INSIDE THE FOREST

CHAPTER 2

"Jane, wake up!"

I woke up disoriented and very scared; it was again the voice of that woman whispering things to me. From the moment we arrived in Forest Valley, I began to have very strange dreams, where a woman took her own life. Although my father was convinced that they were just nightmares for keeping me awake, I knew that this was not the case; When you have a nightmare, you feel anguish, or at least a drop of terror, but that was not my case. On the contrary; Every time I saw the woman of my dreams, I felt a kind of indescribable calm; It was as if a huge weight was lifted from me, but I had no idea what this was all about.

Anyway, I couldn't stay awake much longer analyzing all this, because I had to go to school the next day; so is. My father had not only worked hard to get a school, but he had enrolled me as soon as we arrived in this town. So I figured I should get a little more sleep, so I could at least get to my new school with some energy.

As soon as I got up from my bed, I went immediately to see how my mother was doing; My grandparents had placed her in a room near the living room and the kitchen, which made it easier for her to do some activities, such as watching television or getting up to prepare something to eat. After that, I prepared myself as fast as I could to go to school; Apparently our new house was somewhat far from all civilization, which made the task of going to buy something or going for a walk with my friends much more "entertaining", if I managed to do one in this place.

The thing is, because my father still didn't get a job, he would be in charge of accompanying me to school every day, or at least until I learned the way there and back very well, which meant that we would spend a lot time together, apparently.

The way to go from our house to the town was something strange; Or well, that seemed to me because we left very early, and there was still not much light to say. You could only see the huge silhouettes of the trees that, more than inspiring peace and harmony, inspired respect and some fear. They were a bunch of towering giants hiding something mysterious that I was dying to discover, but this was not the time. I had to go to school first and try to make friends to keep my father happy.

When we finally reached the entrance to the school, I realized that it was not as bad as I imagined it to be; It was big and wide, and although it had few colors, I sensed that it was more fun than it appeared. So, I said goodbye to my father and prepared to go inside.

I admit that at first I felt like a weirdo; and is that it was not for less. Everyone there knew each other; They talked about their outings over the weekend, the boys talked about who would win in the next soccer game, and the girls talked about boys and laughed when the boy that one of them liked came. Even though everyone looked nice, it didn't matter to me if they did or didn't do their thing. The only thing that interested me at those moments was to be able to locate myself correctly, and then not get lost when it came to entering classes.

On the way to the classroom where I would have my first hour of classes, I found myself face to face with, perhaps, the strangest boy I had ever met; he was tall and very thin; So much so that it resembled the silhouette of the trees surrounding my new home. But, equally, don't pay much attention, because at that moment the bell rang and I had to go to class; but that did not remove from my head the strange encounter that I had had moments before with that strange boy.

Anyway. The morning went by so fast, I didn't even realize how many hours of class we had had. When I left class, all I thought about was locating the boy who had met me hours before in the school hallway, but it was an almost impossible mission; the boy had disappeared; There was not a single trace or clue where he could have gone. Since I had not found it, my only option was to go home, because I did not know this town at all, and I did not want to get lost in the first days living here, so I decided to go home on my own. My father had taken too long to pick me up, so I figured he must be resting at home, or looking for a job at one of the many shops in town.

Luckily, my father had told me about an easier way to get home, than going through the immense forest; Apparently, since we got here, he hadn't wanted me in the world to approach that forest for anything. I don't know why so much concern; Maybe he knew something that I didn't, and that scared me sometimes. But like everything in this place, I let it pass by.

One of the many shortcuts I took to get home reminded me of the woman who appeared in my dreams; and it is that, I could swear that since I was standing, in the middle of a narrow road, you could clearly see the place where the woman of my dreams had taken her life; It was a kind of slightly steep hill that I had no idea where it was leading, so I decided to forget that strange moment and head home as fast as possible.

When I got home, there was no one there, so I figured they should be in town looking for some medicine for my mother; the truth is not so worried that they were not there, but the feeling that there was in that house. It was as if there was actually someone present at those times, and I felt really uncomfortable, so I decided to leave the house. It was already getting dark and it was very cold; but it was fascinating to be standing there. Never, in all the days that he had been in Forest Valley, had he seen or felt anything similar. And it turns out that, from my beautiful house, I had a spectacular view of the hill on which I had previously been, and in which that woman took her own life. You couldn't see anything clearly, but I knew she was there; I don't know how and much less why I knew this, but what I did know was that she was there. I could not move; I was hypnotized, in a way, by something that was hidden beyond the forest; something that, although I couldn't see, if I could feel, and I knew that little by little, that thing was emerging from the immense darkness of the forest. Anyway, so as not to make things longer, that's the only thing I can remember; after that, nothing. I only know that my father came and found me thrown on the ground as if it were a rag doll; He took me inside, and he laid me on my bed. But, there was something different, something that without knowing what it was, made me shiver even in the deepest part of my being. It was there that I first felt true fear.