Endless Forest

 It is said that there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They look different for everyone, and many become stuck on one stage for long periods of time, or for others, it becomes an endless cycle that you have no control over. A never-ending cycle that consumes you and leaves you feeling nothing and empty all over again once it is completed. 

   I woke up once again at exactly 3:40 a.m. with a shiver of fear running through my body as I tried to gasp for a breath of air, but I couldn't move a single part of my body, just my eyes. I could see him standing in the corner of the room in front of the fogged-up window staring at me with his empty and frozen eyes, but I couldn't scream for help, I never can for what seems an eternity. I lay there staring into his dead blue eyes that bore through my soul while he continued to smile at me and laugh when I tried to scream. And just when I think it's over, he's right above me screaming so loud I feel like my head is about to explode. 

   "JAYLIN! Don't leave me behind, I am begging you." His voice filled with anger and fear makes my body become full of terror, the same terror I felt that night in the woods.  

   I begin to feel myself come out of my sleep paralysis, and a feeling of relief replaces my fear. And once I am able to control my own body again, I begin to cry uncontrollably to the point I feel I will never be able to stop again, terrified of looking towards the fogged-up window. 

   I slowly lift my head, pleading that he won't be there anymore, and He's gone, my brother is gone. 

   "He's gone," I repeat to myself continuously as I gaze at the pitch-black sky filled with stars through the window where he had just stood a few moments ago. 

   The thought of closing my eyes horrified me, so I stared at the fan spinning on the ceiling as tears streamed down my face, waiting for the sun to come in through the windows. Although I was awake, I still could not shake the suffocating feeling of someone watching me. 

   The continuous loud sound of the ceiling fan's blades spinning made me gradually remember that night. I could still feel my bare feet running through the woods as blood trickled slowly down my face, and I gasped for enough air to make it towards the lights of the cars in the road up ahead. I remember I kept thinking to myself, how is this happening? How did we get here from a simple car ride? 

   My mother, my twin brother, and I had lived in a lower-middle-class neighborhood our entire lives because my single mother worked restlessly in energy devouring jobs to make enough money to pay for our rent. Ever since we were children, my brother, Alex, and I had become comfortable with being alone because of the endless hours our mother worked. In the days leading up to the accident, my brother had mentioned to me that he had an unsettling feeling of being watched all day. Still, I just ignored him, thinking he was just stressed because of our financial problems since our mother had lost one of her jobs during the summer, and she never let us help her out with money no matter the circumstances. 

   Throughout the summer before our second year of high school, Alex became so paranoid that he would not leave his room all day. When he did, he acted as if someone were always behind us, but I just never paid attention to it until the night a week before we would enter school again. 

   I went to sleep late because I stayed up watching T.V, but I never realized at what time I drifted to sleep. I woke up in the passenger seat of our mother's car with my brother driving with bloodshot eyes that made me feel like I was just in a horrible dream. Am I really in a dream? I repeated to myself multiple times as my body remained stiff in the same position because my senses became widened, and I wasn't expecting to be greeted by my brother because I never am in my dreams but is this a dream? 

   I finally gave in and decided I would simply look over at the time on the radio screen, and it was exactly 3:40 a.m. 

   "Alex?" I glanced over at him nervously as my skin crawled as the fright in my body began to rise, but he only looked through me towards the window, staring blankly at the woods we were passing without speaking a word. 

   I began to look around at our surroundings, and it seemed as if we were in the middle of nowhere with no other cars behind us, and suddenly, we came to a stop. 

   "Alex, what's going on? Where are we?" I stared at him anxiously as my voice broke because I feared he wouldn't answer me. 

   "Stay in the car. He's watching us, and I have to get rid of him." His voice sounded so lifeless and empty that it seemed as if I was just having a bad dream, but I wasn't. 

   He slammed the car door before letting me speak a word and went to the trunk of the car, but all I could think of was that he did not leave the keys for me in the ignition. I decided to get out of the car and ask him for them even though every single sense I had was telling me not to. 

   As I slowly stepped out of the car, a wave of cold air hit my face and my bare feet. I took my hair down from the ponytail it was in, hoping it would give my neck some warmth. I was still in my pajamas I had fallen asleep in, and once my feet hit the concrete road, I realized I wasn't wearing any shoes. Everything was dark, and I could not find my phone anywhere to use as my source of light. 

   "Alex, can I have the keys?" I asked him as I looked down at my feet to make sure I did not step on anything, but when I did not receive an answer, I looked up and I was all alone. My brother was gone. Where could he have gone? 

   "JAYLIN!!" I continuously heard my name being yelled from the woods by a voice I could not recognize, but the fear in my body paralyzed me. I hoped that a car would show up on the road, but one never did. 

   "JAYLIN!!" Once again, my name but this time it was my brother's voice, and without a thought, I ran towards the scream, into the woods afraid that he was being hurt. 

   The screams stopped suddenly, making me stop along with an uneasy feeling that made me become alert. I tried to convince myself it was the adrenaline flooding my system, pumping and beating as if it were trying to escape my body because it made my heart feel as if it were about to explode, and my eyes were wide with fear of the darkness. My body wants to run toward the car's safety, so I turn to the direction I had come from and try to run towards the road, but instead, I remain where I am. 

   Every sense in my body alerted me of danger more and more each second that I stood there until I felt the gaze of a predator upon my back, making every hair in my body stand up, but I knew it was not a coyote or a bear. No, it was a different predator, a human. 

   The adrenaline in my body rises so high I become nauseous and sweat begins to trickle down my forehead. At some point, I'll have to move and face the person behind me, so I begin to slowly turn around. 

   Once I turn around, my eyes locked with his bloodshot and cloudy eyes, a stare that seems to reach into my soul and sends shivers down my back. The emptiness in his eyes destroyed any trace of hope I had desperately held on to. His eyes were the eyes that prepared people for their death. I looked at him, his face covered with blood and a kitchen knife in his left hand. 

   "Alex?" My voice seemed to crack as the fear in my body rose. He stared at me as if he did not know who I was as if we were strangers. I searched for one trace of life in his eyes, but there was none. 

   He smiled. He smiled at me, but his eyes were empty. 

   "It's gone. I'm free." He whispered through his grin as he looked down at his blood-covered hands. I could see him begin to lift the knife on his left hand slowly while his smile grew bigger. He slowly began to lift his head towards my direction, and without a single thought, without hesitation, I began to run towards the road. 

   Facing forward, I began to sprint, my feet flying over stones and leaves on the forest floor between the trees. The cold air bites into my lungs as I gasped for air, enough air to make it towards the road. I can feel him behind me, his heavy breathing. With each step, pain shoots through my entire body as my bare feet desperately attempt to pull my tired body forward. My heart beats frantically, the sound filling my ears, adrenaline fills my veins as if it were blood and the cold air begins to make my eyes water, making my vision blurry. The woods seem endless, even though I've only been running for a few minutes. Branches of trees continuously hit my face making blood trickle down from my forehead. 

   I knew I could not hide or fight, but I did not feel like I could go much longer. I felt more human, more mortal than I had ever before. 

   Just before my legs were about to give up, the sight of light beams in the distance on the concrete road gave me a tiny trace of hope. 

   "JAYLIN! Don't leave me behind." I could hear his raspy voice filled with anger and fear all at once, the voice of a stranger I had once known. I could not look back because I knew I would not be able to leave him if I did. 

   The feeling of concrete beneath my bare feet made me lunge forward towards the truck light beams. My hand desperately reached towards the passenger side's silver metal handle with the hope that the truck would be unlocked. 

   "Help me, please. Please!" I screamed in the driver's face as he slowly came to a stop as I pulled the door open. 

   He did not respond, but his facial expressions of concern and terror of what he saw behind me made me jump into the truck without hesitation as he sped off. I was rushed to the hospital by the man who had saved me from the endless woods. My mother and the police kept questioning me about what happened, but I couldn't open my mouth. I could not speak a single word. 

   When I was home the next day, we were informed by the police that my brother had been found murdered in the woods by multiple stab wounds, and they estimated he had been murdered around 3:50 a.m., but that didn't make sense. I saw him with my own two eyes. He was the one chasing me for over 10 minutes. How could that be possible? 

   Now all I can do is wait with my unsettling feeling of being watched, hoping that I won't be next.