Do you see it?

"Sshhhh," hushed the boy, rather loudly,

"What is it?" whispered the girl, hiding behind a blackberry bush with the boy, not 10 yards from the edge of the woods.

The boy, his chin in his knees, sat still for a few moments, allowing the girl to grow more and more anxious for an answer,

"Watch..." whispered the boy, not to the girl, but to everything around him, and so they watched. They watched as the forest seemed to darken, a few moments before you could easily see the rushing stream through the thin pines, now the children could barely distinguish between the vague blocks of black claiming to be trees. They watched as insects who've been hovering at the crest of the forest, flew away one-by-one. They watched the leaves of bushes who once were carefree with blackberries now rustle and shake as if they were warning the children. The children watched as a blur of blinding white emerged from the forest, its legs slowly waltzing forward so that you could see every muscle flex, it flicked dirt into the air every time it dug its claws into the earth to step forward,

"Do you see it?!" the boy desperately rasped, still staring at the thing that came from the woods,

"That's not funny, you scared me!" the girl pretended to be angry, then playfully pushed the boy. The rabbit stuck it's white, furry head into the air, sniffed the children, then ran back into the forest, and life resumed as if nothing happened.

Now's really not the time for reminiscing, Annabelle thought to herself, yet Annabelle couldn't help but be reminded of that day, 10 years ago. Thinking of that rabbit, it didn't scare her back then but it did now, lost in its woods at-Annabelle checked her watch-10:02pm. She knew it was just an animal, a partially domesticated one too, yet for some unknown reason, the memory of that day was always accompanied by prickly hair and a chilled wind. An hour ago, Annabelle and her friends were dressing up for a football player's house party, themed "Last night on earth", trying on high heels and debating whether fishnet tights were hot or not. Now she was blindly hiking through the forest, jumping whenever a bush rustled like a spooked horse.

"Stacy, you said that there was a trail, so where the hell is it?" cried the voice of a teenage girl,

"Maggie stop freaking out, I swear there's one we just need to find it," Stacy replied, slightly annoyed at her friend's question, "Annie, where'd you go? I can't see crap... oh sh-" Stacy tripped over a surprisingly thick tree root sticking up from the ground, she instinctually flung her hands towards the earth, ready to catch her own falling body, but two shots of cheap vodka and a high school career of extreme dieting only helped amplify the snap of her wrist.

"Stacy holy crap," Annabelle hurried to her fallen friend, stepped over the root, and bent down to examine Stacy,

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit SHIT!" Stacy sobbed, for she was pretty, rich, and blonde and never had to deal with anything harsher than a broken nail,

"Stacy, oh my god, are you okay?!" shouted a panicked Maggie,

"No, I'm not okay, how stupid are you, do I look okay?!" Stacy clutched her wrist and curled into a ball against a tree.

"Look, I don't think there is a path, screw this party let's just go back the way we came," reasoned Annabelle,

"No, no, no there is a path Bobby and Ralph said so, the-they said that it has a phone booth, and benches, and-" before Stacy could finish Annabelle interrupted her,

"Bobby and Ralph said that?" Bobby and Ralph were notorious for their pranks in and outside of their high school, their most "popular" one being when they catfished their poor economics teacher with a tinder profile of a woman who looked very much like his dead wife.

"Are you kidding me?” Maggie said in their general direction, as she was still looking for them, “They were lying to you Stacy, and you made us come out here and chase an imaginary path?” We could have been at that party already, making out and getting drunk but now we're stuck in the middle of god knows where and-” she found Annabelle standing over Stacy, “you're crying about a hurt wrist!”

"I BROKE it!" Stacy pitifully defended herself,

“Honestly you made us come out here so you deserve it…”

Her friend's argument faded into white noise, Annabelle felt something, like a hand had grasped her heart and squeezed until all the blood had left it, much like juicing a lemon. Her eyes led her up a tree and landed upon an owl. She felt a moment of reassurance, it was just a bird after all, but that was the first bird she's seen since they've entered the forest, maybe you could explain that because the three girls were rather loud, but as Annabelle thought about it more and more she realized that was the first animal she's seen since they've entered the forest, she couldn't remember if even an insect buzzed by her ear. She couldn't move, the owl paralyzed her with it's gaze, it mocked her with those eyes, it told her that it had always been there, curiously watching as three girls entered the forest, its forest, yet it didn’t say anything. Annabelle knew that that was what happened, and that the only reason she found the creature was because it wanted to be found.

“Annabelle, sweetheart, come on now we should get going, we wouldn’t want to miss dinner now would we?” Annabelle ignored her mother’s cooes, after all, she was safe on the sidewalk and the forest was out of view, so she had no clue what attracted young Annabelle to the woods. She crept closer to the trees. She could see the babbling creek, the sun sparkled off the running water as if someone threw glitter over it. A bug flew too close to her eyes, causing little Annabelle to stumble backward and squeeze her eyes shut in case there was another attack. There wasn’t, but it came close, she could hear insects buzz pass her ears, making them vibrate in a way she didn’t like. When it came time to reopen her eyes she froze. Her skin prickled as if every hair on her body turned to needles, she suddenly became aware that she couldn’t see the creek, she couldn’t see anything because her eyes had already been open for quite some time, because the forest was completely black... But that didn’t last long.

The branches, or what she thought were branches, cracked and swayed in the distance. Whatever was coming, was coming from above. The noises gained speed, the crunches of twigs and rustling of leaves quickly became louder and clearer as it approached Annabelle. Then it stopped, it crawled down from the treetops, maintaining eye contact with her all the while. It was a blinding white. The creature stopped on a branch, eye-level with Annabelle. But the branches looked the same as the rocks, and the rocks looked the same as the trees; dark. So instead of standing innocently on the limb of a tree it was floating ominously in the pitch-black blur of a forest. It stared into Annabelle, beyond Annabelle, as if it knew something about her she would never know herself, and it was taunting her for it.

“Annabelle, baby, there you are I couldn’t find you, I had the neighbors out looking for you,” her mother scooped Annabelle up from the ground, and cradled her child in her arms, “Sweetheart you can’t do that, you can’t just run off without telling me, I was calling for you, you were close enough to the sidewalk why didn’t you respond?”

“I’m sorry, Mommy there was a squirrel, look,” Annabelle pointed out the creature, still hovering above the blackened woods,

“What squirrel baby? All that’s in there is the creek,” her mother pointed towards where the creek should’ve been, “And the trees,” she knocked on a black blur, confident that it was a tree, and in her mother’s eyes it was a tree, for her mother could clearly make out the creek and every individual trunk, branch, and bush in the forest.

“And there definitely aren’t any squirrels, Stacy’s father and his hunting club made sure of that, you must’ve imagined it,” she finished, kissed her daughter’s nose, turned, and walked away from the forest. Annabelle nuzzled her chin into her mother’s chest, then took one last glance at the woods. It was lit, the bugs had returned, and there wasn’t any sign of an animal, let alone squirrel. Her mother was right, maybe nothing had happened, maybe, Annabelle thought, I was just making it up.

“trade?”

Annabelle took a step back, she heard it. The owl never flinched but she heard it speak as loud as the thoughts in her head. It wasn’t until she finished processing what had just happened until it dawned on Annabelle what it was referring to. Her head spun what felt like one-eighty degrees towards her friends, and she examined their faces. The more she thought about they weren't really her friends, more like two girls who just adopted her. They didn't understand her, they didn't share many interests, the only reasons they were acquainted was because they just happen to have the same classes and both enjoy getting drunk. Annabelle examined her friends,