Growing up, the woods around my house was forbidden. No matter what time of day it was if my parents had seen me even a good 20 feet from the forest’s edge they would come running up to me and start yelling at me. And over the years I just stopped trying.
It was the long weekend and my parents were away on vacation, so I decided it would be a good idea to have a party. It was a couple of hours into the party and we were all drunk when a game of truth or dare started among me and my friends.
My friend turned to me and said “truth or dare?” I said dare and my friend dared me to take 5 of them into the woods for half an hour. Reluctantly I agreed to the dare and took them into the forest. This was the biggest mistake of my life.
Not even 5 minutes into the forest my skin started to crawl with the sensation of being watched. I looked around but I didn’t see anything. We had decided to stop for a few minutes to take a break when we all heard the sound that still haunts my nightmares. The sound of ear-splitting shrieks.
We all had shot up with the sound of those shrieks and started towards the sound when we all heard a whoosh, We all looked around we had noticed that one of our buddies was gone, and we had assumed and went to go take a leek so we waited for him when heard a thump behind us.
What we saw was not a pretty site. Our buddy was nearly unrecognizable from what had happened to him. His neck had a massive chunk ripped out of it and his chest and back were a maze of burn marks and claw marks going more than 6 inches deep.
With that everyone started panicking. We all started running for what way we had thought was the exit but in reality, we were all running deeper into this cursed place. While we were running we had heard multiple thumps along the way but I had not dared to look back. When I slowed down and decided to turn around no one was behind me. All of my friends were gone.
I was getting my bearings when I heard one last thump and turned around. There in the darkness were 6 figures lumbering towards me at an alarmingly fast pace. when they got to me the biggest one picked me up and released a mighty roar then dropped me on the ground while the other 5 started to circle me for their first meal. When they launched at me I noticed that they looked like my 5 friends, then everything went black.
I awoke with a few injuries and no clothing. I stood up and started walking trying to get out, Along the way, I found remnants of my friends, limbs were dangling from trees, intestines were draped like curtains across branches and the ground was a mixture of crimson blood and bloodstained leaves. While I walked multiple thoughts ran through my mind. What was this thing? What happened to my friends? As I thought I didn’t seem to notice the pair of eyes that were following me.
When I reached the edge of the forest line I heard one final shriek then I stepped out and found that everyone from the party was gone and my parents had just got home. When they saw me they came running up to me shrieking to get away from the edge of the forest. When I saw them I sprinted towards them. When I looked to the edge of the forest I noticed a large hand with long and burnt fingers vanishing among the bushes.
When I was calm enough to ask questions, I asked my parents what had happened in the forest. My parents explained everything to me. The things in the forest were known to my parents as “The Cursed Ones”, but it’s said that the forest is cursed and that if you die in there your soul becomes trapped and you will turn into these creatures. With finally knowing why I could never go into the woods as a child I felt only the smallest amount of relief.