Evoke

chapter 2

I’m exhausted. I had slowed down to a walk about a half hour ago because my legs had started trembling with exertion on top of the stabbing pain in my side. But I didn’t stop walking even though my legs were still shaking a little. The pain in my side was also there but it had lessened to a bearable pain. I did my best to block out the pain in my legs and keep my balance.

But I couldn’t take it anymore. I have to sit down before I fall instead. I made my way over to the base of an elm tree where I sat on the brittle, brown grass, with my back against the trunk. I drew my legs close to me as I rested, taking deep breaths of woodsy scented air to relive myself from the pain in my side, which finally, slowly went away.

But not before long I had to crawl a few feet over to a bush where I barfed my guts out. Once all the food I had eaten from dinner had left my system my body continued to convulse as I puked all the bile I could muster. I must’ve been holding it in ever since I ran from the gut-wrenching, horror filled scene that had stood at the bottom of my stairs because as soon as I sat down my stomach felt unsettled.

I crawled back to the tree when I was done and sat there listening to the leaves rustling in the breeze and the buzzing and hooting sounds of nocturnal animals. I wiped my face from the fresh wave of tears that poured down my face – I’ve been crying ever since I got into these woods and it made navigating my way through here a pain in the ass.

My feet are bloody and scraped – my socks long since ripped to shreds, all that was left were thin strips of fabric that resembled anklets – from stomping over tough tree roots that seem to be crawling all over the ground like spider legs. My jeans have holes in the knees; revealing my scraped knees from landing on the same rough roots. And my gray shirt is smeared with dirt. All of these things pale in comparison after what just happen.

It’s been an hour since I ran screaming into the woods after witnessing the murder of my family. I’ve come to the conclusion that they were killed by vampires. There’s no other possibility: their eyes were red, I clearly saw their fangs and I saw the blood drain out of my mother and sister. Every normal and sane part of me was screaming that that cannot be true, vampires are not real and if they’re not real that means your family is still alive, this is just some twisted nightmare. But this is so painfully, heartbreakingly, devastatingly real, there is no way to go back and fix everything, I just have to live with these horrendous facts and learn to move on with my life. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move on as long as I live.

I looked around at all the elm trees that surrounded me; with the darkness they looked twisted and haunted, the tapering branches looked like they were clawing at the night sky determined to rip out the stars. Now that I’m thinking about it, running into these woods was the worst idea ever. It looks so, creepy at night, I have multiple scratches on my face from branches that I didn’t see until I ran straight into then and who knows what’s lurking in the shadows. Plus the waning moon was no help at all because it was blocked by the canopy of tree branches and what stars that did shine through all the trees foliage were still effected by the city lights this far out making them dim and barely useful. So here I am: stuck in the middle of some woods with no clue of getting out or even what could be staring at me through the darkness waiting to pounce. And on top of that those vampires could’ve followed me in here and if so they could be hiding a few feet away in the shadows about to strike and I would never know.

I have no help whatsoever since it’s only been two weeks since we’ve moved from our apartment in Arizona to a house in Colorado. Sure I’ve made one friend but we barely know each other and I would feel really awkward trying to explain to her what just happen to my family. Plus I don’t know where she live so I couldn’t even go over to her house begging for help if I wasn’t already helplessly lost in these woods. I can always get in contact with my family if I ever get out of these cursed woods.