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Shadows at the edge of the woods
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2025-04-27 04:10:19It was a little past midnight by the time the boys finished pitching the tent.
They picked a hidden spot near the woods — close enough for cover, just in case someone drove by. Dylan and Mark stayed close together, letting Ben take the lead as they explored the area. “Guys, wait a minute,” Dylan whispered, his voice shaky. “I swear I just heard something… in the woods.” Ben turned, unimpressed. “Dude, it’s the woods. What do you expect? Kids laughing? Car alarms? It’s just animals,” Mark said sarcastically. Still, they moved carefully, every snap of a twig putting them more on edge. Suddenly, headlights flashed up the road. The boys froze, panic setting in. Without thinking, they bolted — sprinting toward the lake, away from the road. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Mark hissed, stumbling over a root. “This is insane. We should’ve skipped this dare! I could be with Cassidy right now — not stuck here with dead people!” The headlights slowed at the gates to the cemetery… And then, in an instant, the car vanished. The boys rubbed their eyes, sure they were imagining things — but when they looked again, there was nothing. No lights. No engine. No car. “Great,” Dylan said, throwing up his hands. “We’ve been here, what, three hours? And we’re already seeing freaky shit! This place is gonna make us lose our minds!” Mark and Dylan kept arguing in hushed tones. Meanwhile, Ben… just wandered off. “Where the hell are you going, Ben?!” the twins whispered harshly, scrambling after him. “Shh,” Ben hissed. “I keep hearing someone talking… but I can’t hear it over you two idiots.” Mark tried to reason with him. “Dude, you’re tired. We all are. Let’s just crash at the tent and get the hell out of here at sunrise.” But Ben ignored them, pushing further into the field. Reluctantly, Dylan and Mark followed. As Dylan jogged to catch up, he noticed a headstone off to the side. Something about it made him stop. The inscription was barely readable in the moonlight: “1894–1902. In loving memory of Nadia Grace. Daughter and Sister.” He stared at it for a long moment, feeling an eerie connection he couldn’t explain. With a shiver, he ran after the others, silently cursing himself for always getting dragged into this kind of mess. Ben led the way toward the woods, the twins close behind, when all three boys suddenly froze. Somewhere nearby, faint voices drifted through the trees: “It’s time again, Sue. See? I told you you’d get another chance. There’s enough for both of us… and they look pretty healthy too. Not like the usual bone bags we get.” The boys stared at each other in horror, barely breathing. Another voice — softer, almost regretful — answered: “I don’t know, Willy… I haven’t done it in so long. They put me here for a reason, remember? So I’d stop… They’re just boys. They haven’t even lived yet. They have futures, families…” Ben gave Dylan and Mark a look, silently urging them to back away. But the twins, terrified, refused to leave his side. “Damn it, Sue!” the harsher voice snapped. “We barely ever get out, and tonight we got lucky! You’re either gonna kill one of them, or I will. It’s just like when you killed that little bitch you shared a room with, remember?” Ben had heard enough. Without thinking, he turned and bolted, crashing through the underbrush. Dylan and Mark sprinted after him, their hearts hammering. Back at the tent, Ben didn’t waste a second. “Pack. Now,” he barked. The fear in his voice was enough; neither twin asked questions. They grabbed their bags and started tearing down the tent in frantic silence. But then — snap — a twig broke nearby. The boys froze. Don’t look. Don’t move. Get out. They abandoned the tent, running as fast as they could toward the road. That’s when they saw her. A girl, standing alone by the path. She looked about eight years old, in a tattered white dress, her hair hanging in tangled waves. Ben slowed, cautious. “Hey… are you okay?” he asked. No answer. He took a step closer — and the girl finally lifted her head. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. One word: Run. Dylan and Mark didn’t need to hear it twice. They took off toward the truck. But Ben — something made him stay. “Who are you?” he asked. “What’s going on out here?” The girl, her voice eerily calm, answered. “My name is Nadia,” she said. “My parents put me here when I was six… after I drowned my baby brother.” Ben felt the blood drain from his face. “He didn’t deserve a life when my kittens didn’t,” she whispered. “I just wanted him to feel the pain I felt.” Nadia looked around the dark woods nervously. “Once a month, the guards let some of us out… We get to roam the grounds. Sometimes, people like you come. Most of us just watch. But some… they hurt people. Willy and Sue — they’re out there now. They were watching you.” Ben’s stomach twisted. “Come with us!” he begged. “We can get you out of here — my mom’s always wanted a daughter, she’d love you!” Nadia smiled sadly. “I can’t leave. This place won’t let me. If I tried… it would drag me — and you — back.” “Now run!” Before Ben could move, Nadia vanished — disappearing into the air like mist. Heart pounding, Ben sprinted toward the gate.
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It had been years since Ben, Mark, Dylan, and the others had fallen into the dark embrace of WildWood. The town had long since whispered their names, calling them the lost, the ones who never came back, but the woods didn’t forget. WildWood was patient, waiting in the silence, hungry for the next piece to devour. And now, a new group of kids were about to stumble into the same trap. ⸻ The night was alive with the hum of crickets and the low rustle of the wind in the trees, the air thick with the promise of something darker. It was supposed to be just another dare. Another night of foolish bravado, of kids trying to prove something — to their friends, to their own fragile sense of immortality. Four friends. Two girls, two boys. All seniors, all hungry for something beyond their small town lives. Grace, the quiet one. Intelligent, sharp, but always on the outside, watching the others, trying to make sense of the world. Travis, her best friend. Always the jokester, the one
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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
