I woke up, there was nothing. My vision was a dark void. I remember blinking a couple times to see if I had gone blind, and slowly I started to make out shapes. Tall pillars, then smaller pillars attached… They were trees. It was very VERY dark. I realized there was no sound, but it was because my ears were ringing.
I realized I was laying on my stomach, and slowly reached to touch my head… but couldn’t. My eyes widened, and I slowly lowered my arm in front of me. Where my wrist ended… was nothing. The bone from my arm jutted out slightly, and the end of my arm looked like my hand was mangled off by a bear.
There was blood… but not as much as you’d expect. In fact, it looked as if the bleeding had stopped mere minutes after it started. I started feeling light headed, and not from a loss of blood. I shot my head up from the position I was currently in, and once more examined my surroundings.
As the ringing in my head slowly cleared, I noticed there was still no sound. The woods just stood there… watching me. I was so astounded by the sheer blackness of the forest and the silence that for a brief moment, I managed to forget my missing hand.
Something about the situation paralyzed me. I should have felt every fiber of my being pulling me to dash directly in any direction to get out of here. But I couldn’t, the darkness seemed almost unnaturally dark. I could only see maybe 15 feet in front of me. Beyond that… was nothing. It was so silent I could hear my heartbeat. I had stayed in the same position with the same flabbergasted expression for what felt like minutes. It felt like the forest was telling me that no matter what, I must stay completely still and silent.
Normally, I would have screamed at the sight of my missing hand- on instinct more than anything. But I listened to the forest, because I felt the same dread that it did. I had never gotten up from my stomach, so I slowly laid my head back down on the ground. My eyes remained wide open, and I was staring to my right into the void… I hated it.
I was about to turn my head so I’d be face planting the dirt, until I finally heard something. From my left, a slow rhythmic thumping started growing in volume. It never changed direction, as if it was walking directly towards me. I somehow remained even more still, as if my body had locked itself in that position.
It reached maybe 10 feet away and stopped. I may have been frozen, but as the seconds turned to minutes, an urge started growing inside me. My heartbeat wasn’t beating fast at all, but rather it felt like minutes passed between each heartbeat. The footsteps finally started again, and as I opened my eyes again, my vision almost warped. The trees seemed to bend away from me, the darkness formed flashes of silhouettes in the forest. As it came within 5 feet, a rumbling picked up in volume in my head. Finally, it all stopped at once…
A… foot stomped down in front of my vision, and it was as dark as the forest around us. They then just stood there, over my still body, as if they were watching me for any movement. After an eternity, I felt hands grabbing my head. There weren’t just 2… there were 3 hands feeling my head- as if they were searching for something. They stopped, and then they walked in a different direction than they came. Once I could no longer hear them, I finally stood up on my knees for the first time and shot my gaze back to where they had left, and then to where they came from.
As I stood on my feet, I finally let myself breath deep heavy breaths, as if finally letting out the pent up panic was relieving. I collapsed to my knees, and started crying. I wanted to scream, but managed to keep it down. Finally I stood back up, and began slowly walking through the trees, making sure to stare at the ground and make as little noise as possible.
I’m not sure what got into me, but my pace picked up faster and faster. Before I knew it I was sprinting wildly through the trees trying to find some sort of escape. I finally stopped for a moment, and frantically looked around. Then… the forest made its first noise.
A sharp breeze made its way towards me, and the wind almost carried a voice- Some sort of demonic whisper, as if the trees had one word for me…
“Run…”
I listened, I started sprinting once more… and smacked face first into a branch. My vision went pitch black for a while. When I opened my eyes, I was confused. On each side of my view, sat two pure white circles. Except the contrast in them seemed to shift in unison, as if the orbs were moving around. It slowly hit me what I was looking at, as I could make out the trees once more in my peripheral vision. Before I could truly grasp what I was looking at, a wide smile appeared and the pure white of its teeth sat mere inches from my face.
My face turned to pure horror, and against the pitch silence of the forest, I finally led out a horrific scream. The thing seemed to flinch, and I kicked it in the face and shot up. This time, I heard it following me as I ran, and once more I heard the wind speak to me…
“Run…”
“I’m not sure how long I ran… but when I finally popped onto a road, I just collapsed onto it. Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital… and missing my entire arm…”
I look up from the desk me and the detective are sitting at… and I ask the question that’s on both of our minds,
“I’ve done as much research about this town since the incident as I imagine you have… Do you think I avoided…”
The detective has been silent the entire time… until now. He raised his hand for me to stop talking, and closed his eyes
“In each and every case over the past 20 years, the most noteworthy fact is that every missing person had a habit of sleepwalking… yes, I think they are all related.”
He stood up, apparently satisfied with my story, and walked towards the door…
“Get yourself home susan… you need a good rest.”
I stood up, and held the door open with my prosthetic arm, before he stopped me,
“One last thing… I’d recommend barricading your window every night from now on”
I was taken aback… had this not happened because I sleepwalked?
“Why?”
He took an uncomfortably long pause, as if hoping I would just drop it and walk out,
“…Just in case”