The Faceless Forest

8

"Oh my," Zoey said coming closer to her friend.

"What happened?" Ethan said also coming over towards Emily.

"Wolves," she managed to say.

Emily got bandaged up and she got helped up.

"We should start going," Emily said leaning against a tree.

"Are you ok enough to walk?" Lilly asked

Emily had forgotten how faceless she was, how she looked one of the horrid creatures she was even starting to smell. Emily also feared that Lilly could turn into one of the creatures, they didn't have much time left before she turned evil. She didn't have the slightest trust in Lilly anymore.

They continued their journey losing more and more hope each time they stop to let Emily take a break. Tree after tree past by, some big some small some fallen over and some struck by lightning it was like they would never find the piece of paper that wove their destiny around it's finger tip.

As the days progressed their hope faded away and so did Lilly's humanity. As the days grew older so did Lilly's monster, her friends needed to be afraid of her. After ten more days of doom gloom and hallucinations Zoey saw the tree.

"Guys it the tree!" she said without thinking

"What tree?" Emily responded

"The one in my dream vision thing, I had a dream that by this tree," she said pointing towards the tree "there was a box and inside it was the paper,"

She started to look around the tree "Is this it?" Josh asked Zoey holding up a small metal box

"I think so, but we can't be sure until we open it," Zoey bent down and opened the box and it was their, what their whole journey through the woods was meant for.

"This is like at the back of the forest," Emily said looking around, "I can see bare grass without an trees,"

Zoey looked down at the page, it looked worn wrinkled, like it was their for a long time. But she still could read the writing.

"Um guys, I think this may be harder than we think,"

"Why?"

"Come look at this," Zoey responded pointing down at the writing on the paper.

"You have to kill the original people!" Emily said in shock her mouth wide open.

"Yeah and it looks like their names are right here," Zoey said

"It also looks like the last people who did it are on here two," Ethan said looking at four pairs of names.

"Sara and Jake," Zach said

"Wait did you just say Sara and Jake," Emily questioned

"Yeah, why?" Zach asked

"Those where my parents, and they had gotten murdered and nobody really cared that somebody had killed them it was all about how they could go outside again, it never made sense to me before because all I really wanted was justice but now it all makes sense." Emily said getting out of breath, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh my," the rest of the group said, except for Lilly she hadn't looked surprised at all, she looked distant.

"Well we should probably get going we've got a world to save," Lilly said out of the blue, she started to walk away, Emily was sitting her face in hands tears rolling down her cheeks. Her friends crowded around her trying to comfort her.

"If you want to leave so much than why don't you," Emily remarked

"I will, but don't forget that I helped save your life," Lilly said storming off, at this point Lilly didn't even look like Lilly she looked like a murderer waiting for the right time to strike.

"Give me the paper," Lilly shouted back

"No, you would probably just eat it anyways," Emily shouted.

This was the last straw for Lilly, she lunged at Emily teeth bared

"Emily!" Zoey shouted lunging at Lilly trying to grab a knife out of her backpack. She finally got the knife she stabbed Lilly in the back, Lilly made a inhuman growl and tried to lunge at Zoey but she was prepared, she dodged her and stabbed her again this time in the chest, black blood squirted in Zoey's face.

"Leave Emily alone or this will go straight through your neck," Zoey threatened

Lilly looked up at them eyes full of hatred, "I will be back," she said getting up and she started to walk away, she turned and lunged at Emily again but Zoey was a quick thinker and just as Lilly could touch Emily she stabbed Lilly right in the neck, killing her for the second time.

Emily was just full of shock and betrayal, "I knew she was going to go bad, but I hadn't realized she would go bad on me," tears had once again formed in her eyes slowly trickling down her face.

"I know, me too, no one thought she would attack any of us," Zoey said trying to comfort her.

"We should probably start our journey home and our quest to save the world," Emily said pulling herself together.

"Yeah you're probably right," Zach said.

"Who's going to kill the people?" Josh asked"I mean we know them how are we going to kill them?"

"I killed Lilly just now didn't I?" Zoey said snapping at Josh

"Well yeah, but she was already dead so that doesn't really count," he said.

Once again they had started their journey back with more hope than last time, without Lilly's direction it would take a bit longer but they would figure it out. They surprisingly hadn't had as many hallucinations as when Lilly was there, and they started to believe that because Lilly was tagging along that the forest was holding some sort of grudge against them, but now it seemed like it was relieved.