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Chapter 5

In the woods of Howl's Gate forest, New York, a group of police officers and forest rangers were investigating a mess of a situation. They were in the middle of a camp, there was blood everywhere and medics were checking every area surrounding the region. Four girls were sitting on the back of the EMT van and they looked like they were in shock, three of the girls were covered in blood but the fourth was just shell shocked.

A forest ranger approached them, he pulled out a notepad and a pen and eyed them carefully.

"You wanna tell me what happened here?" he asked gently.

"We.....w-we just came to have a small party because of the end of year exams and the two boys.........." the first girl trailed off.

"Tyler and Andrew were with us." the second girl helped out.

"What are your names?". The ranger asked.

"I'm Madison." the first girl replied.

"Kelly." the second girl responded before pointing at the third and fourth girls, "That's Katie and Maxine".

The ranger nodded.

"You folks know that people are prohibited from this forest, there have been reports of deadly animal attacks for the past 30 years from these woods alone." he told them giving them a serious look.

"We- we didn't know. We just wanted to have fun!" the third girl known as Katie exclaimed.

Madison and Kelly started to cry uncontrollably. The last girl was deathly silent which seemed a bit suspicious but he wanted to question her later.

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble. This is just a warning for next time." the ranger said with a frown as he wrote something down before looking up at them, "What happened exactly? From the beginning."

"Well, we set up our camp and we had a good time and we even had music blasting. We got drunk for a little while, Tyler and Andrew got out of control and started to fight. Maxine stopped them, then Andrew walked off and something to- too........". Kelly couldn't finish as she buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

"Something pulled Andrew into the treeline, we thought it was a joke at first but it wasn't. We tried to save him but we couldn't." Madison said with tears in her eyes.

"What attacked you?" the ranger asked as he eyed the teens carefully.

"We don't know what it was. It was pitch black and there was no light, but it attacked Tyler next and mauled him before dragging him off into the woods." Katie explained before raising the sleeve of her jacket, "This is what that thing gave me. I think it was a bear or something?"

The ranger inspected her arm and saw four long claw gashes, it was bleeding profusely and his widened in shock. Why didn't the girl say that she needed medical attention?

"Medic!" The ranger yelled.

A medic ran up and checked the girl's arm.

"She's going to need a lot of stitches, sir." the medic said before leading her way.

"I agree with Katie. I think it was a bear too." Madison said softly.

"Anything you want to add, Maxine?" the ranger asked the last girl.

The girl was quiet for a long time before adjusting the jacket around her, the ranger watched her closely and noticed a bite mark on her right shoulder and it looked messy. He frowned at this.

"Nothing." Maxine replied before making eye contact with the ranger.

"Alright. The medics will take care of you and we'll inform all of your families." The ranger said, "You're safe now."