User blog comment:CrashingCymbal/Halloween Writing Competition 2013/@comment-14341590-20131027133637

The Owl’s Rotation [Halloween Competition Entry]



It was back in October 31st 1995, I found some strange footprints tracing through a dark forest. Before heading out to explore what awaits me, I had to make sure I had all the equipment ready: Flash light, camera and anything else that might have come in handy. As an excuse to leave the house, I told my Mum that I’m going on an expedition school field trip. She didn’t like the idea of it being after midnight. Which is understandable, she looked at me as if I were lying which I was. The sad feeling I got in my lower guts, I felt as if lying to her is going to be the end of a beautiful relationship. With trick-or-treating already on the go, I figured that maybe I could go trick-or-treating too. I mean I was 15 Years old, Mum would still worry about me even if I were 17 or 18. She has a lot on her mind on most days, some reason she always acts over-protective on seasonal holiday events. Halloween is one of them, which would explain why she always looks at me with funny look in her eyes. I could even go ahead and say she’s creepy on Halloween, she has the glow in the dark fangs from a store. She told me that those fake teeth are from when she was little, and I still believe her to this day…

The expedition rumour was out, my friends figured out that I wanted to head out into the dark forest. At 15 Years old with 14 Year old friends it kind of makes sense on why we’d be afraid of a dark forest. Although we liked to challenge ourselves further into the nights. Before leaving the house with Mum becoming sick minded, I left her a note explaining where I’ve really gone. Whether or not she’d get is beyond me, I just wanted to be truthful with her for once… She’s gone through a lot lately, losing Dad. And even losing some of her favourite pet dogs – the cross breed dogs of course. With that being my final note, little did I know that. I left to adventure into the dark foggy depths of a forest. Entering the tree shaped arc, I realised that this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Some older lads were going down into the forest and some were coming out with a horrified look on their face. I dared myself to enter the forest and seek what’s inside the core of this tree infested area. Another tall boy came out, his eyes looked red, very red! It was as if he hadn’t gotten enough sleep or something. And then you had several young girls coming out with baskets of candy, as if they got all the candy! Lucky them… They might have nightmares but lucky them…

This forest was like a tree, it had many branches (pathways) to take. Different routes leading to places I never knew about. Some darkness around most of the pathways too with dark brownish tree roots curling as if it had been dying. The dying forest is what I should have called it, although I didn’t. I stepped into the pathway with candy wrappers spread out across the gravelly ground. As the darkness got worse around me, it was as if something had been following me. I mean, it got darker behind me and in front of me, like a shadow of some sort taking over the light so I can’t see. With sounds of leaves rattling and some children laughing nearby, I cried a little. It was starting to get spooky in this forest, well it is Halloween I guess… As I adventured further into the forest, I found an old looking sign. “Forth back road” – the name of some kind of road? I thought that this place had been removed when I was 13. I guess not, the forest has a lot of stories to tell. So instead of them removing a road, large trees uprooted and wrapped around the homes of many? What if these people are still in there, maybe they’re not in there. I guess they would have moved in to some other town or a new area with a set of houses to live in.

The sign made me think deeply about my next steps, as I approached a porch with dusty looking archway. As I looked up, I could see two eyes staring down at me. A shadow could be seen from behind me, I even felt like the shadow had been touching me. I gasped in fear knowing that something may have been following me throughout this walk into the forest. I looked back down at my feet, a lot of orange and a mix of brown leaves scrunched up around me heels. I couldn’t get over the fact I went into this forest without a word to anybody else. With the weather looking dull, I couldn’t even see what the sky looked like. It was just a bunch of blocked out light, some old leaves had been laid on top of a roof. I could just about see the roof thanks to the two eyes staring at me to look the other way. Those two eyes didn’t seem too friendly, it even made a sound. A strange sound, it was hard to re-call on what I heard. As a bright light shined through some of the forest area, I could see the creature standing on top of another sign. It looked down towards the sigh. “What do you want? It has no words…” I thought. As it looked down and scraped two sharp dagger looking nails into the rims of the sign, I cried loudly. “Death comes to us all…” I couldn’t believe what I had seen, I thought that many lives remained in these old houses… And it was a shock to find this creature…