Disclaimer:
Everyone in the story is 18 years old or older at all points. Any resemblance to an actual person, alive or dead, is happenstance.
I was outside, walking in the woods, listening to the birds singing. I could hear the breeze sighing as it blew through the trees.
Leaves covered the trail I was on. They made crunching sounds as I walked on them. Up ahead of me, the path made a gentle curve to the left, taking me deeper into the wood.
I noticed the further I walked, the taller and darker and more foreboding the trees became. At first, I couldn't pinpoint why the trees made me feel this way, but little things started standing out. Everything looked dead or dying.
Some tree trunks looked riddled with holes that oozed dark red-colored sap. That sap dripped and fell to the ground, forming puddles at their base.
Still, none of this intruded into the well-being I was feeling. I didn't know how far I had walked before I came to a small stream. Looking around, I could see that the stream acted as a boundary between two very different areas.
Behind me, the sky was bright. Swallowtails played amongst the trees, and squirrels chased each other through the forest canopy. On the other side of the stream, the woods lost their colors. It became dark and gray, almost menacing, and seemed devoid of life.
There were stones in the stream, almost like a walkway, and I had a strong feeling that I was supposed to cross the creek here, but I hesitated. I glanced back on more time at the bright world behind me and then stepped on the first rock.
As I stepped fully on the rock, it seemed to shift a little, and I started to lose my balance. Not wanting to step in the water, I moved to the next rock in the chain. As my back foot left the first rock, I saw it drop below the water.
Glancing into the water by my feet, I noticed eels swimming around the rock I was balancing upon. The eels were long and black, and as I watched, one opened its mouth showing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
The rock I was standing on shifted, and I started sliding towards the eels, so I jumped to the next rock. Like the first rock had, the stone dropped below water as soon as I was off it.
I had caught my balance when the rock I was on started shifting, so I moved to the next. But, as I crossed the stream, the rocks behind me kept dropping below the water, and the time each rock was stable kept getting shorter.
The eels followed me, jumping at my feet when my feet got close to the water. By the time I was halfway across the stream, I was running to keep ahead of the rocks dropping under the churning water. Then, on the last stone, I stumbled, and my back foot went into the water as I fell forward onto the other shore.
Before I could pull my foot out of the water, an eel bit through my shoe into my foot. The pain in my foot was beyond anything I had ever felt, and I screamed, the sound startling loud in the silence that surrounded me.
I fell to the ground, unable to stand as I cried, holding my shoe. I quickly pulled it off and saw many puncture wounds in my foot, each oozing blood.
I sat there holding my foot, resting for a few minutes. Eventually, I put my sock and shoe back on and started walking again.
Glancing back at the water, I could see that the eels continued to swarm around the shore, almost like they were waiting for another taste of me.
The eel bite had given me a limp from the pain in my foot. I could barely move initially, but walking seemed to lessen the pain until it was a dull throb. So I kept walking on the trail I was on, going still deeper into the dark woods.
I had this feeling like I was trying to get somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. I knew time was getting short, which kept me walking to get there before something terrible happened.
As I walked, I noticed that the trail I was on changed as well, going from a leaf-covered path to one made of hard clay.
It felt like I was being watched as I passed deeper into the forest. I kept looking around and behind me. Sometimes I thought I caught a glimpse of movement, but there wasn't anything there when I turned fully to look.
Ahead of me, I saw an arch of vines covering the path, forming a crude tunnel. I stopped at the entrance to the tunnel, looking into the darkness. I could not force myself to enter the dark no matter how much I knew that was where I needed to go.
I thought it would be better to have a torch, so I found some dead wood and looked around for something to wrap it with to make a torch. I took off my shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wood I held when I found nothing else.
Looking for a way to light my makeshift torch, I found a lighter in my pocket. It took a couple of tries, but I managed to get the torch lit. The inside of the tunnel looked solid, and I now could see several feet into the darkness.
Dressed now in my bra and shorts, I entered the tunnel walking towards whatever was pulling me onward. After a short while, I stopped and leaned against the tunnel wall. The air had been hot and humid when I entered the tunnel, but it had turned cold and damp as I walked.
I looked at my torch and noticed it was burning faster than I thought it should. So I decided to go back before I ran out of light. As I headed back, I had only gone a few feet when I felt that the path was getting narrower.
I glanced at the wall and noticed that they were no longer smooth but now had thorns. I went another few feet and saw the tunnel was rapidly narrowing. At this point, I had to turn sideways to continue walking back the way I came.
The thorns were getting closer to my skin as I walked, and after a few more steps, I felt them grazing my skin and my shorts. A little more and one snagged my shorts and would not let me continue. As I tried to get the thorn out of my shorts, I turned and felt several thorns jab me in my left breast through my bra.
The pain was like when the eels bit my foot, and I jerked back the way I had come trying to get away from them. Finally, I was able to move a short distance back towards the open tunnel before the thorns had completely tangled into my bra and shorts. I was starting to panic now I was trapped, and the thorns hurt when they entered my skin.
I managed to get my hand to the clasp on my bra, and after removing it, I was able to pull my upper body out of the tangle back towards the open tunnel. Next, I unbuttoned my shorts and wiggled out of them back into the empty tunnel.