I am back from the forest. Things were worse than I thought. Far worse.
My phone at my side, the countdown looming, I had quickly left the room and stepped through the door onto the hard earthen soil and the leaves. I could smell the fresh air again, could feel the wind wheezing around me. I looked back into the room, thinking about what I was about to do one last time.
Should I really proceed? Venture into this nightmarishly lush forest? Risk encountering whatever had stalked the person who made the video? Do as I was told?
But the countdown pushed me onwards. I did not know whether I would find my way back to the room in case of encountering the creature and having to run, so I heeded your suggestions and tried to mark the way. I did not have enough time to look for pepples or sticks, but I marked some trees with a sharp rock I picked up from the ground. Of course, there were still potential problems: The room might just disappear when I could not see it anymore, the terrain might change, I might get lost forever in this bleak hell.
Still, I had no choice but to go, so I walked between the bushes and trees, carefully marking the trunks every now and then so that I still would find my way back. The time was running away, and I had to be really careful not to stay on one spot for too long and not to mark too many trees. Time was valuable.
All around me, the green grew increasingly rampant. I tried to look out for a familiar place, thinking back to that damned video. I was sure that I had to get to the ruins; that is what the voice had told me after all. I did not dare to think about where exactly I was. How far this place stretched. How many other people or… creatures were around me, hidden in the green. The sounds of birds echoed once and then around me, but I could not see any other living thing.
Should there not have been a bird? A fox, an insect? Somewhere? On a trunk? I started thinking that this was not a real forest, at least not a forest I was familiar with. Back home, I had been to the woods now and then when I was younger. That is why I knew: This was something else. Another place.
Home… I wonder if I will ever get back.
I had walked for about an hour, looking for signs of other beings and for the ruins when I stumbled across a path. It had clearly been created artificially and was smooth and sandy.
I knew that path! I had seen the other person running along it in the video, hunted by a weird creature. Or, well, perhaps it had just been unfounded panic? Then again, I had heard the noise in the distance as well. So the person likely had fled…
The treetops were dense, and I could not see the sun. For a moment, I thought about climbing up and trying to get a better view, but it would have cost me too much time. That is why I decided to start along the sandy path and hoped to find anything that could help me. After walking for another half an hour, still carefully marking trunks around me - even though I was taking the trail - I found it.
It was a bit off the path, half covered by some shrubbery: The weird tent-like structure, made from rotten tree trunks.
4:34:23 remaining.
I hesitated. Closed my eyes and listened. Heard the rustling, the singing of distant birds. But not the weird noise from the video. I decided to approach the structure. Perhaps I could find clues. Perhaps the person before me had been here not long ago. Then again, perhaps the video had been years old. Who knew? I don’t even know how long I have been gone from the real world. I think it has been something like eight hours, but I don’t know. How long has it been for you, I wonder?
A red amber-like structure shone from the tree in the center of the wooden construction. It looked like small channels of blood had run down the bark and suddenly frozen. I did not dare touch it. I mean, who would have? It still looked alluring and strangely beautiful. Almost like a net or a work of art. I shuddered.
2:32:23 remaining.
What the fuck? Shit! How long had I been staring? Two hours? Seriously? Shit! Was this… some kind of trap? This “tent”? It had been the last place the video had shown before the weird painted picture appeared. I had to be on the right track! But why the hell did this happen? Why had it hypnotized me… or whatever it had done? Shit.
Then, I got sick. I realized that I would likely not be back at the room in time, even if I found the cube now. Even if…
I closed my eyes. My heart was beating, and terror gripped a hold of me.
FUCK!
I opened my eyes, looked around. I had to observe. What if I found the person that took the video? Could that person help me? Did that person know more about this situation? Was there a way to get more time? Ridiculous thoughts, but I was grasping for straws. What would you have done? I could not give up, I knew that. I had to find someone else! I did not want to die in a forest in another… world? Without anyone knowing what had happened? No!
Over there!
The leaves were scattered unnaturally, and some were squashed! Perhaps the other person? Perhaps it had not been too long since the video was taken, after all? Where had that person run to? I had to find whoever was here with me. I did not want to be alone anymore. I did not want to die alone! If my Friend even killed me, that is. Perhaps there was worse in store for me?
Hastily, I started to run. I had never tracked someone else before; I probably would not have managed to under normal circumstances. But there, I saw the marks of shoes, deeply buried into the ground, crushed leaves, broken twigs. I could do it!
My journey did not take me far, perhaps a hundred meters. Then, I smelled it. A stench of rot, of decay.
SHIT!
There was a small hill, the first elevation I had encountered since I had gotten into these damned woods. Rocks and bushes started to get in my way, and the terrain became harder to traverse. The stench got worse, and a part of me did not want to proceed, but I had to. There was no other option! At least something different would be there beyond this hill.
I had to cover my nose because I was getting too sick. When I reached the hilltop, I let out a gasp. Down there, not forty meters away, I could see the ruins from the video. The archway was not as tall or imposing as the one that had been depicted in that horrid clip, but it was without a doubt the rotten building I was supposed to find. Was the cube there? Would I be able to make it after all?
I slid down the side of the hill, ran the last meters to the ruins. The reeking smell made me tear up. My good mood was shattered when I saw him. There was a boy, perhaps fourteen, lying on the ground some meters behind the building.
Or what was left of him.
His stomach was torn out, and his innards were lying on the ground next to him. Dried blood was covering his face. One of his arms was just a weird stump, metallic cables with barbed wire buried into his flesh. His other hand was holding a smartphone. Two fingers were missing, replaced by weird rods. But the most horrifying thing were his eyes, twitching around, in the end finding me, looking at me.
The boy started howling terribly, making me accelerate my steps even more. I ran towards him, even though there was no hope. Kneeling next to him, I saw that there was a strange glimmer of hope in his eyes. How the fuck was he still alive? He should have been dead… He should have been dead!
“Hey, HEY! Look at me! Can you hear me?” I asked, kneeling beside him, ignoring the stench of his rotting intestines.
I did not expect him to answer. I just expected him to die.
“Mort… I… Mort… Please…” he managed to gurgle.
A thousand thoughts fired through my brain. Should I ask about the ruins, about the cube? About what had happened to him? About this place, this fucked up world? About the monster, the video? Shit. I did not know what to do.
Should I ease his suffering? I hated myself for that thought. But, I mean, he was clearly dying! What would you have done?
“It will be over soon. I am sorry. Shall I end it? Do you want to die?”
Oh fuck, I am such an asshole. I still don’t believe that I actually asked him that. Mort… poor Mort… What the fuck happened?
To my horror, he laughed, blood splashing out of his mouth and the wound in his stomach.
“You… are a new one?”
I froze. What? What did that mean, how… I did not want to think about it. I wanted to leave, but I could not leave him behind! While I was lost in thought, he continued.
“I failed. Sorry… I… see that you are new… go on… leave me. Run. Do what you are told… I did this for you… I succeeded! Don’t let this be in vain, don’t be an idiot…”
He had trouble speaking and lost more and more blood.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You are gutted, bleeding out, and want me to leave? What do you mean? You did this for me? How…? I did not ask for this! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“My Friend will come…. I did well…! Run! RUN! It is coming, I can hear it!”
In the distance, I heard it too. The noise. The noise from the video. But closer. What made that noise? I did not want to find out. But I could not leave him! Suddenly, he raised his hand, twitching. The hand that held the phone. There was no countdown showing, just a message.
Exploration COMPLETED.
What the fuck?
“RUN! GO!” Mort gurgled.
I ran. I am sorry; I just ran. It came closer; I heard it! I could not see, but it was there. I felt its presence, closing in, heard the terrible noise. Looking at Mort one last time, seeing his eyes urging me to flee, I ran. I ran through the archway, down the path leading farther into the distance. There had been no sight of a cube, anyway. I just wanted to get away from the entity.
The landscape slowly turned rocky and started to look weirdly ancient and noble. The trees grew bigger. I imagined hearing Mort’s screams in the distance but told myself that they were only in my imagination. Birds were singing stranger songs, and now and then, a clear creek taunted me with the look of sprinkling clear waters. After battling my way through gnarly trees and thick bushes, I finally reached a vast, breathtaking hilltop. The sound of whatever was out there had finally faded, and I could rest.
0:54:28 remaining.
What was I supposed to do? I would never get back to my room! Desperately, I looked ahead.
Not many places have ever sent a shiver down my spine, but the age-old forgotten ruins I gazed at felt foreign and unsettling. Surrounded by huge oak trees and spruces, the remains of a time long gone looked gloomy in the sun’s light breaking through foggy clouds. The giant trees around the ruins seemed suffocating and threatening. I decided to take a closer look at the ruins, having no options left. Perhaps it would not be as bad as I feared when I at least got to the cube?
Many of the stones coming out of the ground were almost entirely covered by moss, looking uncomfortably old. The remains of houses or castles you would normally see in the real world have all been built in the early Dark Ages, but these rocks clearly came from another time.
I started to make my way slowly and carefully to the place in the center of the crumbled buildings. That wasn’t an easy task as many areas had been overgrown by weeds, bushes stood in the way, and small, hidden rocks in the grass made me tumble several times. Additionally, the timer pressured me.
0:23:34 remaining.
I passed a big, degraded archway, marked by the weather of eons passed, crumbled by the force of a thousand thunderstorms. Or so it looked. Menacingly, it towered into the skies, almost like the gateway to a different world. Its builders must have had an unnatural taste as its shape seemed strange for human standards. But why would I even expect human architecture in this horrid world?
The smell of wet moss forced its way into my nose. Normally I like that smell, but something alien was mixed within, making me feel uneasy. I am sorry that I cannot aptly describe it. It was just so intangible and distant.
Rocks shaped like pillars reached up into the sky all around me, looking uncomfortably natural, like having grown on their own. They were long and skinny, grey and cold. Wall fragments that were rising from the ground up to the height of my hips, had small, regular fissures run across their surface. They depicted images of peculiar people – only stick figures to be precise, though large and skinny.
The whole place was alienating. I listened tensely into the sky, but all I could hear was the sound of leaves moved by the winds. At least the creature had not followed me. Still, although nobody was with me, I felt the presence of distant, intangible beings. Slowly, I went on through thorny bushes. In the end, I had nearly reached the center of the ruins.
Then I saw it. Directly in front of me, in the center of the crumbled buildings of forgotten days, a structure rose from the ground. It was a cylindrical stone, perhaps a meter in height and three meters in diameter. The stone appeared to be made from granite. It fell immediately into my view. Standing there, my phone counting down, I just stared at it. I took a step towards the structure and touched it. The surface was cold, felt dead, raw, and contained small, irregular bumps.
And I saw something else. In the middle, on top of the stone, a peculiar object rested. It was small and oddly shaped, a thing made out of a material not determinable. Black and tarnished, though not clearly of stone or a metal known to me.
A cube!
Or something looking faintly like a cube. It had regular edges and a carefully worked surface, but also had weird angles and shapes. I slowly bent over and finally held the object in my hands. It appeared to be a geometric shape, but one I had never seen before, yet it also still looked like a distorted cube. Lifting it up, I could feel the age of the thing. It was not too big. I ran my finger over the smooth surfaces. A bad feeling got hold of me, but I could not put it away. Was this the cube? The one I was supposed to get for my Friend?
CUBE obtained.
I did not know what to think. Did not know what to feel. The timer was gone, and only those words flashed on the screen of my phone. YES! I had made it! I had…
Return to your ROOM. Bring the cube to your FRIEND.
I froze. It wanted me to get… back? Back through the ruins? Back through the forest? Back where… it was? No! Shit.
But I had made it this far. The timer had only referred to the time I had to find the cube! Thank God! I could take my time now. I could slowly…
The noise ripped me out of my trail of thoughts, out of my happiness. It drowned my relief. It was here. In these ruins, with me. The creature from the forest. I felt it coming! I had to leave! Clinging to the cube, I realized that it would block my way. I could not go back the way I had come from! Would I get lost? Would I get eaten, or worse…?
I heard it coming, closer, closer. It was just around the corner of one of the run-down walls. Hectically, I looked around. And there it was. The door to my room. Not six meters away. How had it gotten here? How had I not noticed it before? How…
The howl again.
I ran. I held the cube and ran, ran towards my room. Behind me, I could feel it coming. Coming around the corner. How quick was it? Would it get to me before I reached the room? Would it…
When I jumped through the door, I could feel it behind me. The gaze of a being that had lurked in those woods for longer than I could fathom. That looked for prey, for blood and flesh. To tear and rip and eat…
I did not turn around, but I heard its horrifying noise directly behind me. When I smashed the door shut, silence immediately spread. Behind me, there was just a closed door. Behind me, there was quietness. In front of me, my room. And the computer.
So, now I am writing to you. I am still exhausted, the weird cube lying on my desk. I am so terribly afraid. I think back to Mort. What happened? How long was he there already? How long had he been stuck? Will I be stuck here as well? I don’t know.
I want to rest. But I also want you to know about everything… Perhaps if I entertain you by writing this down, I will have better odds at surviving. So please, keep supporting me. Just don’t look for channel! Be safe!
I am so happy that I am back from the forest, but I am afraid of what will be next. I will get back to you soon… I hope.