The Vanishing Thicket

It was the summer of 2016, during the six week break from school. Me and my friends Brett, Dan, and Kai, as well as my girlfriend Lauren; had just completed our GCSE exams in Year 11. We decided to take a trip into the woods nearby, as a final hurrah before we went our separate ways; have some drinks and generally have a good time.

Me and Kai would move on to Sixth form, Lauren would be joining the local college, Brett would be moving to a construction college, and Dan would be getting an actual job. We would of course stay in contact, but our school days together were over.

“So, what drinks have you guys got?” Brett asked, poking and prodding my shoulder, as he reached across the bus isle from the seat beside me.

“Well let’s see; we got loads of Heineken and Strongbow, a couple small bottles of Jack Daniels, and of course this bottle of Sake.” I presented a large bottle, the japanese lettering for "Japanese Liquor" plastered over the front of it.

 “How much Jack we got?” Kai suddenly poked her head up from behind me.

“Umm let me see…. Four bottles.” I held up four small bottles of Jack Daniels, Kai’s eyes locked onto them in a split second. All the while, Lauren was staring out of the window, watching the scenery go by.

“Hey, isn’t this our stop?” Dan questioned, pointing to the next bus stop.

“Oh god yea!” I hurriedly pressed the stop button beside me and begun to stand, as the bus began to slow down to a stop. We all got up and walked towards the end of the bus, thanked the bus driver, and exited the bus.

We all looked around at the surrounding forest, looking to the sky. This is England, so it was a 50/50 chance of the weather actually being alright, and we got a nice warm, bright summer's day. We all looked at each other, before simply stepping into the woods.

A light breeze swept through the tightly packed wood, the leaves and trees all swayed gently within it. In the distance, a fox pranced away from us.

“Right, let's find somewhere to make camp.” Dan declared, pulling his bag straps higher onto his shoulders, as he stepped further into the forest.

Kai trailed after him, as Me, Lauren and Brett slowly followed as well. We continued walking through the forest, getting deeper and deeper, until we found a large clearing, with a small stream rushing past it. We decided to set up camp here, preparing a circle of stones with a pile of dry twigs, ready for us to make a fire when night comes. We set up our three tents, one for me and Lauren, one for Dan and Kai, and one for Brett, who had decided to horde all the drinks in there with him, his only reasoning being that his tent was the only one with room left over.

With our camp set up, I decided to go and have a wander through the surrounding area, tying a long piece of strong to a nearby tree, so that I did not get lost. As I walked away, I was stopped by Laurens hand on my shoulder.

“Where you going babe?” She asked, as I turned around.

“I just wanted to have a look around, did you want to come with me?” I replied,holding out my hand. She took hold of my hand and nodded, as we both walked four around half an hour into the wood. We stopped by a large tree, it was covered in symbols. None were different, it was all the same symbol; A single vertical line, with two shorter lines either side of it, pointing diagonally downwards. I studied the symbols, before being startled by a sudden gust of wind, causing tree branches to collide in a cacophony of noise.

Then, as quickly as the noise arrived, it suddenly stopped, the forest was still and quiet again.

“That was odd, probably just British weather!” I chuckled, turning expectedly toward Lauren, who simply stared at me with disappointment

 “Come on, let’s get back to camp.” She smiled, before kissing me on the cheek. I tied the end of my string to the tree before we walked back, arriving just as the sun was beginning to set, and just in time to witness Dan ignite our fire. He raised his hands triumphantly, before proclaiming himself as ‘Fire Lord Dan’.

We all laughed, before gathering around the campfire, when suddenly Brett begun singing the campfire song from Spongebob.

Everyone laughed hysterically, as Brett sung his heart out, before finishing his song and pulling a bag of marshmallows from his bag, and handing them around the group.

Not liking marshmallows, I refused his offer, but not before thanking him for at least offering them to me.

“Drinks?” Brett pulled a hand full of bottles and cans from his tent, before tossing them out to everyone. “Cheers!” He shouted, as we all clinked our drinks together

“Kanpai!” I shouted the japanese word for cheers.

“You weeb.” Kai chuckled, as everyone laughed and begun to drink there drinks.

We all just kept drinking and drinking, until we could barely put together a coherent sentence, bottles and cans lay around us as we picked up drink after drink. Now, when I’m drunk, I still have some coherent thoughts, so I decided that I was done drinking for now, my vision was bad enough already, the whole world seemed to be shaking, but that wasn’t even the worst part. I could barely walk, as I stumbled around, trying to sober myself up, but as I did I looked out into the pitch black forest.

I could’ve sworn that I saw a figure in the woods, its arm held out towards me as if it wanted me to follow. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that following the strange thing in the middle of the night, was not a good idea, so instead, my drunk mind simply told me to stick my middle finger up at it.

The figure lowered its arm and looked down at the ground. Even at this distance I could tell it looked… Hurt. A massive gust of wind suddenly appeared just like earlier at the tree, and then the figure disappeared, as if it wasn’t there in the first place. I shrugged my shoulders and turned back towards the campfire, to find that my friends, the campfire and everything we’d bought with us, were simply gone, with no sign that we were there at all. Even the empty cans and bottles were gone.

That sobered me up almost instantly, so I began blurting out my friends names.

“Lauren?! Kai?! Brett?! Dan?! Where are you guys?!”

I began putting everything together in my head, remembering that wind like that appeared when me and Lauren found that tree. So I looked for my string, of course only to find it wasn’t there, so i wandered through the trees until I found it.

 But, the tree wasn’t covered in the same symbols anymore, there was just one massive symbol, an upside down version of the symbols that used to cover the tree. I touched the symbol and could hear my friends, all shouting for me, I whipped my head around and saw them following the string.

 “Guys! There you are!” I ran forward to hug Lauren, only to pass through her, and for all of them to be completely oblivious to me.

“I thought he might’ve wandered back to this tree we found earlier.” Lauren dropped to her knees at the roots of the tree, pressing her hands against it, as a single tear rolled down her face. “Where did you go?”

As I watched, I saw the figure stood, leaning against the tree, looking down at Lauren. I could make out its features now. It was tall, around 7 feet tall, with long spindly arms and legs, with a tall neck, and a strange face. Its face only had two white eyes, no pupils, and with a large toothy mouth.

It was looking at Lauren with a look akin to sympathy.I couldn’t think why it felt that, but I didn’t want to find out. I begun to step toward it, only for its gaze to meet mine.

A tear rolled down its face now, as it stared with sadness toward me.

Suddenly my friends all let out a relieved scream “Alex!” They all shouted, before running and hugging the figure. The figure turned to hug them, but its face stayed locked on me. It seemed like it was… Crying. I heard my own voice apologising for wandering off, claiming that I was too drunk to realise, before it and my friends walked back to the campsite, its face still locked onto mine.

The.. Thing was holding my girlfriends hand, I followed them back to the campsite, my friends all sat with this thing, completely oblivious to the fact that it wasn’t me. They continued to tell jokes, and started drinking again, but the creature’s gaze never left mine. I stood, alone in the forest. I didn’t know what to do, so I simply watched them, sitting around the fire, when suddenly, Brett turned to face me, he stared right at me.

He got up, and stumbled to the edge of the clearing, still staring into my eyes. I was baffled. He could see me. I had stood there for what felt like hours, without them even knowing I was gone, but he could SEE me.

I didn’t know what to do, so I raised my arm toward him “Brett?” I said, asking him to come closer, only for him to give me the middle finger. “Oh no. This is what happened to me earlier.” A tear of realisation ran down my cheek, as i stooped to the ground.

He turned around, and my friends and the camp were gone. He stood there, looking confused, only to find his way back to the strange tree that Lauren led them to earlier. I stood next to the tree, tears streaming down my face as I watched him touch the tree. He suddenly flinched, his gaze met mine, as suddenly Lauren, Kai, Dan and my own voice suddenly shouted behind him. "Brett!?"

I… Don’t know what to do now… But I suddenly have this… Urge. I shouldn’t be the one stuck here…. He should…. I stared down at Brett, before my friends suddenly saw me, saw me as Brett. They ran and hugged me, before leading me back to the campsite.

I looked behind me, toward Brett, sorrow in my eyes as I realised what I had done.

We sat down around the fire, and I tried to pretend to be happy. I slowly fit into Brett’s persona, and tried to continue partying. Trying not to focus on the fact that I wasn't myself anymore, and myself was someone else.

As we were all just generally chatting and having a good time, Dan suddenly turned and looked towards the trees. He seems to see something...