Don't you shy away

nine

||Ryana Bronwyn Caldwell||First person||

I was walking in the forest, dried out leaves and sticks cracking under my feet. I didn't know where I was going, but I felt that something wasn't right. So, I kept going forward, letting my instincts choose my path. I was deeper in the forest than I have ever been, when I realized, I was going uphill. But that didn't matter. After minutes, or maybe hours of steady walking, there were less and less trees around. And finally, I reached the top of the mountain. The view was beautiful. I could see whole Columbus, but also the enormous woods and hills surrounding it. I sat down on the soft grass and watched the beautiful sunset. A few minutes later, I saw something moving in the corner of my eye. I turned my head to the side.

And I saw him.

It was Tyler. He was crying. He was standing at the very edge of the mountain, staring down at the menacingly deep chasm. Tyler was just standing there, covered in the sun's glow, looking down at the forest which was already in the shadows. The sun moved slowly, the shadows creeping up on Tyler's body... They were at his knees now... He looked around and saw me. The shadows were busy covering his thighs now... He didn't move, so I stood up and began slowly striding towards him. The darkness was already crawling up his upper body, his chest... He looked up, in the sky with a pleading look in his eyes, but the shadows didn't stop. They covered his throat, his chin, his mouth, his nose, his eyes... He was completely in darkness now. And then, Tyler jumped. He jumped off the cliff, down, into the inviting darkness, where you no longer have problems, where you no longer have to deal with anything, where everything no longer matters. He threw himself into the lap of strangling death.

I heard myself let out a horrified, bone-shaking scream, and I collapsed on the grass.

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Author's note:

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