I used to have a friend named Elliot. Me and Elliot used to be the best of friends, but we couldn’t have been more different. I was a confident, Straight A student. Elliot was shy and had ADHD, so he basically had the attention span of a doorknob.
Each day after school, me and Elliot would go to a near by wood to explore. We’d make up somesilly little make-believe play like Lost Pirates or Adventurous Explorers. We were just kids.
I used to sit next to Elliot in class. He refused to sit anywhere else because he had intesnce anxiety. The teacher didn’t mind.
One day, 10 minutes before class started, Elliot arrived to class and sat down next to me. We were in 3rd grade at the time. Usually, Elliot would ask me for the maths homework or ask me to explain the German assignment to him. But that day he came, with his head hanging low. He sat down next to me, quiet as a mouse. “What’s up?” I asked, trying to start a conversation. He didn’t respond. He didn’t talk to me for the entire day. Ignored me, even. Finally, he spoke to me
Just before class ended, Elliot whisper to me. “Today…let’s play Hide and Seek in the woods.” “Oh…ok. why though? Didn’t you say you didn’t like to play hide and seek in case you get lost?” I asked, puzzled by his sudden words. “I want to.”
School ended and we both headed towards the woods. The woods didn’t really have any dangerous animals, but it was dense and a 3rd grader could easily get lost. When we got there, we threw our bags of and ran into the trees. We did a rock-paper-scissors match to decide who would seek. Elliot lost and became the Seeker.
I know it sounds strange, but I feel like Elliot purposely lost. When I pulled out paper, Elliot stopped for a second, before taking out rock. But at the time, I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to Seek.
The first 2 rounds, I was caught pretty quickly. For some reason Elliot refused to Hide and let me be the Seeker. Again, I didn’t really care.
“I’m bored. You’re so easy of find, with you big, fat head.” Elliot said. “Well, why don’t you hide for a chan-“ “No.” Elliot said firmly. “Hiding is no fun. Let’s go deeper in the woods. Deeper then before. Somewhere unfimiliar, where I would have a harder time seeking you.”
Elliot wasn’t like this. He didn’t like to brake any boundaries, he was a scared, shy little boy.
“Who are you and what did you do to my friend?” I joked. “I’m Mr. Nobody” he said in a voice which was ment to be funny but, just sounded serious and blank.
He grabbed my hand started to run deeper into the woods. Taking wierd turns and twist. I yelled at him to stop. “How are we supposed to get out of this, you idiot?!”
“Relax” he said, stoping at a tree. I don’t know why, but I felt like like he was looking for this exact tree. It was the broadest and tallest there. “Go hide. Now.” It was more of a demand then anything. He hid his face towards the tree and started to count backwards from 100. I ran in the direction we came in. If was going to hide, it was as near to home as I could. I managed to retrace pretty much the entire route back, and hid behind a boulder where I usually hid.
Suddenly, I felt as though I couldn’t trust Elliot. He was strange and cold and seemed very intent on going deeper, where if we get lost, we could barely find eachother, let alone our way back home. It didn’t feel like the sweet, shy Elliot I became friends with. I was glad I decided to hide close to home. I knew I was a long way from Elliot, but thats what made me feel safe.
5 minutes turned into 10, 10 turned into 15. Nearly an hour had passed. Elliot hadn’t found me. I’m nor sure If was glad or not. Suddenly I heard a distant yell calling my name “KENN? KENNY? KENNY!” It was Elliot. I yelled back. Again and again. About half an hour of screaming and yelling eachothers names. I found Ell. He was covered in dirt and blood and was limping. One of the lens of his glasses had fallen out, the other was broken.
He crying still telling my name. He jumped into my arms and sobbed. I started to cry aswell. I put Elliot’s arm around me and supported him out of the forest. I wasnt lost physically, I was lost mentally. Emotionally.
We didn’t talk about the incidence for months.
Elliot lost sight from his left eye. The doctor’s had no idea how. When I finally did ask El about the incidence, he told me that made my heart sink. “I wasn’t me. It was you. You dragged me to that tree and told me to Seek. You kept telling me you wanted to hide. But I know it wasn’t you. You were not … Yourself.”
Apparently we both were having some kind of hallucination. There was something that wanted us to get lost. And that something would have succeed if I had done what it wanted, and had gone deeper in.
Since then, both me And Ell have been having serious blackouts, not knowing what either of us been doing for the past hour or so. Its like that thing is still trying to control us. Control our life. I’ve moved out and now live in Canada far from my home town. Elliot shifter to Germany to continue his studies. We still keep in contact. Every week or so, we talk about the incidence trying to figure out what was happening.
I think In a way, that thing really did succeed. We never been so lost before.