Chapter Text
A strange, rumbling echo rang through my ears as my vision started to clear. From pitch black to a light blue darkness, my vision spun before clearing to reveal a hallway, and at the end of it was a metal door with an oval symbol on it. My vision cleared, and I realized that the symbol was an eye. I didn’t know where I was or what my eyes had been staring at, but my body felt strangely compelled to walk towards the door that stood ahead of me.
With each step I made, the quiet, ambient rumbling grew louder and sharper, almost like static, and it became unbearably loud as I walked close enough to open the door. The door flashed blinding white, my vision twisted, and I suddenly felt myself thrown forward, landing flat on my stomach.
I sat up and looked behind me to see a box TV, the screen filled with static, turning off behind me. It had spat me out. I noticed my bag on the ground, so I picked it up out of the grass and put it on my head, adjusting it until the eyeholes were in the right place.
I looked around, taking in the scenery, a dark forest all around me. It was quiet, only a gentle breeze going through the grass and trees. There were no animals nearby, and I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. I was out of my element and needed to find somebody. Being alone here made me nervous.
I passed through the grass, the dried leaves crunching under my feet, and came to a small gap. At the bottom of the gap was some kind of black, rotting slime, swarming with flies. I jumped over the gap and noticed something that made me hopeful, a metal box with a trap inside it. There was a hunter somewhere here. I wasn’t alone!
Passing by the box, I saw a metal grate going under a tree. I pulled the grate open and went through the vent and came out into a clearing, but I almost didn’t want to leave the vent. The clearing smelled absolutely horrible. I held my mask to my nose as I went through. What in the world could stink that bad?!
I tripped, and looked at the ground to see that it was covered in old shoes. I looked up, and what I saw made me sick. There was a massive bag hanging from a tree, and sticking out of this bag were rotten arms and legs. Human arms and legs. The sight was so horrifying and disgusting that I couldn’t help but vomit all over the ground. Who, no, what had done this? I couldn’t bear to look at the bag any longer, so I kept walking.
I pulled myself up a ledge and noticed a deep gap with a fallen tree going over it. I carefully walked along the log, I couldn’t risk falling when I couldn’t even see the bottom. Luckily, I didn’t fall and came to a forest path. I was about to walk into the clearing, but stopped myself when I noticed a tripwire. I looked up and saw a metal cage dangling from the trees above. I jumped over the tripwire and continued on.
I came to a ledge too tall for me to climb, and looked around for another way. A few feet away from the ledge, there was a wooden cage, seemingly left behind by a hunter. It looked just the right height to give me a boost. I dragged the box along the forest floor and set it down at the bottom of the ledge, and used it to climb the ledge. I kept going.
I squeezed my body through the roots of a fallen tree and fell down onto the top of a small hill. The roots shook, and something creaked above me. I looked up to see a massive log about to fall, and scrambled to get away as it fell and started rolling towards me. I felt my heart beating out of my chest as I sprinted down the hill, with the log tumbling after me. I thought I was done for, but I heard a loud crash, and something pulled me onto my bottom. I looked behind me to see that the log got caught on a tree and rolled over my coattail. It was only moments away from turning me into a human pancake. I didn’t know how to react, so I couldn’t help but laugh. I pulled myself up and kept trudging along.
I looked around for the path forward and noticed a rope to swing along and a crank to lower down a cage, but no clear way to get to them, as they were on a high ledge. I looked around and noticed a hollow, rotting log. I climbed through the log, having to quickly catch myself when my foot broke a hole, and went up onto the ledge. I jumped, swung along the rope to another ledge, and walked to the crank. I lowered the cage, but it unwound and raised the cage again as I let go of the crank.
“Really?”
I tried again, this time prepared to run, and just barely caught onto the cage before it rose too high. I pulled myself up and jumped to another ledge.
I walked deeper into the forest and reached a broken rope bridge. Most of the bridge was hanging on the other side of the ledge, enough of it left for me to climb up it like a ladder, if I could reach it. It was too far to jump, and the gap was too deep to risk falling down, so I carefully grabbed onto the ledge. I moved from rock to rock down the gap until a rock broke under my foot.
“Oops,”
I tried to catch my footing, but the rocks I was holding onto broke. I fell to the bottom screaming, until I hit my back and got the wind knocked out of me. I curled up, wheezing and crying. It took a few minutes for me to recover, but I eventually got up and climbed the rope bridge.
Past the bridge was a clearing full of leaves. The front of the clearing had a pile of shoes, and there appeared to be a strange lump in the leaves. I threw a shoe at the lump, and a net popped up and caught the shoe.
“Nice try,”
I kept walking along the path and into another similar clearing, but with more lumps. Looking further into the clearing, there was a triggered bear trap, and I looked closely at the lumps to realize that the clearing was filled with bear traps. I tiptoed carefully through the clearing. These traps were big enough compared to me that I would be torn apart by their jaws if I triggered one.
This led to one trap, directly in front of the only way forward. I looked around for something I could use until I noticed a large branch caught in a bear trap. I grabbed onto it and, with all my might, pulled it out of the trap. I fell over and landed on my bottom, branch in hand. Using the branch was difficult, it was as long as I was tall, but I dragged it behind me and swung it into the jaws of the trap. The trap snapped closed and broke the stick in two, the path forward was clear.
I climbed into the log that was previously blocked and slid down it, into a massive clearing, almost completely coated in leaves. Not knowing what was in this sea of leaves, I picked up a nearby branch and began walking into the clearing. I swung it once, nothing but leaves, but when I swung it again, a trap sprang up and broke it in half, causing a chain reaction that set off five traps.
I climbed up onto a rock sticking out of the leaves and jumped over to a part of the clearing not covered in leaves, but instead covered in pine cones. I lifted one of the pine cones and tossed it into the leaves, five more traps being triggered as it hit one.
I jumped onto a rock, then walked on a log, and finally grabbed onto a plank ladder built on a dead tree. The bottom plank fell off as my foot tried to use it, and the sound of a trap snapping shut below nearly made me lose my grip. I quickly regained my footing.
“That was close,”
I climbed to the top of the dead tree and jumped across the leaves to a grassy clearing. In front of me, at the end of the clearing, was a rickety old cabin, littered with cages and food cans. I climbed into the window of the cabin, which led into the kitchen. I stood on the counter among adult-sized cooking tools that were longer than I am tall. In the center of the kitchen was a dining table, covered in old, rotten food that stunk almost as much as the bag from earlier.
I walked deeper into the house and heard a noise coming from the basement. The beautiful yet haunting melody of a music box. I walked down the basement steps, passing by a sewing machine and giant bags of stuffing, to a boarded-up room. Inside was a small girl, about my age, who was sitting in the middle playing a music box. Someone who could help! I looked around for something to break the boards down, and found a room full of leather with a hatchet inside.
The hatchet was lodged into the top of a crate. I grabbed onto the handle and swung my weight on it until it came out. I dragged the hatchet to the boarded-up room and swung down onto the boards. I heard a gasp of fear as the music box stopped, but I kept going until the boards were gone. I put the hatchet down and went into the room. I saw the girl hiding under a table, peeking out a bit to see me.
“Hey,”
I beckoned her with my hand. She slowly crawled out from under the table, cautiously going toward me. I offered my hand to her.