The Faceless Forest

13

"Yeah and hopefully we can fulfill that," Ethan said with a face full of hopelessness,

"We are going to fulfill it" Zoey said trying to give Ethan some hope even though it wasn't working

"We will gather up supplies tonight and head out in the morning, hopefully it won't be that bad," Zoey said rushing around to find a backpack and some food.

Just as they started to run out in all directions there was a loud crash of the door, Zoey had screamed as she dropped the water bottle she was holding, she slowly peeked around the corner of the hallway and saw a female figure,

"Emily?" she said asking out into the darkness and to the shadow that looks strangely like Emily

"Yeah," the shadow responded walking a bit out into the light, from what Zoey could see she looked like she spent days outside, just sitting and maybe even sleeping, but that wouldn't make sense.

"Emily!" Zoey screamed at her running up to give her a hug and that's when she realized she wasn't alone

"Who else is their?" Zoey said, it was like as soon as she let her guard down a new challenge would come her way surprising her.

"Steph," the unknown person answered as she too also walked into the light

"Guys!" Zoey yelled behind her "Emily's here!"

"What," they said as they practically stampeded out into the doorway.

"As I said Emily is right here safe and sound," Zoey said once again showing them that indeed Emily was alright,

"Wait so what happened, you look like you had spent the last few days outside," Zach said

"Well we were, it was one of the creatures they sent me out of my house, it was like they owned it, so I rushed over to Steph's house because she lives across the street and then it came into her house so we ran out and have been staying outside ever since,and that's also where we found your house," Emil said in a few large breaths,

"Oh my," Zoey said, her mouth wide open,

"Yeah it was bad," Emily said to all the shocked looking faces that were looking straight into her eyes burning into her soul, she didn't even know why she was thinking about those details, maybe she wanted to tell the truth but she may never know.

"Can we sit?" Steph asked, her second time speaking. She didn't really know what to say, to her it seemed like Emily was trying to hide what they did for reasons she didn't know, so all Steph did was stand in the shadows of Emily's great personality and let everyone else do the work, it was like she was going back to being a nobody.

"Yeah of course," Zoey said with a inviting hand motioning towards the couch

"Umm, I think there's another tiny problem," Zach said pointing towards the doors general direction

Emily let out a nervous laugh "ugh sorry about that," she tried fixing it but nothing she did seemed to work

"Here let me do it, it does this all the time," Zoey said as she shuffled towards the door.

Emily looked around, she was surprised. She had never actually been to Zoey's house it was odd seeing your best friend for years house that you never seen before when you weren't best friends.

They all took a rest day, the group of old friends had known what to do since the alarm but they just wanted to put it off it seemed like nobody wanted to deal with it, it was startange what could happen in the time span of 2 years strange, strange indeed but that didn't matter they had to do what has to be done.

In the morning Emily had realized that they can't go into the forest,find the paper, and then they would realize that she did it and they would have to kill her, no that wasn't going to happen. They would steer clear of the forest.

Emily would have to find some way to get her friends away from the forest the only thing she needed to find out was the how part and she didn't know how to find it. She could write a note, she could run away and wait for her friends to follow, so many options and so little opportunities.

By the next morning everyone was well rested and ready to go, they didn't know where but they knew they had to go somewhere other than anyone's house they also couldn't go into the forest according to Emily and nobody really wanted to go back their anyways after their last experience 2 years ago. They hoped to stay clear of the forest at all costs unless it was the only way to save their village.