Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-36719913-20180826224642

Jacob, an 18 years boy, how to describe him? Lonely. Here's some important things you need to know about him before you continue reading; what makes Jacob a loner is his love for discoveries and mysteries, people and kids in his class always thought of him as that weird depressed guy with weird, random stuff in his backpack. But he's one of the rare, bright and curious people of this generation, he can never get enough, he always wants to learn more and more, and search more and more. No one can ever stop that about him.

One day in the month of February 2018, he decided to ditch school because he found out about some secret place down the woods near his house. Rumors about that place being haunted were spread around every person, and no one ever dared to go in there. However, when it comes to Jacob, ditching math class for something like that was worth it.

As usual, his backpack was filled with important objects like a camera, a flashlight, batteries, bandages, food, a notebook and a pen, sweets and an emergency phone in case anything goes wrong. He had a personal and private website, or you can call it a blog, where he posts all of his discoveries and post daily vlogs every time he records something on camera. He never liked people watching his stuff so he decided to keep it private until someday, maybe, he'll do something about it.

02:47pm, he goes walking slowly, holding his camera while entering the woods, it's very silent, beautiful, calm, but still kind of morbid somehow. Jacob didn't really care about how everything seemed, he'd just keep going further, hoping to find something even more interesting than the place itself. It has been like half an hour for his walk, and nothing in view, he would just hear some nibbling sounds while walking and he knew it must've been any kind of small animal, he'd take pictures and find some weird-looking tree forms, but that intrigued him even more. Out of nowhere, he finds a metal box, half-buried, meaning it could have be seen by anyone with the right attention to the place.

There he goes, opening it, he didn't know how to feel, it was weird for him to find something so simple hidden away in the middle of the woods that everyone is scared to trespass. You can't wait to know what it is, don't you ? Well, simply, an empty and neat notebook. Maybe you expected that, I mean, not maybe, surely. I don't blame you, I made it too obvious. Let's get back to our story now.

Jacob kept walking and searching in the woods until it was like 7:30pm, he decided to leave, not wanting to worry his mom more than he usually does, so he decided to keep both the box and the notebook with him, like a "souvenir" from the woods. Plus, that box had a quite a mysterious charm for Jacob, maybe he'd make something useful out of it, maybe write stuff on it about his adventures and all that.

Making his way back home, Jacob got there at 8:00pm. He lived alone with his mom, and his dad? Well, let us just say that his dad died when it was Jacob's 16th anniversary, just two years ago from now. It is sad to think about, isn't it? Jacob entered the house at 8pm, kissed his mom softly in the forehead and went upstairs to upload the pictures and videos he took in his private blog. Then, he took his backpack and took out the box and the notebook, the box kind of reeked so he washed it and hid some of his pens in it, and for the notebook, it was gone.

Now don't freak out, it's fine. Actually, he freaked out, but you shouldn't, because Jacob ends up finding it, placed and open on his desk next to the box. Go on, freak out, you have the right now. He reached for his favorite black pen and started writing on the notebook things about his new journey, it was a good opportunity for him, for once, he wrote about something he found in the thing he found, that has a funny ring to it, probably, what do you think ? Well, the weird thing is that Jacob didn't seem to be worried about how the notebook changed place by itself, it's like he remembers putting it in there in the first place.

Next morning had come, this time everything was quite weird, there was no sound, and everything seemed empty as ever. He wore his clothes to get ready for school and took the stairs willing to go have breakfast, he kept thinking about nothing else but the woods, it was haunting to him, until something interrupted his thoughts, his mother wasn't there and again, nothing but silence. He thought that maybe she went for a morning walk like she used to, but the odds to that were low, he thought to himself.

Things went worse when Jacob realized that not only his house was empty, the whole town was, silence to be heard all over the place, not even birds or cats can be found over there. So, he thought, what was the point of going to school while no one is even there, is it the end of the world ? Jacob didn't know whether to feel worried or happy about it. What about you? How would you feel ?

There he goes, wandering around, looking for any sign of life, maybe it's part of a new adventure ? For a person who doesn't like socializing much, you can say that he kind of miss the presence of people around him. Now, he felt even lonelier. After a few time have passed, Jacob decided to check his new notebook in his backpack, thinking of writing about it, he reached his backpack and got the notebook out of it. He got a black pen out and started writing about it all, oh and one other thing I forgot to mention, Jacob is pretty poetic and is very good at writing, he always got an A in his assignments, it's something he's proud about, and that happens rarely to him.

The same thing happened for the next two days, it was driving Jacob out of his sane mind, so in the fourth day, he decided to find a way out of this because he couldn't handle it anymore. Try to imagine it like having the same dream that lasts 24hours over and over again, you want to know why I said dream ? Well, technically it's because that won't happen to you in real life, unless you become crazy, then you'll need to get some real help and definitely not read this story.

He got out of his house, headed straight to the woods, he thought that since everything started there, maybe he will end it all in there. He's walking slowly towards that spot, and for once, the sound comes back stronger the more he gets closer to the place where he found the box and the notebook. And there's the unexpected, Jacob found the box in the same place as last time, he had it, he knew it was with him, how could it be ? He doesn't recall putting it in there. Before opening it, he thought it'd be better if he checks that everything is in there, especially the notebook. Can you guess what happens next ?

To everyone's surprise, the notebook had been gone. And what he suspected was that the notebook is actually in the box, the half-buried box, the one he thought it was with him. He opened it and he was speechless, words couldn't come out of his mouth, he didn't know if he liked how excruciating the whole thing was for him or if he just hated it. I personally would be sure of hating that if i was him. The notebook was there, the same way it was the first time he found it.

Hesitation came to his mind, "should I stay and try to figure out what this whole thing is or should I just leave and forget about it ?", he asked himself. It took him few seconds to finally decide what to do, but he decided to leave. Packing his stuff back in his backpack, photos fell over, it was the photos that he took of the woods, including the box and the notebook. He freaked out when he saw that the pictures he'd taken of the two last things were empty, there was never a box nor a notebook with him at home, although he was sure of taking them with him.

He turned back to check the box, feeling very curious about how it will all end like, if he turns back, it's a point of no return for Jacob, he's not a fan of surrender. He goes walking as slowly as possible, even visiting the haunted house of their dead neighbor wasn't that stressful, he reached the box and grabbed the notebook, while opening it he could hear the voice of kids playing far away in his neighborhood and he could hear planes flying up in the sky and birds chirping, he felt happy after such horrible four days.

He opened the notebook and directly knew it was all a trick, some sort of magical spell or something similar to that. What was in was simply blankness, like if Jacob didn't write a thing in it, nothing at all. He realized everything he saw and everything he couldn't hear was all in his head, maybe he went insane, you'll think, maybe it was a spell. The truth is, none of us will know what it really was. What it is. Because after that, no one heard anything about Jacob. He was a goner, maybe he couldn't handle living like that and took his own life or maybe a spirit haunted him or a witch in the woods just threw a spell at him, the things that must have happened to him that day are numerous. 