Chapter Text
The forest has been said to offer a lot.
It can offer relaxation for troubling times. It can offer quiet when the mind becomes too loud. It can offer an escape from the chaotic outside world.
Once you enter the forest, you enter a new world. A new reality, some might say. There are no worries in this world, only peace. Because sometimes reality can be terrifying, and everyone needs to escape it from time to time.
But even the most innocent parts of life can hold dark secrets.
Mila Geo escapes to the forest for all these reasons. She is a 13 year old girl standing around 4'9 with purple shoulder length hair and brown roots peeking out from the top of her head. Her blue-gray eyes pop against her pale, white skin. She's small, and wears clothes that are probably too big for her, but it's not like she kept up with her appearance anyway.
Mila is the kind of person who doesn't exactly like people. They are to loud and obnoxious for her; besides, she has to much shit on her mind to worry about them anyway. Like her mom leaving her and her 3 younger siblings with their dad when she was 9 years old. She left them all alone, leaving her siblings without a loving and caring mother. Leaving her dad to raise 4 kids all by himself. And with being the older sibling, that meant she was left with a load a responsibility as well.
But don’t get her wrong, Mila loves her family. They were probably the only people on this Earth she will ever care about, but sometimes she even needs a break from them. Her thoughts get to overbearing and even though she knows her father is there to listen to her troubles, Mila doesn't want to give him another reason to stress. So, anytime her thoughts become too much, or she needs to escape reality, she’ll goes into the forest and retreat to her secret, safe place.
It's nothing much, just a small wooden shed she found in the forest with overgrown brush and trees surrounding the building. It keeps it some-what hidden, but it's not like people really go into these woods anyway. On the inside of her base, she has an assortment of different blankets spread all throughout the shed. She also has a beanbag she dragged from home, some pillows, and a couple of lanterns. On one wall, she has a small bookshelf she built in herself and it is filled to the brim with books. Her dad used to teach her simple construction before her mom left. He used to have time to hang out with his family, but now he has to work consistently to support them. She missed missed those days. She missed when life was simpler.
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
It was June 23rd, 1:58 pm. She had been in her hide out since 9:34 am. She never even thought to check the time. It had been especially quiet in the woods today, so it made it easy for her to get sucked into her book. She was reading up on mythical creatures; it was one of her favorite things to read about. She knew none of it was real, but the stories were still fascinating to her nonetheless.
'Guess I'm not eating lunch today.' Mila thought to herself as she continued to read. As she put her thoughts back into her book, she heard movement outside. That was odd. There was never anything out in these woods; no animals, not even people came out here. She shook her head mentally, continuing to read. She tried to ignore it when it happened again, but there was more rustling, and it was getting louder. She could even hear the snap of twigs. Then she could hear the sound of feet hitting the forest floor. Then she could hear voices, almost as if they were yelling. She stepped out of her hideout to look around when she could see figures through the trees. She squinted, trying to focus on the figures when three boys burst through the trees, panting heavily. It looked like they ran a marathon, and they looked like shit.
"Who the hell are you guys?" Mila asked with an annoyed tone. No one has ever found her hideout and now these three random kids just stumble across it? And just when she thought she was having a relatively okay day.
A boy with short, slightly wavy hair, standing at an average height spoke up with a slight smile on his face, despite still panting like a dog "Oh, well, I'm Shelby, the tall one is Jake and this one is Phillip-"
"Oh my god Shelby shut up!" the two other boys, Jake and Phillip, shouted.
"We don't have time for this, we need to leave, and so do you!" the taller of the three, Jake, shouted. He looked around 6 foot with dark hair, half covered with a beanie. He honestly looked like an E boy if Mila had to be honest. Suddenly, he grabbed Mila's arm and turned to run off, but Mila pulled her arm back before he could get anywhere.
"What the hell- First of all, don't touch me.” Mila snapped, giving Jake a glare “Second, what the hell are you even talking about?"
"There-" the shorter boy with curly blonde hair, Phillip, wheezed out "There is- a monster- back there- c-chasing us! We need to go-” he was cut off by another wheeze. Definitely an asthmatic if she had to take a guess.
"Ok Phillip, calm down, just take a breath." Shelby assured him as he put a hand on his back, genuine concern spreading across his face.
Mila felt herself let out a snicker "I'm sorry a what? A monster? You have got to be-" and right before she could finish, there was a loud crack of a tree breaking, and another, and another, until a shadowy silhouette was visible in the trees. It was huge. It looked around 25 feet, making it a little less than half the height of the surrounding trees. The features weren't clear, but from its silhouette, it appeared to be beast-like. Even without clear details, the sheer size of it alone was intimidating enough.
“O-oh god- guys we need to go now!” Phillip shouted and Shelby tried to get Mila to move, but she couldn’t.
She stared up at the creature as some of the features of its face started to become more clear. It looked mangualde to the point that it didn’t even look like any kind of recognizable animal. The one feature she could point out was it’s eyes. Pure black. They looked so hollow and deep. They looked soulless.
Everything in her body froze in that moment and she couldn’t move. There were muffled screams from the three boys, but it was hard to focus on anything around her. Terror took over and she had no control.
This wasn't real; this is like all the stories she reads in her books. But those were just stories, not real life. But as she stood there, looking at whatever the fuck that was, she started to think that maybe, those weren't just stories after all. She was so frozen in shock that she didn't even notice Jake had picked her up and ran, and the sounds of the three boys screaming slipped her ears as she fainted, and everything turned to black.
The forest was supposed to be a safe place. A place where she could escape the stress and chaos of real life. But today she learned that not everything is innocent as we see it, and there is no real way to escape the reality we live in.