Carla's hands gripped the edges of the newspaper, her wide eyes nervously reading through the wordings with her hands trembling with fear.
She looked over at the reflection of herself on the newspaper and felt her teeth chatter, the eyes that stared back at her carried a hidden message she could not decipher.
The lady was lost in the Darkwood forest years before she was born and suddenly, Carla felt the irresistible urge to be in the forest. Dropping the newspaper slowly on her table, she hugged herself, rubbing her hands over her exposed skin to ease off the goosebumps she felt.
"Eeerr…are you okay?" It was her neighbor.
Without a verbal response, Carla nodded slowly before turning to look at her nervous neighbor, the look in her eyes told her supposed neighbor off.
Looking back at the static eyes that stared back at her, she began to feel queasy and soon, she started hearing faint whispers in her head.
Bowing her head, she hit it slowly on the edge of the table.
"This is unreal Carla, nothing is wrong." She whispered but her breath was shallow and she was sure she would faint.
She had tried to assure herself but on muttering that, the faint incoherent whispers began to grow louder and more distorted. Images of the forest flashed through her mind's eye; she had the longing to be there just like one would desperately thirst for water.
Her hands shot up to her head, she placed her hands over her ear after that but it didn't help what she was feeling. She desperately grounded her teeth against each other and began to tremble. There were unshed tears in her eyes.
Snapping her eyes open, an idea came to her.
Looking at the paper lying in front of her, she grabbed it like it was an enemy and without thinking twice, tore it up into two, then into tiny little pieces before throwing it into the trash can beside her.
She ignored the stares she got, her eyes had turned fierce, her chest heaved like she had run a marathon and for a minute or two, she regained her peace.
She picked up her phone unsure of what to do with it when she suddenly felt a sharp poke at the back of her neck. She looked back but there was no one there.
Shaking it off, she looked back at the trash without willing to and that was when she lost it. The image of the Darkwood forest became even stronger this time and she felt she would really go insane if she didn't pay a visit to the Darkwood forest.
She didn't understand what was going on, she could not see her reflection in the mirror to know how fierce and fearsome she looked to her colleagues.
When she suddenly jumped to her feet, grabbed her belongings and strode out of the office, those around her who had noticed that some things were not completely right with her after she came back from the President's office gave her the space she needed without bothering to ask questions.
***
Carla, who had begun to feel suffocated in the taxi on her way to the forest, felt refreshed on stepping into the dark and eerie forest.
The voices in her head had ceased and as if a spell was casted on her, she suddenly felt like she knew the path of the forest by heart and knew exactly where she was going to.
After walking and getting the fallen beaches off her way for seven minutes, Carla shook her head and with this, she returned to her original self.
The suffocating feeling came again and this time, it was from fear, the fear of being alone in the rumored dangerous forest.
"Oh God!" She shrieked into her palms when she finally realized where she was.
"Oh no … no, no…" She shook her slowly in horror after looking behind her to only find thick trees and darkness.
"Carrrllllaaaa…" It was a call, an eerie whisper from something she could not see but felt.
She stumbled backwards, her eyes bulging and searching. Her head was shaky, it felt like it would fall off her head at any certain time and without stopping to think, she broke into a confused run, jumping over and pushing off the obstacle on her way.
Upon realizing that she was running deeper into the forest without the slightest idea how to find her way back, she broke into tears, the green leaves and sharp edges of the branches tearing through her skin and leaving painful marks.
Her tears broke into a loud sob when she felt she was slowing down to a pitiful hop, her body felt too heavy for her legs to carry. She didn't know what she was up against, but she wasn't ready to die, at least not yet.
'Anna.' She called the name of her daughter in her head and slowly came to a stop, falling to her knees and surrendering to whatever it was that was after her.
Remembering the eyes of her replica on the papers, she guessed she was meant to die. 'Probably it is my fate.' She sank into a sitting position, waiting for something to happen but all she felt was the gentle feel of the wind and silence.
She frowned, twisted her body to look behind her but apart from the scare she got from seeing the vast unending forest trees, she saw nothing and felt nothing.
Just when she was about to stand on her feet, something broke beneath the pressure of her palms and she shifted immediately only to notice a brick like surface with green moss spread out around it.
Frowning with her heart beating extremely loud, she looked ahead and around her immediate surroundings to notice that it was an actual ruin.
"For how long?" She asked herself as she blinked away the drop of sweat that ran into her eyes from her forehead.
"How possible?" She asked again, her pulse quickening.
It was a wonder that there was once a building in the middle of a vast forest.
Getting her confused face closer to the first brick she noticed, she could not resist the temptation of touching it after noticing some strange markings on it.
Immediately her index finger touched one of the strange markings, out of nowhere, she heard a guttural growl behind her.
Her eyes popped and she snapped her head behind her only to see an afterimage of something dark and shapeless running towards her.
She felt her joint go weak and she fell to the rough debris, paralyzed by fear. She snapped her eyes closed with her heart in her throat waiting for her end when the guttural sound became a high pitched scream piercing into her ear drums, then it went silent.