(The music helps set the mood... headphones recommended.)

The forest was where no one went. Death seemed to have his hold on the entire forest. Those who went in never came out. This was a real problem for our town. They tried to destroy it. They tried to close it off. But people just kept going in, thinking it was a joke or that they were just special. No. This forest took all.

Most of the rescue teams didn't even come back. They tried and failed to rescue the others who went before them, despite the warnings. Idiotic tourists not listening to the "locals". They thought it was just a legend. But the forest was merciless and took them too. Some days I wonder if they are still there. Wandering. Lost. Till the day they die, they wander only to have their ghosts lost to the darkness of the twisted trees.

I lost my father to the forest.

He was part of the police force before the forest began to steal from the world. He was there for the first incident. The only case to ever truly be recorded to be a confirmed murder. A family of hikers went missing on a warm summer night. It was strange at first and no one took it seriously, as my mother tells me. They waited one night before they realized they were more than just lost. They gathered a team and went in ready to rescue them.

An entire day and night passed and the rescue team was not heard from. Nothing from the radios except static. So a second team was set up to go after them, worried something else must have happened. It happened again with the second team. This terrified our small, inconvenient town. Something was horribly wrong.

So they gathered more people with more guns and trekked through the forest. Finally, they were able to return bearing the news. They had found the two teams and the family of hikers. Bits and pieces of them though. It was a massacre-, no, a bloody mess of guts and innards. Yes that's how it was... worse than anything they could imagine. They were slaughtered like animals, they were shown no amount of mercy.

They tried to investigate best they could but they were scared of what lurked in the forest. They found claw marks as well as human teeth left in their skin-, it was gruesome and wrong. No one knew what had happened. It shook our town causing half the population to flee leaving the grieved and determined behind. There were hunting parties to go out and find this "beast", but they too disappeared. Soon everyone was too afraid to go after them.

I like to blame the forest itself. It's too disturbing to place the blame on an animal or a human as some claim. It was the forest that took them. It was the forest that killed my father and so many other fathers. Everyone in our remaining town knew something was wrong in there. So they warned travelers about the forest, praying they don't go in. And yet, it began a tourist attraction. Our forest of death.

Though, sometimes it feels like justice. Those blind tourists had come willingly to see our dark forest. We had warned them. But they didn't listen. Even so, death seems extreme for that amount of stupidity. But let me explain this to you. That forest held secrets no one had any business knowing. The forest should have been well left alone. It shouldn't have been discovered. A town shouldn't have been built near it.

Something happened that triggered these events that no one can explain. It just... began. After fifteen years of the continuing death toll and secrecy the town held, claiming that tourists had gotten lost and trekked into the "dangerous" areas, something broke our pattern. That pattern seemed like a safety blanket compared to what came next. At least, for me.

It all began the day someone returned from the forest. Returning was rare. But the return wasn't the odd part. It was who returned. No one had seen this boy go in. He just appeared out of the forest, where no one returns. The situation grew stranger as his age was considered. He was merely six years old. But that wasn't all. He seemed not from this world. He spoke differently than the others. Seeming more educated than a scholar while his voice squeaked.

He wore rags with strange eyes. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. If it weren't for the mark across his face that stretched like a shadow. If it weren't for his body marred by these strange, dark scars. And the golden necklace that dangled from his neck, in the symbol of an ancient rune that resembled a monster's disfigured face. If that wasn't enough to be unsettling, there was one final thing that was wrong about him.

He was covered head to toe in blood, that wasn't his.

(The story is being told and lived throughout meaning it will switch from first person to second person. This isn't bad writing, it's meant to do this so pay attention. They usually switch after the special symbol for time break so do not be alarmed if it does change.)