On Our Side of the Forest (Short Story Compilation)

Sea of Green

 Sea of Green

If I told you how this story ends, would you still listen to what I am about to say? I keep recalling the night in most of my nightmares. I was camping with a few of my friends one warm, summer night. We had found this cute, remote little location in the middle of nowhere. I had been excited, packing us a few drinks to have around the fire. The drive was smooth and scenic. Trees had rushed passed us, "a sea of green" as my friend Emily would call it from the backseat. We all hiked up this little path, deeper into the woods before finding a clearing perfect for us to pitch our tents in. Birds chirped as the sunset began to set in a dazzling array of colors. I helped Emily pitch our tent, Jerimiah, Torbin, and Aemo pitched their tent next to ours.

"Hey Summer!" I turned my head over to Jerimiah and Torbin carrying wood in our direction, their large cabin style tent was being finished by Aemo, "There was a weird marking on a coupled of trees back there," I turned my head back to Torbin, the large grizzly set down the wood."

"What do you mean?" My ears had perked in his direction.

"I'll finish this up, go check it out!" Emily hammered the last peg into the ground, "Aemo and I can finish setting up the area and the tents, you go check it out. Y'all are much braver than us!" Emily laughed, Aemo was not the most intimidating of felines. She was more model-like than an athlete.

"Alright! Here I come," It was no coincidence that we ended up here in these woods. We knew that....something lurked among these trees. I suppose it was our way of really kicking off the vacation right, hunt for a creature that had been terrorizing this forest since the sixties. I followed behind Torbin, his long ear swaying behind him as he walked. Darkness crept upon the sky like a silent thief stealing our light away. We took out our flashlights, stopping at the first tree with several deep scratches on it.

"Bears don't even tear into trees like that," I looked closer, a howl cracking through the night like a whip, "What was that?" Torbin took the words from us all. I stood up, my boots digging into the dirt.

"I would assume....that is our monster," My hands were shaking a little bit.

"The Camera!" Jerimiah caught our attention and started running back towards the campsite. We would need that camera to prove what we caught after all. Torbin and I followed him back.

"What the hell was that?" Emily yelled at us as soon as we emerged from the treeline.

"I think that was the creature! We need the camera and we gotta get moving! Give me my backpack please!" Emily scurried, Aemo handing the camera over to Torbin. Em brought my pack over to me, it was a survival bag essentially.

"Let me stay behind with the girls," We had known that only Torbin and I would end up chasing if this thing had actually existed.

"Fine," Torbin had grabbed his backpack too, waiting by the treeline for me. This was our first mistake. We had separated into smaller groups taking this all as lore. It was very real. Torbin and I ran through the forest back to the trees with the scratches, I used the night vision to see better, Torbin used a large flashlight. The woods were a dense mess of blackness. Even our animal eyes had troubles cutting through the shadows in front of us. My tail would snag on some branches behind me and Torbin had begun to run on all fours ahead of me to keep up with the creature. It was a smart thing though, in an instant, it had the lead step on us.

"Summer! Behind you!" Torbin yelled back at me right before I was thrown aside by the roughest force I could feel. Laying by the tree, I could only point the camera towards the fight. My lungs burned as I breathed, watching as Torbin fought it off just enough for it to run back towards our camp. I finally stood as he came back towards me to give me a hand. Screams could be heard in the distance, and we had to make a choice.

"We have to go..." I was panicking, tears welling up in my eyes. My heart was racing and the night time made everything feel scarier, "We fucked up Torbin! We have to go! If we went back we would die. They have to run and these woods are deep, we are hurt, we will die!" He hesitated, this large grizzly struggled with the idea. I did too, but he knew I was right, so we went in another direction. Hiding and moving for hours. The sun had barely started to rise, casting us with some light as the morning hours ticked away. I was weak, Torbin carrying forward with my hand in his. I was still shaking, checking my every direction.

"A road," I smiled, limping as I rushed behind him to the metal railing guarding cars against the trees. He lifted me over it and before long we saw a car racing down the road. Our car! Emily was racing down the road and stopped hard right in front of us. We jumped in the back seat, Jerimiah holding pressure on a wound on Aemo's thigh. Emily raced off, and we never looked back. I suppose, yes we did make it out alive. Each of us will have a scar on our bodies that will remind us of how fun it was to be creature hunters. Let things that love the dark, stay in the dark. There are things in this world...no one...is suppose to know about. Our video paid off at least though, I mean how do you not go viral after that?