes just a few feet down hill. The blood shot eyes bore into his hazel ones and a shiver spider crawled up Farhad's spine. He quickly packed his bag and climbed as fast as he could on the rocks. This time, the pain didn't matter, for it was fear which was driving him.

The glowing pair of eyes had dried up his blood and now the only thing he wanted was to get away.

He didn't know how far he had come. The thick forest around him was so dark that he couldn't see a step ahead. He considered calling for his friends but then decided against it as he feared that the creature was still behind him would pinpoint his location from his voice.

That's what he had thought. The eyes belonged to a creature, some wild animal who had lost his way or something. Even though a part of him was dead sure that no animal on the face of Earth had such eyes. Big, round, and blood shot, glowing like headlights of an oncoming truck.

Hesitating, he looked back to see if the creature was still following. No, there was no pair of eyes. Farhad took a breath of relief.

Now to find his friends.

He decided I take a risk at keep climbing as he had nothing better to do. He knew his friends had gone this way and this way was the one he would follow.

Nearly falling a few times and scraping his hands and knees, Farhad hardly climbed a few feet. This time there was no fear driving him so the body ache and thirst couldn't be ignored. A few feet more and he finally felt a smile of triumph lift a side of his mouth.

A few meters away was a cave and in it, there was fire.

Farhad couldn't exactly see the fire which, he assumed, his friends had made. Instead he saw a red-orange glow and there was a smoky smell in the air. Yup, definitely fire.

He made his way towards the cave and when he was three feet away from the mouth of it, he tripped.

"Ugh!" He groaned in against as he tried to free his foot from the root. But when he bent down to untangle it, he could swear they were wrapped around his foot. It was as if a tree had grabbed his foot and made him trip.