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Return to wildwood
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2025-04-27 04:13:42The gates of Terrell State Hospital loomed in the headlights like the jaws of some massive, ancient beast.
The boys sat in the truck for a moment, none of them moving. Ben flexed his fingers around the steering wheel. “Once we’re inside,” he said, “we stick together. No running off. No being a hero.” Mark and Dylan nodded. Ben popped the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight and a rusted baseball bat. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Dylan found an old tire iron under his seat and clutched it like a lifeline. “Should’ve brought holy water and a priest too,” Dylan muttered. They climbed out of the truck and made their way toward the gate. It groaned open slowly under Ben’s push, like it had been waiting for them. The air inside the hospital grounds felt thicker — heavier — like stepping underwater. Their footsteps echoed unnaturally loud on the cracked pavement as they crossed onto the grounds. The camp itself lay hidden beyond the trees, dark and silent. But something was waiting for them. Ben could feel it. They all could. As they moved deeper into the woods, the familiar landmarks loomed in the dark: The broken swingset… The crumbling firepit… The edge of the lake, black and still like glass. Ben shivered, his eyes darting around. That’s when he saw it. Near the lake’s edge — a small figure standing perfectly still. A little girl in an old-fashioned white dress. Nadia. She was waiting for them. But this time, she wasn’t alone. Behind her, shadows shifted. Other figures stepped forward — dozens of them. Men. Women. Children. All wearing the same hospital wristbands. All with hollow, empty eyes. Mark clutched Ben’s arm, his voice shaking. “We’re not alone.” Ben tightened his grip on the bat. “Stay calm. Don’t run.” Nadia raised one small hand, pointing back toward the woods. Slowly, shakily, the boys turned to look. And that’s when they saw him. Willy. Not just Willy — something worse. He looked bigger now, his skin stretched too tight, his eyes black holes in his face. He was coming for them. And he wasn’t smiling anymore. Willy let out a roar that shattered the stillness of the night. The dead things behind Nadia stirred, stepping forward. Ben didn’t hesitate. He swung the bat at the first shadow that lunged at them — the wood cracking against something solid — but the figure barely flinched. “Back to the lake!” Ben shouted. Mark and Dylan fell in beside him, swinging their weapons wildly at the things that moved too fast and too close. The boys fought with everything they had, but it was like fighting smoke — every time they hit one down, another took its place. Willy was getting closer. His smile was gone, replaced by something far worse: pure, gleeful hunger. Dylan caught a blow across the shoulder and stumbled. Ben grabbed him, yanking him upright. “We have to move! Now!” Nadia appeared beside them, almost glowing in the dark. “Follow me!” she cried. Her voice was sharp, urgent. Without questioning it, the boys ran. Nadia darted ahead, weaving through the trees like she knew every twist and turn. Behind them, the shadows gave chase — whispering, giggling, calling the boys’ names in voices that were too sweet, too wrong. Ben’s lungs burned. His leg ached. But he didn’t dare slow down. The forest seemed endless — the same trees, the same crooked paths — until finally, Nadia led them into a clearing. In the center of it was something they’d never seen before. An old, crumbling stone well. Covered in rusted chains. Carved with strange symbols. Nadia turned to face them, her eyes serious. “This is where it began.” The boys looked around, breathing hard. “What do you mean?” Ben demanded. Nadia knelt beside the well and placed a small hand against the stones. “Before it was a hospital, before it was even a camp… WildWood was a place for them. The broken ones. People said they could be cured here, but all they did was lock them up, chain them, hurt them… And some things… some spirits… they don’t forget pain.” Behind them, Willy howled with rage. He was close. Too close. Mark grabbed Nadia’s arm. “How do we stop him? How do we stop all of this?” Nadia’s face twisted with sadness. “You can’t stop it. But you can leave it behind. If you make it to the other side of the woods before sunrise… you’ll be free.” Ben stared at her. “And if we don’t?” She looked over his shoulder at the advancing shadows. “Then you’ll stay here. Forever.” Ben made a decision. “We’re leaving.” The boys took off again, sprinting toward the faintest hint of light on the horizon. Branches slashed their faces, roots tried to trip them, the very forest itself seemed to fight them. Willy screamed behind them, a raw, furious sound that shook the trees. But they didn’t look back. They burst through the last line of trees just as the first rays of dawn touched the ground. As soon as their feet hit the asphalt of the old service road, the air shifted. The heaviness lifted. The woods behind them fell silent. The boys collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath. They were out. They had survived. But as Ben sat up, he caught one last glimpse of the treeline. Nadia stood there, watching them. She smiled sadly, lifted her hand in a wave… …and then faded into mist. The boys got into the truck and drove until WildWood was nothing but a memory in the rearview mirror. But none of them ever spoke of that night again. Not because they forgot — But because sometimes, late at night, they still heard Willy’s laughter in the wind… And sometimes, in the mirrors, they caught glimpses of the woods creeping closer… Just waiting.
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It wasn’t always like this. WildWood was once just a quiet, peaceful forest, nestled on the edge of a small, isolated town in Terrell. The land had long been sacred to the indigenous tribes that once lived there, revered for its beauty and tranquility. They spoke of spirits, of ancient forces that resided within the trees, but these were merely stories — tales meant to keep children close to home, out of the dark places of the woods. But that all changed when the Terrell State Hospital was built, a sprawling, ominous facility meant for the mentally ill, many of whom had been deemed ‘too dangerous’ or ‘too strange’ by society. The hospital sat on the outskirts of town, right next to the woods, and though no one could have predicted it, the convergence of these two worlds — the twisted human suffering and the ancient, untouched land — awakened something that had long been dormant. The first signs were subtle at first. Strange noises, whispers in the wind, unexplainable happenings t
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Ben didn’t know how long he was gone. Time seemed to lose meaning in the place between waking and death, in the suffocating grip of WildWood. When his senses returned, it was as though his very soul had been torn and rewritten. He was kneeling on the cold, wet ground, his hands pressed into the dirt. His chest heaved with shallow breaths, but his body felt heavy, weighed down with an oppressive force. He could hear the voices again — distant, faint whispers like rustling leaves. “You’re one of us now, Ben,” came a voice that wasn’t his own, but he recognized it. It was Mark’s voice, but warped, twisted. Hollow. “You’ll never leave.” The world around him was darker than it had ever been. The trees were not just trees anymore; they were part of him, feeding off his fear, feeding off the very essence of his soul. They had wrapped themselves around him like vines, as if the forest had claimed him, had devoured him whole. The laughter came again — loud, cruel, and sharp — echoing around
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Ben’s scream echoed, but the sound dissolved into the thick, suffocating air. The shadows seemed to stretch out, curling around his body like chains. Nadia’s twisted form stepped closer, her smile widening as if to savor his terror. “You never left, Ben,” she murmured, her voice hollow, as though it came from somewhere deep within the earth itself. “You never escaped. You were always ours, from the moment you crossed that threshold.” Ben stumbled back, his body trembling uncontrollably. He wanted to run, to fight, but his limbs wouldn’t obey. His heart raced, and his throat constricted, as though the forest itself was tightening its grip on him. “You think you can walk away from us?” Nadia continued, her voice growing darker, more insidious. “This place is in your blood. WildWood never forgets its children.” He could feel it now — something far darker than fear. It was like the very earth beneath his feet was alive, pulsing with a sick, rhythmic beat, as though the woods themselv
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The world shifted again, violently, and Ben’s vision went white as he tumbled through the air. The wind whipped past his face, and for a moment, he thought he might be falling — falling back into WildWood’s grasp. But then, just as quickly, the sensation stopped. He hit the ground hard, his body crashing into something solid and familiar. He groaned, blinking through the blinding sunlight, his breath ragged. When his eyes focused, he saw it — the road. The one that led home. The familiar stretch of asphalt that ran through the town. He wasn’t in WildWood anymore. He had crossed over. For a moment, Ben lay there, gasping for air, his heart still racing in his chest, the taste of the forest still fresh on his tongue. He had done it. He had escaped. The woods were behind him. The shadows were gone. But as he lay there, catching his breath, a cold shiver ran down his spine. Somewhere deep in the distance, beyond the trees, he could hear it again. The faint sound of laughter. Twiste
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Ben’s feet pounded against the cracked, uneven earth, his body shaking with exhaustion, but he couldn’t stop. He had no choice but to keep moving. The sounds of WildWood — the whispers, the laughter, the rustling of leaves — followed him, as if the forest itself was reaching out, clawing at his mind, urging him to stop, to return. But he refused. Every step felt like it was dragging him deeper into the forest, deeper into the heart of WildWood, but Ben wasn’t looking back. He couldn’t. He had seen enough. He had felt enough. This wasn’t just a place. It was a prison. And he wasn’t going to let it claim him. The trees seemed to shift around him, bending in unnatural angles, their dark branches scratching at the air, trying to grasp him, to pull him back. The ground felt soft, almost alive, as though it was pushing against him, making every step harder than the last. But he pushed forward, ignoring the pain in his legs, the burning in his chest. Somewhere in the distance, he thought
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The world spun violently before Ben’s eyes, the dark shapes of trees and the cold, sharp air blending into a chaotic blur. His body felt weightless, his limbs numb as though he were floating, lost between worlds. He tried to scream, but no sound came, and the darkness thickened, suffocating him, drowning him in a void deeper than anything he had ever felt before. When the world finally righted itself, he found himself back at the camp. But it wasn’t the camp as he remembered. It was something worse, something twisted. The ground was slick with dark, inky tendrils that seemed to crawl toward him, wrapping around his ankles and tugging at his feet. The trees were even more grotesque, their gnarled limbs stretching upward like the hands of a thousand corpses reaching for the sky. And there, standing in the center of it all, was WildWood itself. Not a place. Not a collection of trees and stone. No, it was more than that now. It was a presence, an entity, a force that lived and breathed
A Night at Wildwood The hollow core
The earth beneath Ben trembled again, but this time it wasn’t the pulsing of WildWood. This time, it was something else — a deep, guttural vibration that seemed to echo from the very heart of the forest, a force older and darker than anything he could comprehend. It rippled through him, through his bones, vibrating with an energy so pure and raw it almost felt like a living thing, like the very breath of WildWood itself. For a fleeting moment, Ben felt a shift inside of him — as if something was waking up, stirring to life in the deepest corners of his mind. His vision blurred, the shadows growing thicker, swirling around him like a storm. The faces of the others faded, their hollow eyes turning into something less human, more monstrous, until only the dark forest remained. The forest that had always been there, waiting, patient. “You feel it now, don’t you?” Nadia’s voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through him like a knife. “It’s in your blood. It always has been.” Ben clen
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Ben’s world spun as the ground beneath him shifted and cracked, swallowing him whole. His legs gave out beneath him, and he tumbled into the deepening earth, his hands scraping against the jagged edges of the fissures. The sound of his breath, ragged and desperate, was drowned out by the cacophony of laughter and whispers that echoed from all around him. It was as if the forest itself was alive, twisting and pulling at him, dragging him deeper into its depths. He tried to scream, but the air was thick with the weight of WildWood, choking him, pressing against his chest. The laughter of his old friends — twisted and mocking — rang in his ears, warping into something alien, something inhuman. “Ben…” Nadia’s voice slithered through the darkness, and he could almost feel her cold, bony fingers brush against his shoulder. “You can never escape what you are.” The world shifted again, and suddenly, Ben was standing in the center of the camp clearing once more. But it wasn’t the camp he r
