I was enjoying myself, strolling through the forest and searching for the guy, when I felt overcome by the urge to climb the towering tree ahead of me. I saw an image of myself building the best tree house ever. I began to climb until I reached the top. I sat on a sturdy branch and gazed at the wonder that surrounded me. I was like an ant compared to how big the forest was. It seemed to stretch on for as far as the eye could see. My trance was broken suddenly as I heard someone from below me call out my name. I thought it may have been my man of mystery but when I looked down I was surprised to see that there was nobody there. I was so sure the voice had come from below me though. I was a little confused, but it has happened to me before. I climbed down from my future fortress and proceeded through the woods. As I wondered thoughtlessly, I heard my name again, but this time it was a defiantly louder. I jumped as if someone had shot me. I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head, and then all went black. Have you ever noticed that when you wake up, you have double, sometimes triple vision? Well you will if you’ve been knocked out. I seemed to have hit my head on a branch as I jumped; well that’s what I was told by them anyway.
I still couldn’t see, but I heard my name being called over and over again, but this time it was by many different people. As my vision began to come back, it started off very blurred but as it got surprisingly clearer, I was stunned to see so many people I recognised. I saw friends from years ago, but they hadn’t aged at all. I was so happy to see them, but at the same time, my mind was overcome with confusion. Being a bit confused, I got up and looked around at familiar faces. I didn’t know where they had come from, none of them were my friends from school, I never had friends from school, they all thought that I was weird for some reason. I had met all these friends in my own time. They helped me up and although confusion covered the majority of my mind, I managed to say hello to everyone and asked where they had all gone. Every one of them had disappeared when I was seven years old; and now, there they were, five years later standing in front of me. None of them had an explanation for their absence, they simply said, they had to go.
After my confusing, yet interesting experience, I had to go home. It took me a while to find my way as I had walked quite far in whilst trying to find that guy. When I got home, I began to tell my dad that I had seen my friends from years ago, but just as I told him the names of them, he stopped me in mid sentence and told me that I was just imagining things. It was as if he knew something I didn’t. That was when I heard him murmur underneath his breath
“Not again, god damn it, they assured me it wouldn’t happen again!” I simply dismissed his comment, I knew what I saw, and he didn’t.
I went back to the woods the next day. I walked through muddy puddles that splashed up my trousers. There were twigs snapping under my feet, acorns falling from above me. The leaves rustled as the wind rushed through the dead branches like a motorbike whizzing through the rush hour traffic. I was walking through the monster trees feeling joyful, but that soon changed as I heard the disturbing sound of a shriek, a scream. This was not the playful scream of children enjoying the summer. This was the scream of pure terror, pain and torture. I ran through the hole filled ground, splashing muddy water up my back. I didn’t know if I was running in the right direction, my mind was clogged with thoughts of horror, thinking the worst of what I had heard. I panicked as I saw the shoe of my old friend Amy that I had seen the day before, it was torn and beaten. Twigs surrounding me were snapped; bushes were mangled and bent out of shape. There had evidently been a struggle. I stood gazing around me, trying to find anything that could straighten out my thoughts to make sense. There a trail of footprints; I followed them to see the worst thing that I could imagine. My heart raced, my eyesight became blurred, my palms were sweaty, rage was building up inside of me as if there was a fire in my heart! Have you ever had several feelings at the same time and you don’t know which one to let your actions follow. That was what was happening to me that day. I felt furious but at the same time, upset. My thoughts were rushing; my friends were still, lying on the ground. The screams I heard became a distant memory. Amy, Charlie, Imogene, all of them were motionless, their twisted bodies seemed randomly placed amongst the bushes and dead leaves. There were no signs of what could have done it; I didn’t see any blood or wounds. There was none of the traditional sights that you see on cheesy horror films. They were just lying there, dead. I needed revenge. I began to run through the twisted trees, I had no idea where I was going, I may have been going north, south, east or west, I didn’t know. I just needed to find help. I started to hear the faint sound of cars along a road. I followed it until I came to a small building. I don’t know why I entered, I guess I was just so desperate to find help that I just automatically did what I thought might have helped. I slowly crept through the building trying to find someone. I heard voices in the room next to, one of them I recognised, and one of them I knew for sure. It was my dad! I ran to the next room to be completely surprised by seeing my dad talking to my mystery man. All I wanted to do was take them to my friends, but I never went into those woods again.
I had no idea of my condition, they call it schizophrenia. It’s a disorder in the brain; it causes defects in the frontal lobe. It turns out I did know the mystery man, but due to my condition, I couldn’t fully remember him. He was my doctor. It isn’t an uncommon disorder, but I felt like a freak knowing I was different from the other kids at school. You see, they all knew, but I didn’t, that must have been why I had no friends. All the friends I did have were simply a result of my condition; they were all a different side of my personality. I haven’t had an experience like that again since I got new medication. It was all the medication that killed them; it was all just a hallucination, the woods, the meeting between my friends and me. I was asleep in the doctor’s surgery having a medication reboot, that’s what killed my only friends. It turns out your never alone.
