Ghostly ( Working On Title )

Through The Forest

Harper woke up in hazy confusion. His mind felt weirdly fuzzy, and his body felt abnormally heavy. He looked around blearily and was surprised to find himself outside. How had he gotten out here? Last he remembered, he was inside looking for a sound he'd heard. He'd come across a room with a cat in it. Or, at least what he thought was a cat. He didn't remember anything after that, though.

He stood up on unstable legs. It felt like he hadn't walked properly in years. He nearly fell while making his way down the porch steps. He was contemplating which direction to walk when he noticed something. The sun was setting. That one realization sent Harper's mind went into panic mode. If the sun set, it would be too dark to see. He wouldn't be able to make his way out of the woods. He wouldn't be able to get home.

Harper felt his chest tighten as he started running in a random direction. His vision blurred, and his lungs heaved in ragged breaths as he ran. He closed his eyes as tears spilled down his cheeks. His heart pounded, and his mind raced. His body still throbbed from earlier. His legs were burning from the overexertion. In the whirlwind of thoughts going through his head, he concluded that he was calling in sick to school tomorrow.

Apparently, Harper hadn't learned his lesson from earlier, considering he tripped over some overgrown vines and face planted into the snow. Harper pushed himself up quickly. In his haste, he tripped over the same vines and stumbled into a tree. While trying to run again, he didn't realize that his shirt sleeve had gotten snagged on a branch. The tearing sound that followed only made him panic more.

Harper could feel the cold air biting at his now bare arm. It was only now that he realized how cold it was outside. Not to mention the fact that the branch had cut his forearm as well. The cut wasn't very deep, but it was bleeding nonetheless. Harper could feel bile start to rise in his throat. He leaned over, placing one hand on the tree for support. He brought a shaky hand to his mouth as he gagged harshly. He winced as he felt bile rise in his throat.

Harper closed his eyes tightly as his lunch spilled out of his mouth. He felt somewhat relieved when he threw up. He couldn't feel his stomach tying itself in knots anymore. He dry heaved tiredly. His entire body was slick with sweat. His chest ached, and it felt like his head was splitting apart. His body felt strangely light but abnormally heavy at the same time. He groaned loudly as he struggled to stand up straight.

He felt absolutely exhausted. Harper wanted nothing more than to just pass out right there. He knew he couldn't, though, so with the last remaining bit of energy, he continued to make his way out of the woods. His head spun as he walked, and he staggered from one side of the path to the other. By some miracle, he managed to get to the edge of the woods before he collapsed onto the ground.

With exhaustion weighing down on his body, he allowed his mind to drift. A strange feeling stirred in his gut as his mind wandered. It felt wrong to sleep while he was in this state. With how bad his head was pounding, he probably had some type of head injury. Not to mention the fact that he still had open wounds. Though, most of them had clotted by now, and the ones that hadn't were just small scrapes and paper cuts.

Harper was still tired but opted to try and keep himself awake. He focused on the ache and pain in his body. He focused on how his lungs felt as if they were tearing whenever he took a breath in. Harper’s breath stuttered for a second, causing a wave of pain to shoot through his body. He bit his tongue as he hissed in pain.

He decided to focus on something else. Something a little less painful. He focused on the feeling of his face being pressed into the snowy asphalt under him. The snow was cold enough to numb the pain he was in. He didn't think that was a good thing. He could get hypothermia if he got too cold, right? Or, at least, he thought so. It was getting harder to think by the moment.

Another sudden spike of pain had Harper biting on his tongue again. This time, however, he bit down a bit too hard, and his tongue started to bleed. He scrunched up his nose (or at least tried to) at the taste of iron seeping into his spit for the second(?) time that day. He was starting to get rather annoyed at how stupid this whole situation was.

If he had just backed off and apologized to Tyler, then he wouldn't be in the position he was in now. He could have just walked away if he was worried about getting hurt! But no, he just couldn't ignore his ego, could he? He just had to go and make things worse. He just had to bring up how the asshat acted in school. All because he couldn't swallow his fucking pride.

The strange feeling was back again. Only this time, it was more violent (if you could call it that). It twisted and writhed inside of his chest. The feeling borderlined on painful, but it wasn't quite there yet. For some reason, he felt somewhat guilty for his thoughts. His next few thoughts felt weirdly disconnected from his previous ones. A barage of thoughts consisting of different iterations of: 'Why am I beating myself up over this?' And 'I'm trying my best and doing well with what I have!'

Tiredness once again made itself apparent as thoughts flowed in and out of his head. Distantly, Harper figured that he should probably get out of the snow before he got frostbite or something. But he couldn't find the energy to care. So, with a tired huff, Harper decided to just stay where he was until something happened. He lay there tiredly and let himself sink further into the snow under him.