#nightmare warning

    “No, Raph. What I’m saying is that I don’t understand how you got into Rune Theory and Application” I tucked my notebook filled with scrawled gibberish back into the satchel.     “And I’m saying that it feels like you think I cheated on the exam to get in” Raph stopped just long enough for me to put my stuff away and continued stomping on the crunchiest leaves his feet could find.    “I never said anything about the fairness of your acceptance”, he turned around to look at me while I thought of a suitable end to the sentence, “Just that I can’t fathom how you passed” He frowned and put a hand on his hip.      “Are you saying you don’t think I’m smart enough for this class?” Yes. Precisely.     “No, absolutely not” He kept frowning and turned around to look through the trees. I might not have answered quickly enough for his liking.      “Hey, what time you got?” Oh thank god. He got distracted. I looked at my wrist.      “It’s about seven thirty” He mused for a second motioning for me to hurry up.     Rune Theory was in a class building separated from the main campus by a sizable forest. It’d take us until nightfall to get back. As it was, the lamps lining both sides of the street glowed to life.     I caught up to Raph and we walked on as evening turned to dusk. The trees overhead grew thicker until the sky was blotted out by the leaves. For a while we kept up with the synchronized glow of the lamps. No sooner had the fog rolled into the trees when the lamps raced to full brightness in mere seconds, lighting up the road until we couldn’t see it anymore.      “Think we’re gonna make it in time to grab grub from the kitchen?” Raph asked, rummaging around in my bag.      “We’re not even gonna make curfew at this point,” I replied, glancing down at my watch again, “And I keep dry ingredients in there so don’t touch them” He yanked his hand out and wiped it on his shirt. I stood on tiptoe trying to catch a peak of the campus. Nothing. I’ve lost it completely. “Do you think we should jog the rest of the way?”      Raph raised an eyebrow and looked around as though looking for something. “I’m not running to make it in time for fuckin curfew, Seb” He patted my shoulder as a glimpse of the moon peered through the trees.       “We’re takin' a shortcut anyhow. Follow me” he trudged off the street and into the forest, snapping twigs and branches louder than if a stampede of bears had gone by. I didn’t follow him and he turned around. “What’s the matter?”       “You’re sure this is a shortcut?” I asked, hesitant to follow Raph blindly into a dark forest with the possibility of starving to death on our own looming over me. He sighed and pointed at where the moon was.      “Campus is southwest of us right? Moon’s there. So campus is this way, I promise” I don’t feel better but following him on his hunch sounds better than being alone in the street.       The trees feel bigger in the dark. The fog thickened and obscured any sign that the moon hung in the sky at any point. “Got your lamp with you?” Raph asked, stopping and nearly causing me to walk right into his back.      “No, it’s on my desk” He stumbled over to a tree and ripped a piece of bark off of it. I couldn’t tell what he was doing but he fiddled with it for a good couple seconds. A spark flared followed by another. The piece of bark burst into flames at one end and it illuminated the small area around us. Raph shook the match he had and grinded it into the dirt with his shoe.      “Hurry up then. This won’t last long” he said, heading off faster into the forest. I kept close to his back, feeling my skin crawl with each new sound the forest offered.         At this point, Raph’s stomping was a welcoming ambience in comparison to the mystery of what’s out there.     All the trees looked the same after a while. I hoped that Raph knew what he was doing because I certainly had no idea where we were. Wait. One of these trees looked different from the others.     “Hey hold on” I said, tugging on Raph’s shirt. He obeyed and followed me to the anomaly. It was a sign. Maybe it’d point us toward the campus.      Hollows of the Unhallowed, it read. It looks like someone carved it with a knife. A shiver took hold of my spine and I turned around. All these trees were not only dead; they looked as though their innards were ripped out and disappeared.      “Raph, what happened” The surroundings were plunged into darkness as Raph let out a squeal of pain. The embers from the bark hit the damp ground and were extinguished upon contact.      Now that we weren’t moving, the forest noises resumed. Frogs croaked quietly, crickets chirped, and branches strained against strange sounding wind. Due to the acoustics of the forest, it sounded like whispering.      “Once” some of it sounded like. “Tree” other parts sounded like. Raph tapped me and I nodded. He heard it too. It’s whispering. We turned around in circles trying to place where it was coming from. It seemed to come from all around us.      “Who are you” Raph shouted. He couldn’t hide the shakiness in his voice.      “Once”      “Around”      “We”     “Tree” It almost seemed melodic. Different parts were sung in eerie harmony. Other’s clashed in tone deaf waves of sound. I wish I could hear all the words they said. A shiver went down my spine as the whispering got quieter. Like the song was ending.       “Hide” I barely was able to pick it up when all the whispering said it in unison. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that the frogs and crickets were silent as well.      Raph reached out and his strong hands grabbed my shirt. He shoved me violently into a nearby hollow tree, following after me. I opened my mouth to protest.     “Hey-” He covered my mouth with one hand and kept his other hand on my chest, keeping me firmly pressed against the back of the tree.     Nothing happened out there. No sound, no light, no disturbance of any kind. Then it felt like my head was tight and sweat began to form on my skin. The leaves outside didn’t crunch so much as rustle and compress. I could hardly see it but a footprint formed in the dirt outside our hollow. Whatever it was, it was huge. No leg or foot was attached to it but the footprint was deep and extended out for a few yards into gnarled toe prints.      The small clearing outside our tree didn’t look like something was filling the space but a small feeling inside me knew that something tangible was right outside. It didn’t make a sound as it moved so much as cause a shift in air pressure.       Raph pressed further against me and I picked up a small rumbling noise that ended with Raph’s eyes meeting mine. His mouth worded “Sorry”. Damn it Raph. My teeth clenched and my muscles tightened up in response. The air pressure changed dramatically and another footprint appeared next to its companion, facing toward our hiding spot. I wanted to shrink into a ball and make a smaller target for it but it’d surely hear me.       Just when I thought it left and moved my hand to tell Raph to get off, thick fog curled in around the trunk. The fog ended in sharp roots and took the shape of three long nails that snaked like tendrils into the bark above our heads. At the ends it crunched into the wood.       The air pressure increased until I thought my eardrums would burst. It felt as though it trapped us at the bottom of a lake. At that moment, something off in the distance sounded eerily melodious.     “Once….around…the tree….we go” it sung. The air thinned. “Once…around…the tree….we go” it repeated, getting closer. The air returned to normal and I quietly took in as much air as my lungs could hold. Raph’s eyes were trained on the clearing and I followed his gaze. I could make out a human figure. They stood in the open not even making an attempt to hide from whatever’s out there.       And…they just kept singing. The same sentence. Over and over.      Without warning, the area around them lit up as though a spotlight was trained on them. It looked like a second year student. Short cropped brown hair and casual evening attire. They looked completely unfazed. A loud hissing as though steam was escaping a container filled the air and the spotlight disappeared leaving us temporarily blinded in the sudden darkness.       My night vision returned to me slowly but my ears picked up whispering. “Once….around…the tree….we go” it whispered. Finally my eyes snapped into focus and the student was gone. In its place was a large dead tree with no innards.     “Run” I heard from somewhere inside our hollow. Raph took my hand and we dashed out into the woods. He had a much faster pace and I was practically being dragged behind him. I couldn’t see where we were going. Trees blurred by us as we sprinted as quickly as we could. The muscles in my throat tightened and I could tell it was following us. No matter how fast we’d run, it felt like it kept pace with us easily. My lungs burned and my legs felt like they’d fallen off. I turned around quickly to see if it was still following us.      My feet hit a large root and I lost my grip on Raph’s hand. I tumbled forward into the dirt falling on my face and skidding to a halt on my side. I turned on the creature desperately trying to back crawl away from it. Two blinding light circles above a glowing savage grin hovered somewhere in the darkest fog conglomeration near the low branches, looking down at me. The circles got closer and the grin got bigger.     For once, I didn’t feel anything. My head was full of pressure and I couldn’t hear anything but those things didn’t matter. My thoughts, fears, anxieties, had run off. The circles, like eyes, focused on me and grew brighter.      Something got in front of me and put itself between me and it. Raph. The spotlight turned off and we were alone in the dark again save for a small flickering light in Raph’s hand. It was a match. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the tree still whispering his sentence. Raph turned to me, eyes wide and shouted. I couldn’t hear him. He took a hold of my shoulder and shook it really hard.      “Sebastian!” he shouted. I heard him but only barely over the tree whispering. “Stop saying that” he shouted, finally drowning out the whispering. That was when I felt my mouth moving.       “Once around the-“I halted and my ears finally reconnected to my brain. That wasn’t the tree saying it. My heart pounded in my chest and I gasped for breath.     “Sebastian, get up. We’re almost there” he shouted again, dragging me to my feet. Right. Almost there. He fumbled for his matches and shoved a few into my hand. “I think I scared it off” He’s wrong. I can still feel it. Waiting.      His match flickered and he lit another one with the dying one. “I don’t think it likes the light” he said, turning us toward our destination. He’s right. Beyond the immediate trees lay only a field between us and the nearest campus building.      “Where is it” I asked Raph. He shook his head and took my hand again, walking us toward the field.     “Darkness” a chorus of quiet whispers responded from all around us. Raph’s grip tightened on me. I squeezed his hand in return and looked around at the shadows cast off by Raph’s match. It felt like every shadow had a grinning face now. I struck a match on his tinderbox and held it up. He kept his facing the campus. Mine faced the forest. Together we made our way through the field certain that we couldn’t be snuck up on.      We had bigger worries.     A stiff breeze picked up as we reached the epicenter of the field. My match was blown out. I whirled around to see that Raph’s match had gone out as well. We spared a flash of horror before we ran. Raph kept at my side urging me to run faster. I obliged. The pressure descended upon us as we neared the doors.      Raph sprinted to the door and pulled it open. I didn’t hesitate. I dove in and landed in a crumple on the stone floor. Raph yanked the door shut and landed near me. Something huge collided with the door. Then nothing. It was gone. My whole body shook. Sweat poured off of me and Raph was panting heavily next to me.      We lay there for a long time, not speaking. We didn’t speak as we got up and struck a match each, lighting our way to our dorm room. Raph fell onto his bed within seconds of me opening the door.      “Sebastian” he said, his voice hoarse. I looked at him as I turned on the lamp and sat on my bed. “If you ever freeze like that again, I can’t promise that I can save you” he said gravely. My blood ran cold. It doesn’t feel like something I could help. And yet I might not survive because of it.     “Yeah, ok. I won’t” I lied. I can’t make that promise. He turned over, satisfied with my answer. Within moments, his breathing got heavy and he snored softly. I wish I could’ve gone to sleep that easily. I didn’t sleep that night and my lamp stayed on until it ran out of oil the next day. I didn’t speak about the incident again hoping that it was all just a nightmare. Something I could just wave away as a sleep addled brain running with its imagination.       Sometimes at night though, if I concentrate hard enough I can hear the whispers. And it all comes flooding back accompanied by the image of that terrible grin. To this night, I keep a light on while I sleep…just in case.