It’s May the year of 2001, I found myself in the forest again. Mom and dad said I was sleepwalking but I have never done it before. Maybe it was stress or maybe I was having some wild dream I guess. I walked home and as I was walking I noticed scratches on my legs I figured it was because I was sleepwalking so I continued walking back home.
You’ve heard all those stories about little girls going missing because of some monster right? Well this isn’t one of those stories and I’m not that little. I’m sixteen. I go to a charter school up the road. My parents get mad at me and say I should do something productive but in a small town like ours there’s nothing to do. I write, draw, read and I do puzzles all day. When I’m home alone I hear things. My house is big which I think is highly unnecessary like there’s only three of us. Our windows are huge and I like them because during the day we open them and I get to see the forest. At night is when I start to hate them. They get foggy and when I look out I see the trees moving back and forth making a little whistling noise. Its a little scary. It’s always cold in my room so always use a couple of blankets to keep me warm but for some odd reason no matter how many blankets I put on me last night I still felt cold.
It’s late and I can’t sleep. I feel like im laying in a pile of snow. I close my eyes and I began to fall asleep but as I was falling asleep I felt someone touching my hair. My hair isn’t like other girl’s hair. My hair is short like a boy but the top of my hair is long enough to touch the back of my neck. So It couldn’t be my cat. His name is Jiji. Like the cat from Kiki’s delivery service he was all black and he had green eyes. Jiji was in his bed in the corner and I know because I was laying on my side and I was able to see him. I was too scared to turn around and see what/who it was so I laid still.
I fell asleep for about an hour or so until I felt little claws in my back I turned around and yelled, “Stop Jiji I’m trying to sleep!” But… It wasn’t Jiji. She was thin enough to see her bones and she had pitch black eyes, her hair was black and it was out of her face. Her skin was pale and it looked like a light grey. She had long thin fingers and long black nails. She was wearing a white torn dirty dress. I froze. She ran out my room. She didn’t run normally though. She ran on her arms and legs like a cat or a dog and her feet weren’t facing inward but they were facing outward and as she ran her feet didn’t leave the ground. I couldn’t sleep.
I got out of bed and I started staring at the forest wondering if that’s where she lives. My dad walked in and I got scared and jumped. I explained to him what had happened and we had a full on conversation about it.
“Dad! I swear I’m not lying she was in my room! She scared the living hell out of me please just listen to me!”
“Come on Summer, you’re sixteen. Monsters don’t exist and if they do we’d be hearing about them on the news and stuff.”
“Dad. She’s real. I promise.”
“I don’t know what to think Summer, you’re always seeing these things and pretty soon I’ll be sending you to a psychologist because I don’t know what to think.”
He sipped his coffee and walked out of my room. I was taking my clothes off getting ready to shower and I looked at my back because the lady was scratching my back and hopefully she left some kind of evidence so I don’t look crazy. I saw scratch marks but they looked like if they were cut deep in my skin. I showered and as soon as I finished and put clothes on I ran down stairs.
“I told you Dad I’m not crazy! Ha! Take a look at this!”
I showed him and mom my scratches and my mom slowly turned around to look at my dad. My dad whispered “help me” with a confused look on his face. I turned around and asked whats wrong and he said, “Honey, you didn’t really get to see them? Did you?” I shook my head no and he took a picture of my back. The scratches had spelt out help me. My mom made me wear a backless shirt and she cleaned my scratches with alcohol. Her and my dad decided to stay home from work.
It was night-time, and I saw her again. She was outside my window smiling. I decided to name her “the night crawler” because I only saw her at night and she didn’t walk she crawled. She didn’t do anything but sit there. I fell asleep because I had gotten used to her and I woke up in the forest again. When I woke up I wasn’t wearing pajamas. I was wearing a white poofy dress with a pink bow in my hair. I ran back home and I slammed the door shut. She was inside already. She opened my dads laptop and smiled. I began crying and I yelled, “What do you want from me? just leave me alone already!” She left and I looked at my dads laptop because it looked like an article was open.
Missing woman: Claire Espinoza, 36 years old, long black hair, blue eyes, 5’5, last seen with sister Adrianna
Espinoza, 16 years old missing since July 22, 1983. I read it and it said a woman was missing and she was found dead in the forest. She had a little sister and she was also my age and she looked like me. They said she was dragged into the woods by what her sister said was “monsters” her sister tried to save her but it was just too late. I closed the laptop and whispered, “I’m sorry that had happened to you.” She appeared right in front of me and whispered, “It’s your fault this happened to me.” I guess she thought I was her sister but she left to the forest and every night she drags me to where she is and sometimes she even dresses me in fancy clothes. Until one day. I couldn’t return home.
I woke up on the cold forest ground and all I can hear is chains. I turned around and she was smiling. I touch my neck because I feel something heavy and I had a chain around my neck. I tried to take it off because it kept getting tighter and tighter but I couldn’t. My vision started getting blurry and I died.
Missing teen: Summer Alvarez, 16 years old, short brown hair, brown eyes, 5’2, last seen in the forest on densdale ave, Missing since May 22, 2001.