None of them believed me when I said I could hear them. Camped around fire pits, canvas tents strung up high, plastic folding tables littered with beer bottles and playing cards, it was all so carefree. But not me. I sat against a tree trunk next to my tent, which was only feet from the tree line of the vast forest around the clearing, black rifle in my arms, locked and loaded. The wind was loud and strong, given that we were camped on an island, but still I heard them. Whispers, words in a language I couldn't comprehend, all around us, encasing us in what we thought was our own safety.
Demons. Little yellow creatures that stalked the foliage high and low, just waiting for any one of us to make a wrong move and step into their domain. None of the men around me said they heard what I did, writing me off as the weirdo but my ears didn't lie. My eyes saw the truth. They were watching us from the shadows, plotting our very demise with every second that passed. I tried to warn everyone with no success and it was a matter of time before the devils struck.
A snap of a twig in the forest made me whip my head in that direction and just barely I caught a glimpse of one of their wide triangular heads ducking down into the brush, the whispers starting up again. It was almost like the trees themselves were speaking with hatred and vitriol, hissing demonic words like a nemesis insulting the hero of a fairy tale. Though this was no fairy tale, no children's story, and their hushed threats were promises of violence. That, or they were making fun of us, watching as my campmates were helplessly oblivious to the situation they were a part of. What awful god set these monsters on us? What deity above or below would torment those unaware? One with a sick sense of humor, one with no regard to fair engagement.
Tirelessly, the days past and the voices, the whispering grew closer. At times, it sounded as if they were in my ear, right behind me, or behind the others, yet still they heard nothing. The one day I did finally pass out from sleep deprivation, was the day they emerged. I awoke to horrible screaming, a roaring orange blaze of hellish fire sweeping through our camp, an ominous rumbling in the sky accompanying it. I exited my tent to see the bodies of those I tried to tell, tried to warn of the impending doom, lathered in their own blood and sinking into the dampened mud. There were several rolling in the dirt, trying to stave off the flames that were consuming their bodies, transforming their skin into a mangled, charred mess.
Then I saw them. The little yellow demons in black, rushing around to finish off any survivors with their weapons with fixed blades, shouting words of foreign origin. Their hatred of us was on full display as they stabbed the limp bodies over and over, blood spraying on their faces. I looked around for something to defend myself with, but was instead knocked to the ground after an impact to my chest. The demons approached me, the final squirming survivor of the camp, pain erupting throughout my torso as I looked down to see my shirt turning a velvet red. They stared down at me, smiles on their faces as they brought their blades down in a final act of victory.
