Warnings: nongraphic violence, horror
Word count: 749
Synopsis: Five friends go camping and are attacked by a mysterious creature.
Funny enough I'm writing a sequel to this currently. Media is a chibi version of one of the characters, Aspen. Credit to Liluchuuu on toy.house
Ceri, Melody, Pancake, and Oliver all belong to my friend Bean.
🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙
A camping trip. That's what it was meant to be. Aspen wanted to hang out with her friends in the woods for a few days, away from the stress of everyday life. It even started well, the four of them finding the perfect spot to put up their tents. But spending the night in the woods wasn't always a smart thing to do.
Night had fallen and the five friends were sitting around the fire, joking and making smores. Ceri made one and smiled as he fed it to the snow leopard, making poor Aspen's cheeks flush. Melody was teasing Pancake, Oliver was just having a grand old time helping her. It was just a happy, go lucky time for all of them.
It was Ceri who heard it first, the snapping of twigs behind them. His ears twitched, and he looked back but he saw nothing.
"Is there something up, Ceri?" Oliver asked, tilting his head. The others turned to look at the rabbit.
Ceri turned back to his friends and shook his head, "I don't know. I thought I heard something but it seems that I didn't."
Aspen looked over and a growl tore itself from her throat. She stood up, legs shaky from her fear, and she almost tripped over Pancake. She was just lucky the cat caught her. Melody looked alarmed. She had known Aspen for many years and had never seen her show fear before. What the hell had she seen? Melody tried to get a look herself but saw nothing.
"Aspen, what did you-" Melody's question was interrupted by a hellish scream that chilled all five of the friends to the bone. At first they thought it was human, but only after a few seconds they realized it wasn't. What human could scream like that.
Aspen and Pancake's tails went poofy and they both took off, Aspen grabbing the sleeves of Ceri and Oliver while Pancake grabbed Melody's hand before the five of them took off together. They just didn't realize just how much of a mistake that was.
The thumping footsteps sounded behind them, getting closer and closer. Aspen knew that even with how fast they were, they were never going to outrun the creature chasing them. She pushed down the terror though, even as the creature let out another bone chilling scream. No, ignore it. She had to think clearly.
"We need to split up." Pancake cried, his voice a bit higher than normal in his terror.
Aspen nodded, "Just be careful out there. I'm not going to forgive you if that monster gets you." She joked, trying to keep the mood light.
Pancake smiled despite his fear, thankfully given hope by her joke, "We'll be careful if you three do." The two felines nodded at each other in understanding before they split up, going in separate directions in the forest.
Aspen had been hoping that splitting up would help confuse whatever was chasing them and give them a little bit of distance between them but they were wrong. The howls and screams followed her and the two terrified males she was leading along.
Oliver screamed when he tripped over a rock, sprawling out onto the leaf littered forest floor when the snow leopard lost her grip on him. Aspen turned to help him just to see a clawed, skeletal hand tightly grip him around the ankle.
Aspen sprang into action not wanting to see her otter friend dragged away into the darkness. She pulled the knife she always carried into the woods from her belt and leapt at it, trying to hack at the skeletal arm. It did no physical damage that she could see but the hand released Oliver and retreated back into the darkness.
She helped Oliver up and they took off followed by Ceri. After running for some time, they ended up back at the car, meeting Pancake and Melody who had already made it back. The group decided to spend the rest of the night in the car, not leaving it until morning when they went to fetch their tents and supplies. Unfortunately, while they were able to gather the supplies, the tents were shredded. Unusable.
None of them ever saw the creature that tried to attack them. They didn't even know what the creature was. Though Ceri did notice that after that weekend, one of his coworkers came in with bandages around his right arm. The same arm that Aspen hacked that on the creature.
