The Mystery Forest

Erika walks down the road.“Wow, it’s so sunny,” she says to Emily. Emily agrees, but Emily never actually says anything because she is mute. The road is empty, thin as air. Erika is at school with Emily, but when they enter the classroom, everyone is gone.Erika says in her mind, “Where are they? Did they LEAVE?!”She rushes down to the bus. “Phew,” she says; the bus has not left. After that, they get into the bus. Marcus asks her where they were going. She says the beach.Suddenly, there is a thunderstorm. The bus breaks down and everything is gone, including the bus driver and Miss Camelah, but over there is a strange house, which is also broken down. Erika gets off the bus along with the others. Oliver goes out after that. He finds flowers, very big flowers like none of us have ever seen, so he quickly runs back in.Suddenly something pops up in Erika’s mind. “Let’s turn the bus into a shelter,” she says.Everyone agrees. When they are making the door, they need some big flowers like those they saw earlier, but they are scared of Oliver and his runny nose from allergies, so they decide not to add flowers. They use Veronica’s jacket and a little bit of wood instead – and Tada! It’s done. Sliding curtains!Erika enters though the sliding curtains. Tada! I say we take John (the strong guy) and tell him to adjust the seats to sleeping mode, AKA lying-down mode. Everyone helps, and wow! “Teamwork makes the dream work,” I say as we watch the violet-blue sky at sunset. Outside in the night, it’s as dark as a horror scene. We get back to the bus and fall asleep.

In the morning, the sun is bright, and the sunlight is warm and not harsh. The birds keep chirping, and the breeze is cool. The leaves of the plants are covered with dew drops. The level of noise pollution in the mornings is less, as compared to the other times of the day. I wake up everyone else to go outside and see what we can find for our shelter.Emily finds the weird looking hut I saw before, and then BOOM! She’s disappeared. Everyone starts to call her, but nobody manages to find her.“Oh, well,” Marcus says.“OH, WELL?! SHE’S MY BEST FRIEND, MARCUS! WE NEED TO FIND HER!”Day and night we look for her, but there is no sign. I guess she is gone.Suddenly we hear this bizarre, deformed, otherworldly noise. Everyone is scared and stays quiet. Everyone gets back to the shelter and becomes pin-drop silent. We can hear the breathing of a monster coming closer. Suddenly Eve remembers a potion she got from this forest. When she opens it, the monster starts squealing and runs away. Erika is shocked. How? Could it be….Erika is distraught, but everyone cheers her up.“Thanks, guys.”We hear the cold night breeze pass and the endless, dark, night terrors and then complete silence. Next day we wake up to see… WHAT IN THE WORLD? WE SEE EMILY, BUT – not a friendly one; she is holding a knife, her bloodshot eyes looking at one specific person…“Oliver…” she says in a monstrous voice. “OLIVER, GET OUT OF THE SHELTER BEFORE I KILL YOU!”“SERENA?” I say.“HOW CAN EMILY TALK?!” Oliver says.Next to her, I see SERENA, MY DEAD SISTER!!!I run to her and hug her so tight that tears drop. I start to howl.Serena says, “siesta.” Huh? What does she mean? By the way, siesta means naptime, and I have explained that word to everyone.Suddenly, I lose my eyesight like everyone else, and a few moments later there are teardrops on my face. I wake up to see myself sunbathing on the beach.I ask everyone, “Weren’t we in the forest one second ago?”They say, “Yeah, we were.”They also looked confused.“Are we time travelling?”“Maybe, but everything here is perfectly fine.”Weird-looking Oliver says something in Spanish, which is “ayúdanos eri- (help me)….