It happened on a Friday morning, a group of students called the police to request a search party to look out for their friend who had disappeared.
Apparently, he had disappeared after another friend called him to go pick him up. After two hours without answering, the group thought they just wouldn't come.
The only one who thought something had happened spammed the inbox of Jean-Francis and Loïc but, nothing came out of it, just pure absence.
Even if these two never wrote much in the group chat, it was not normal that they wouldn't say anything for hours on end. After 8 hours without answering, Gabriel called the police in fear that something might have happened to them.
It wouldn't take long for the police to find Jean-Francis, well his body at least. Before they gave the news to Gabriel, they sent in a second batch of police officers and one scientist to check how it had happened. In the end, they never came back.
The government then sent an entire swat team to investigate the forest. But, the forest in question seemed to have grown exponentially by quite a few kilometres since the day right before. The swat team then decided to stay the whole day to investigate but yet again, nothing came out of this investigation, not even the team that was in the forest.
The government then made a warning to the population about the forest and that anyone who would go in the forest would be shot down. But of course, that wasn't true since they would disappear before the police would even find them.
Each time they would put barricade tape around the dark forest, would continue to grow at an incredible speed in less then an hour.
Out of fear, the world leaders all came to an unanimous conclusion: they needed to pulverize the forest by any means necessary. And their means? An atomic bomb, and as you might think, this was way too sudden but the old leaders were already too senile to even think for one second.
The atomic bomb completely destroyed the forest and by the next day, it was back as if the explosion never happened. And in the end, they only made what was inside even more dangerous.
If only they had read Jean-Francis's journal that was a few meters away from him, they would have known what monstrosity was inside.
{ journal entry 28 august 2028,
It's probably around 7:30 in the morning right now and I barely survived, this forest is the work of a devil, a devil I say ! It was around 10 o'clock in the night and Loïc had called me to go pick him up since his car ran out of fuel.
When I had arrived at the coordinates he sent me, it was just an old looking forest but weirdly, it was about half a kilometre bigger compared to Google Maps. I thought it was just a mistake but while I'm thinking about it, since when does this company make big mistakes like this?
Anyways, I had decided to go look if Loïc wandered in the forest on his own but he was nowhere to be found. After some time of searching I thought it was some sick joke and then, it struck me, I hadn't seen Loïc's car earlier and the only reason I came here was because his car ran out of fuel. It was at this realization that I decided to go back but in the corner of my eye, I saw it, something blue in the distance.
When I finally decided to approach the blue material that seemed to be sinking in the ground as I approached, I almost immediately knew what it was.
This was Loïc's car, his Rolls-Royce Boat Tail car that was supposed to cost 28 million dollars and yet, he bought it less then a month ago. Right now, this specific car was currently sinking in the ground and it seemed almost completely oxidized as if it remained in the nature for 20 if not 30 years.
Right after I noticed this detail I quickly decided that I'm out of here, this wasn't funny anymore, it was terrifying. To be honest, I barely walked five minutes in the forest but when had done an 180 turn, the forest seemed to be continuing for hours. I could also see my car in the distance, my car sinking at an abominable speed with trees and vegetation quickly covering up my car.
You could probably imagine my face after witnessing all of these curious events one after the others and then, a bush not far away from me started to move. This old yet enormous bush faintly moved but it was enough to make me extremely cautious and on guard.
I couldn't move, I knew that if I did, I would probably regret it with my life. After what seemed for eternity, a pair of white eyes abruptly opened within the bush. In those white eyes, there was no pupil, none, yet I knew it was looking straight at me in pure rage.
It took me a few seconds to realize what the beast was since less then a week ago, I remember laughing at people who actually believed in this creature. If I'm correct, this creature's name is the "Phantom". There are many myths around this creature but in any case I was seeing one right now.
At that moment I had thought that it must certainly be a dream, this thing wasn't supposed to be alive and breathing, it wasn't even supposed to exist.
Even if I didn't want this thing to exist, it was there right in front of me and if some of the myth about this creature are also true, I'm in real trouble.
If you find my journal, this paragraph will describe the creature's appearance accompanied with the 3 most famous myth about it : firstly, this creature is known for it's hatred and violence against the human race, it's empty eyes drives people in madness and their hands are claws that are easily able to dissect any creature. Their teeth are strong enough to destroy rocks and you cannot forget to say that they have a pitch black humanoid body. This creature can also apparently enter shadows and walk around freely in them. The worst part about this monster is the fact that it always walk in packs of thousands.
I knew that if I didn't run I would soon be overwhelmed by phantoms and I cannot let that happen or I'm dead. It didn't take me long to make my decision since the phantom in front of me did his own before mine, forcing me to start running right away without second thoughts.
I couldn't let the other possible phantoms arrive or it was over, I ran, and ran, and ran, and ran and ran at my fastest for what seemed to be an entire hour and then I saw in the distance a human arm. I was sure of it, I was sure that it was Loïc's arm since I could see the red bracelet he bought himself recently on his wrist.
The more I approached the arm the more I could see that it felt weird and yet I didn't want to believe that something wrong happened. I remember vividly screaming Loïc's name while still trying to get out of my head horrible yet possible scenarios.
When I had tried to take Loïc's arm, it felt way too light for a human body and when I looked back, there was no body, only one arm and an enormous amount of blood.
I remember screaming in shock as I was seeing the dismembered arm of my friend. Even now, I don't know if he's alive, he probably isn't, not with an arm like this.
Without a second thought, I continued to run away, but this time, I barely stopped right next to an enormous cliff. Before I even had the time to run away from the cliff, I heard a growling sound right behind me.
The phantom had already caught up, that probably meant he was extremely fast or the shadow myth was indeed true. This time, he didn't take long to act, he didn't seemed to have seen the cliff right behind me has he jumped on me with all of his force. In the moment we felled, I barely saw in the distance hundreds if not thousands of white empty eyes.
When I had awoken, I was on a beach with 3 different sand colours, which made me consider the fact that I was probably not on earth anymore. When I looked around me, I realized the phantom that was chasing me was not as lucky as me. I could see that the phantom that felled with me was pierced by a tree that was less then meter next to me.
It seemed his lungs were pierced by the top of the tree yet, it was still moving a bit, showing it was maybe still alive. It was honestly disgusting to wittiness, since black blood was still pouring out of his body.
While I'm thinking about it, how did I survive? The water seems way too far from where I am standing, even at high tide. Anyways, it matters not as I survived the great fall.
It's clear I'm going to be stranded for a little while until I can find some help. I'm pretty sure I saw apples on the trees back in the forest. The only thing I'm scared of, is that the information about the phantoms appearing only during nighttime is fake. In any case, I need those apples or I'm going to starve to death here. If you see my journal on the ground then it means I didn't survive farewell to anyone seeing this piece of paper. }
Ultimately, no one found Jean-Francis's journal but what they did find, was his dissected and eaten torso with his head meters away from his destroyed corpse. The other body parts were never found, they were probably eaten too, taken away by phantoms to eat like drumsticks, who knows, maybe god does?