My Horror Stories:

The Haunted Forest:

The forest was beautiful in the daytime, it was calm and peaceful with tall Evergreen trees sprouting out of the robust dark soil, numerous kinds of trees with flowers blossoming and fruits ripening, mushrooms thriving amongst the trees, and animals such as rabbits, squirrels, foxes and mice wandered around. There were even large animals such as deers who enjoyed chewing the grass and eating from the fruits that grew on the trees, it was a delight of nature in the daytime.
But at nighttime it entirely transformed into something else, it was dangerous, very dangerous for humans to wander around in, for at night the monsters chose to come out, it was their time to take advantage of and explore the World.
Little did I realise what would happen if I entered e the forest at nighttime because I didn't realise that I may not even make it out alive.
***********************************
It was a beautiful but chilly Autumn day, colourful leaves and foliage scattered the grounds, the Golden sunlight shone from behind the fiery Red, Orange and Yellow multicoloured trees, everything looked so beautiful and surreal it was like a painting come to life.
The leaves crunched under my heeled boots as I slowly walked through the forest, I breathed in the fresh air and looked around me making sure to enlighten all of my senses. I held a bucket in my hand so that I could collect berries, leaves, acorns, pine cones and anything else I could find to decorate my house with for the latest season.
I walked up to a large willow tree and saw that a hole had been carved into the side of the tree, it looked like two faces were peering out of it. I shuddered trying not to be scared but thinking to myself that it was certainly creepy. I moved past the tree and threw some pine cones into my plastic bucket.
In the back of my mind thoughts about the tree and the faces were coming to haunt me. I remembered what my aunt had told me when I had gone to the forest with her as a little girl with my cousin on warm Summer days on my Summer vacation where I would stay over at the house for sleepovers often.
"Ghosts live in trees and this is a ghost tree, see those faces peeking out?" She had told me pointing to the tree and what looked like two faces, a man and a woman looking out. I laughed at her. "Someone probably created it, it looks carved out," I said shaking my head finding what she was saying silly, she could be so strange at times.
"No, it is real. In the forest at nighttime when all the humans are in their homes the ghosts and monsters like to come out and explore because after the sun sets and the sky starts to turn Dark Blue which they call the 'Twilight Hour, they come out, it becomes their time."
I looked at her for a few seconds and rolled my eyes, either she was trying to scare me or was very good at making up intricate stories. They did say that adults loved to scare children in any way that they could and she was trying to scare me but I decided to play along, I was never a paranormal believer to start with.
"What happens if a person is wandering around at this time?" I asked her.
She gasped widening her eyes. "It's not good. You would end up putting your life in danger and the ghosts would either possess you or even worse kill you."
"Ghosts don't exist," I had retorted back to her but now as an adult, I was about to be proven wrong, very wrong.
I went over to where a wooden bench built in the shape of a boat was and climbed onto it, I saw colourful leaves all around me and decided to grab a few to paint over when suddenly my phone started to ring. I got up and reached into the pocket of my coat to retrieve it.
"Hello."
I was met with silence 'it must be a scam caller,' I thought to myself sighing. I was used to getting scam calls from fake companies, they always loved wasting my time and I loved making them angry and wasting their time back.
I heard breathing coming from the phone, it sounded like the person calling had breathing difficulties.
"Who is this?" I asked. "If you are a scammer I will report you to the cops because what are you doing is illegal."
The phone went silent and the call ended. "Whatever," I shoved the phone back into my coat pocket and went back to foraging for Autumnal decorations.
It had been an hour that I had been entranced with exploring the woods and I quickly checked my phone, the sun was quickly setting and I decided that I needed to get out of here when suddenly I changed my mind.
'I mean what's going to happen if I stay here for just one night,' I thought to myself. 'Or even for a few hours.' I decided to myself. I'll stay here for a few hours and see what happens, I doubted anything could go wrong in just a short matter of time but little did I know that my Aunt's stories about the forest being haunted were true and she hadn't been making it up just to scare me at all.
I grabbed my phone and pulled my Purple headphones out of my backpack I decided that I would kill time by listening to some music. I swiped my phone to unlock it and hit the Music Icon. I scrolled through my Songs List until I found the song I wanted; I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys, I shoved the earphones into my eyes and pressed Play.
By the time the song ended the sun had set, the sky had faint lines of Red and Orange clouds forming and it was becoming a deeper hue of Blue. It was "Twilight Time," as my Aunt had described to me so many years ago as a kid, we always used to leave before the sun had set and walk back to her house which was not that far from the forest, we never stuck long enough to find out what would happen we were too scared to and I felt that my Aunt wouldn't take such a risk not with me being a kid at that time.
Another song was about to play but I pressed the Pause Button as I heard a loud thumping sound followed by a piercing scream coming from somewhere amongst the trees.
'What the hell was that?' I thought feeling a wave of panic hit my body as I looked around me. Was there somebody else in the forest too? And why did they scream? Whoever they were something must have happened. I didn't want to think negatively but I couldn't help it and now I was regretting being here in the first place I was about to get up from the bench when I heard another thumping sound. I looked up at the sky it was a Royal Blue now and slowly getting darker. A group of bats flew past me covering the evening sky and I heard an owl tooting from somewhere deep in the forest.
The atmosphere had suddenly changed and become more sinister than the beautiful, colourful natural forest that I had seen in the daytime.
I rolled my headphones and put them into my backpack and put my phone into my pocket once more, I zipped up the bag and decided to move it. My heels crunched among the leaves as I walked at a medium but steady pace. I walked past trees and bushes not paying attention to where I was going when I suddenly tripped and fell over a fallen log that I had failed to notice.
"Ow!" I groaned. My body hurt as it slammed against the wooden log, I fell flat on my face onto the cold leaves-covered muddy grass. Mud smeared against my make-up and glasses and I lay there for a while in shock and pain. I looked over at my feet and tried to get up but a sudden shock of pain hit me. I realised I had twisted my ankle. I looked at the sky and loudly screamed into the forest, letting all the frustration out. It felt good to scream but what didn't feel so good was my ankle. But thank God there weren't any people around I decided to myself as that would have been more humiliating, who knew what they would think and feel? Somebody might have even recorded it I thought with a shudder.
I took a deep breath and told myself to calm down as I struggled to get off the floor I held onto the log that I had fallen over and used it to steady myself when I heard the thumping sound for the third time. 'What is that noise?' I thought to myself. I didn't think it was likely that anybody was around and I knew I was alone in the woods yet the thumping sound made me doubt myself. I looked towards where the creepy tree was and to my horror, I saw that the faces were no longer in the tree. 'Where did they go?' I asked myself. 'Maybe it's another tree,' I thought but I knew it was that tree. I continued to stare at the tree and to my horror, I thought I detected a slight movement at the same time my stomach grumbled as well, it was time for dinner.
'You're just hungry and tired' I tried to convince myself, I hadn't eaten in a while as I had been in the woods all afternoon and that was the most logical explanation I could come up with after all objects didn't move by themselves as it wasn't possible but in the back of my mind I knew I needed to get out of here and go home. 'Just a few more miles, once I reach the lamppost and see the street lights I know I'll be able to get out,' I planned my escape in my head. While I was busy thinking of how I would escape I didn't notice that the tree was now closer to me than it had ever been and was looking down at me.
I slowly got and forced myself to ignore the sharp pain that was coming from my twisted ankle, I thought about calling someone for help but decided that I would just have to rescue myself. I started to walk, the more I moved the more unbearable the pain got, I gritted my teeth and continued walking when I saw a White flash go by almost as if somebody had taken a picture. "What the h-" I was cut off by the sound of an angry growl like an animal warning off a predator, I looked up and saw the tree was now an inch away from me. I shook my head thinking I was being crazy and that I was officially 'losing it.'
I was about to walk further when the tree's branches came swooping down snapping about me, I quickly managed to dodge out of the way as the tree looked as if it was trying to grab me. The tree stood up, about a hundred feet tall leaning over me like a tall monster, its stumps looked like four claws as if it had feet. It was scary and such a crazy moment that I wondered who would ever believe me if told the story to anyone and if I even survived.
The tree branches snapped and twisted around knocking me onto the floor. I yelled out in pain as a branch came swinging at me and grabbed onto me. It held me like an arm and the tree started to lift me into the sky. I cried out for help but of course, nobody could save me as I was the only one there, I looked down at the ground and saw the man and the woman that were in the tree, they were dressed in Black and they looked at me with their wooden faces twisted into a sick smile. I gasped as their image flooded into my mind. They were real and the woods were haunted.
The tree pulled me closer to it and I saw a Black hole inside the tree, a branch pushed me into the hole and I fell and fell deeper into the hole, it was pitch Black and I couldn't see anything. "Welcome to our home." I looked up and saw the wooden ghost couple looking at me, they had entered the tree again. "This is our home, you can live with us now," the ghost man said staring at me with his wooden face.
Before I could do anything the ghost man ran into my body and entered, I saw a White flash and then I closed my eyes and fell.
My face and skin started to harden, my eyes started to shrink back until there was nothing but Black holes left, my nose disappeared and my lips curved into thin wooden pieces, and my arms and legs become wooden stumps like branches. My body was now all parts wooden and no human left.
I was now a Tree Ghost and my face appeared carved into the wood inside the tree beside the man and woman. I was one of them now. If you looked into the tree you wouldn't see a person, you would just see three wooden ghosts staring out into the World, me being a part of them, my face permanently frozen in horror until the night fell and I could roam around the forest freely. It was my new home now.
My forever home.
I should have listened to my Aunt and left the forest at nighttime and believed all the stories that she had told me. Because now I am living proof that the forest is haunted, you don't mess with ghosts or you will regret it, as they will ruin your life.