Candor And Curiosity (A Slenderman Romance)

Chapter 14

The crunch of the dry red leaves beneath my shoes echoed through the trees like the sickening sound of bones cracking under foot.

Shallow puddles of thick, brown water had pooled on the narrow dirt trail, and the viscous brown mud constantly created a thick adhesive between my shoes and the ground, making every step forward a task.

The world around me seemed to have been completely drained of it's color, leaving both the sky and everything under it in a depressing monochrome.

The trees towered towards the grey cloudless sky, their awkward branches stretching towards each other, shielding the ground below from any ray of sunlight.

Drops of rain occasionally rolled down from the leaves and splattered on my cheeks, creating the impression that I was crying.

With every step I took, part of me grew more and more eager to turn back. But with every passing heartbeat, every spastic rush of adrenaline, another part of me pushed forward.

Somehow I had managed to push the thought of death to the back of my mind. I had wrestled that nagging voice in my head (It's name was common sense) to a deep, dark crevice of my mind where all the things I didn't even want to acknowledge at the moment were being held.

I pulled my sweater, as well as my wits, tightly about me and quickened the pace.

Soon, I went from taking a leisurely, unsure stroll to sloshing rapidly down the wet dirt path, hair flying about and heart pounding out of my chest. My eyes lit up with determination as I propelled forward through the uncertainty of what would happen next.

I was asking for death, maybe.

But I had experienced something unearthly.

Something peculiar...

The feeling of not knowing, or not seeing what it was, would've certainly killed me.

So, any way this turned out would be fine by me.

I was thirty minutes down the trail when I came to a sign. It was the only barrier between myself and the crime scene.

Possibly the only barrier between myself and the thing I sought to find...

It was an old, damaged picket sign, chipping away at the edges and weather beaten by the elements. It read:

Park trail ends here. Do not enter.

I regarded the sign with apprehension and brief indecision. I could turn back now, and rejoin the others, or I could continue until I found what I was looking for.

This was it...

The last warning.

"Turn back now Elizabeth. It's still not too late to come to your senses and turn back before it's too late..." It seemed to be saying.

I hesitated for only a moment.

In a sudden burst of energy, I kicked over the sign and ran away laughing, leaving my last hope at salvation floating in a puddle of muddy water, it's warning unheeded.

Time started to slow down.

Each second began to feel like a minute, and each minute began to feel like an hour as I ran farther and farther down the narrow path of destruction.

Strange songs began to fill my hearing, and I realized that they were actually coming from inside of my head.

Familiar voices danced around my brain, bringing to life memories long buried and forgotten.