Hide and Seek

Untitled Part 1

        It was an extremely dark night: the only radiance of light was coming from the moon. I stood beside Josh, accompanied by a girl who looked about sixteen, and another guy who looked about the same age. We had all met beside a small shed, while this place seemed creepy and beautiful, I had no idea where we were. All I knew was that we were here for a game. "Hey guys! You wanna play some hide and seek?" The girl asked, ecstatically. For some reason, I just couldn't turn her down. "Sure! Should Josh and I hide first?" I asked, somewhat impatient to play. "That would be perfect." She told us, with a someone snarky grin on her pale face. The girl had brown hair, and stood at what seemed to be five foot, eight inches. She wore baggy jeans, reminiscent of the 60's, and a long sleeved black t-shirt. The guy beside her looked like the average, everyday guy. The somewhat small, tin-roofed shed was about 30 feet away from a small house, and the back porch light seemed to be dimly flickering, emitting barely any light to provide a basic understanding of where we currently stood; the only other light was the glimmer of the moon. "We'll give you a minute to hide. Essentially, there are no rules, so just go hide wherever you want." She explained, as excited as a 6 year old. Josh and I glanced at each other before taking off into the woods behind us. I held onto his hand so I wouldn't fall behind and end up lost. As we got deeper into the woods, it got darker, and darker, until we came across this wide, open space. We looked back and saw we weren't that far away from where we had started. We turned to each other and filled the air with laughter. I looked around to see what it was like: to my right, there was a long gravel trail that seemed to go on for miles. In front of me, of course, was the slight distant view of the house and shed. Everything else around me had been gigantic trees consumed by the mystery that is the night. Where we were standing seemed to be a bare patch of land in the middle of the woods. I was thinking that there had to have been something here before, like another house or building, but there were no remains of what might have been here. I looked back towards the house to see if I could see anyone; I wish I hadn't. The back porch light of the house was lit up. It had a cheap yellow tint to the light; it must've been an old lightbulb. I noticed someone walking ever so slowing around the perimeter of the shed. From afar, it look as if to be this old woman, perhaps in her mid 70's, lurking around the shed. She had glistening white hair, and aged clothing. She quickly looked over at me, or at least in my general vicinity, and then took off running towards the house; she was gone. "Did you see that?" I whispered, slightly shaken. Josh looked over to the house, and shook his head. "It's just the light flickering, Megan." He chuckled, making small footsteps to the right. "Should I yell loudly and make them think something is wrong?" He asked, laughing. "Josh, no!" I panicked; I did not want to attract the attention of the mysterious elderly woman. "Pssh, like you never did it as a child." He grinned. "No, that's not it. I'm like, really scared." I confessed, shaking a little bit. It had seemingly, and oddly enough became slightly foggy. Josh grabbed my hand, then he screamed bloody murder. We moved to a darker region of the baron area, and sat there, waiting to see if anyone would respond. "Josh? Why would you do that?" I whispered in panic. "Because, it'll be funny." He responded, laughing to himself. I had begun shaking profusely. I'm assuming he had noticed and turned to hug me. "It's okay Megan, we're fine. I'm here, calm down." He began reassuring me. Just as I was starting to calm down, we heard footsteps that seemed to be arriving quite quickly. We pulled away from our hug, and look down the path ahead of us. I saw a lanky man of an unknown age and ethnicity, running towards Josh and I at full speed. He was wearing loose, saggy red sweatpants, and was wearing a blue shirt. He resembled Captain America with his choice in colors, aside from his ragged Converse and down to shoulder length hair. Josh had been pulling on my arm for me to run, but I just couldn't seem to move, I felt paralyzed. Josh was standing behind me, with a continuous grip on my arm, when the crazed man approached me. He grabbed ahold of my shoulders and began shaking me. "I have you baby! No one will hurt you, my darling! I'm here to save you! I love you so much, please come back home!" He manically screamed, blasting spit into my face with every vowel. I began to cry out of fright and shock, he kept shaking me until Josh had told him to back off, then he ran off back where he came from, shouting "You belong to me! You'll realize soon enough!" and then he was gone. I sat on the ground, shaking and crying. Josh got in front of me and held me. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" He was asking me, while wiping the tears away and fixing my hair. He was rubbing my arm and my back to sooth me, and it eventually caused me to relax. "I-I don't know who that was, h-he just came out of nowhere!" I stuttered. Josh held me down for what seemed another five minutes before we both got up onto our feet. We started back up again, lurking throughout the woods for a little while longer. I was curious as to how no one had found us yet, much less how we hadn't run into anyone, besides Captain America's biggest fan. After a couple more minutes of walking around, we decided to head back to where we had started. We arrived at the start, and noticed the guy from earlier was still standing in the same spot he had been in before we even left. Josh waved his hand in front of him to see if he was conscious. "Oh, hey guys." He said, nonchalantly. I looked around out of curiosity, I guess because I didn't really get a good look before. I noticed that the girl we had started out with with was no where in sight."Hey, where's the girl from earlier?" I asked, still looking around. The guy looked confused, "What other girl? Oh, her. She's here, somewhere." He said. As he spoke, she walked from out of what seemed to be thin air. She began talking to us, but I something strange happened to my hearing. I couldn't hear a thing anyone was saying, or a noise that nature was making; everything became silent. I could see mouths moving, but no sound emitting from their mouths. I glanced over, looking for something that might help, and that's when I saw the elderly woman. She began lurking in a circle, encompassing Josh, the odd guy, and myself. She was just inches away from me, walking around the group. Everytime she looked at me, I had this strange paranoia that she was about to lunge at me, like a tiger after its prey. The only thing I seemed to be aware of in that moment, was my lack of ability to hear, and the silver haired woman circling the group as if we were in a cult. Every time she passed me, her icy blue eyes seemed to pierce through me, and made me cautious and skeptical of her every move. She walked with a limp on her right leg, and had no cane to support the extra weight she was putting on her other leg. Suddenly, as she was about to make another round in front of me, she slowly turned her whole body around and stared at me. She was inching herself closer and closer, and I could feel my heart beating faster, and faster. It was only until she was millimeters away from me, that I had regained my hearing; her breath was chilled, and sent shivers down my spine. I felt every word she said on my skin as she spoke:

"I found you."

And then I woke up.