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chapter 1 - Into the mouth of madness
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2025-04-27 04:08:35Epilogue -
It all started back in 2002, when three fearless teenagers were dared to sneak into Camp WildWood at Terrell State Hospital. They were boys, of course — eager, cocky, and desperate to impress a group of girls from school. The oldest, Ben, had just turned seventeen. Dylan and Mark, sixteen-year-old twins, were right behind him. All three were star football players at Terrell High, convinced that spending a night at the abandoned camp would be a piece of cake. They were wrong. Chapter 1 - The night was thick with cackling laughter and blood-curdling screams that would have sent anyone sane running for their lives. It was ten o’clock when the boys, their bags packed, said goodbye to their friends. The girls they were trying to impress cried, begging them not to go, calling them crazy. Ben just chuckled as he climbed into his new Chevy truck, Dylan and Mark piling in beside him. They drove off without a care in the world. An hour later, they reached the hospital grounds. Ben slowed down, driving past the entrance, sizing up whether they should really go through with it. “This place gives me the creeps, guys,” Dylan said, peering out the window. “I don’t want to do this. It doesn’t feel right.” Ben smirked. “You want a chance with Cassidy, don’t you? Then man up. Stay one night in a creepy old camp, and you’ll prove you’re brave enough to take her out too.” That was all it took. Ben parked the truck off the road — far enough not to be spotted, close enough to make a quick getaway if needed. They grabbed their gear and headed down the cracked, weed-choked road toward the old gates. Rust clung to the iron bars. Beyond them, the dark shapes of trees stretched into the night sky. They slipped through the gates, glancing around nervously for guards or stray workers. The campgrounds were about a mile in. But they soon discovered it wasn’t just a camp. It was a cemetery too. “This is sick, man,” Mark muttered, reading the broken sign by the cemetery gates. “Can’t we just ditch this place? We’ve got our playoff game against Forney on Friday. I don’t wanna fucking die tonight.” Ben laughed, kicking at a rock. “Some of these graves date back to the 1800s,” he said, his voice low and amused. “That’s insane.” Mark and Dylan shared a look. Doubt flickered across their faces. Just then, Dylan spotted something. “Look, there’s a lake — and an old swing set,” he said, pointing through the trees. “Wonder how many people tried to drown themselves out there…” His voice was a little too excited. “Come on,” Mark said, shouldering his bag. “Let’s pitch the tent, get some sleep. We’ll explore tomorrow.” “Or just get the hell out of here,” Dylan muttered under his breath. The three stood there, motionless, too scared to move without one of the others going first. “Forget sleeping,” Dylan finally said, his voice rising. “I’m not letting my guard down. I don’t even wanna be here.” “Keep it down,” Ben chuckled. “You’re gonna wake the neighbors.” He pointed at the rows of crumbling headstones just yards away. Dylan cursed under his breath, earning a glare from both Ben and Mark. “Just shut up,” Mark said. “We’ll make it through the night. Then we’re out first thing in the morning.” Finally, they found a small clearing by the edge of the woods and started setting up camp. Not that they would get much sleep.
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A Night at Wildwood Shadows at the edge of the woods
It 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, th
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Ben burst out of the woods, lungs burning, legs pumping harder than they ever had on the football field.He could see the gate ahead — and just beyond it, Dylan and Mark waiting, waving frantically.Almost there. Don’t stop.But then, from somewhere behind him, a horrible wild laugh echoed through the night.Ben glanced back.Out of the trees, two figures barreled toward him — Willy leading the charge, his mouth twisted into a manic grin, with Sue trailing behind, a look of pure desperation on her face.Ben threw himself at the fence. He scrambled up the rusted iron bars, his fingers slipping on the cold metal.Halfway up, a hand grabbed his ankle — Willy.“Gotcha, boy,” Willy hissed, yanking him downward.Ben kicked wildly, fighting to stay on the fence, but the madman’s grip was like iron.“Let go, you psycho!” Ben shouted.Willy only laughed harder — a bone-chilling, broken sound — and bit down on Ben’s leg.The pain made Ben lose his grip. He fell with a hard thud to the ground.B
Last Updated : 2025-04-27A Night at Wildwood No safe place
The truck roared down the country highway, its headlights cutting a frantic path through the darkness.Inside, the boys sat in stunned silence.Ben’s knuckles were white against the steering wheel.Mark stared blankly ahead, his chest heaving.Dylan kept glancing over his shoulder, half expecting to see Willy sprinting after them out of the darkness.No one spoke until they reached the safety of town.Ben jerked the truck into the driveway of their friend’s house, killed the engine, and turned to the others.“We can’t tell anyone,” he said hoarsely.Mark shook his head violently.“Are you crazy? We have to tell the cops — tell someone! That guy… those people… they’re still out there!”Ben leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, trying to breathe.“And say what, Mark? That we snuck onto state property because of a dare? That we saw ghosts? That some psycho tried to eat us?”Dylan finally spoke, his voice small:“What if they don’t believe us?”The truck sat silent for a long mo
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The 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 som
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Years passed, and life went on. Ben, Dylan, and Mark graduated, moved away, started families of their own. They buried the memories of WildWood deep inside themselves, convincing each other it had all just been fear and hallucination — tricks of the dark. But late at night, when the world was quiet and sleep wouldn’t come, Ben sometimes caught a glimpse in the mirror — not of his own reflection, but of twisted trees and rusted gates. And when he drove alone, sometimes the truck’s radio would flicker, a familiar wild laugh slipping through the static. The worst part wasn’t the memories. It wasn’t even the shadows he sometimes saw at the edge of his vision. It was the feeling that maybe — just maybe — he had never really left WildWood. That a part of him was still wandering the woods, still running through the endless night… Still trapped with Nadia, and Willy, and the others. Because some places, once they get inside you, don’t ever let you go. And some doors — no matter ho
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The moment Ben stepped past the rusted gates, everything felt wrong. The air was thick with a sense of foreboding, like the earth itself was holding its breath. The familiar trees stood like silent sentinels, their twisted limbs reaching out in unnatural shapes. He hadn’t realized how much the woods had changed, or perhaps it was him that had changed, but the once-eerie landscape now seemed even darker, more alive. The breeze whispered secrets he couldn’t quite catch, but it didn’t matter — something was different, something had awakened.He couldn’t shake the feeling that the woods were watching him, waiting for him to make his next move.Ben hesitated, standing just beyond the threshold of the gate. The path ahead was overgrown, the dirt road buried beneath a tangle of roots and weeds. The forest seemed to close in around him, muffling the sounds of the outside world, leaving only the distant rustling of leaves and the faintest whisper of laughter — or was it a memory?He could feel
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Ben’s heart pounded in his chest as he took another step back, his feet stumbling over the uneven ground. The laughter came again, louder this time, mixing with the whispers of the others—Willy, Nadia, the nameless faces of the past. They circled him like vultures, their eyes unblinking, their smiles twisted into something grotesque. “You’re one of us now, Ben,” Nadia’s voice echoed, her words distant and close all at once, like the forest itself was speaking. “No,” Ben gasped, shaking his head. His hands trembled, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. “This isn’t real. This isn’t—” But the forest seemed to swallow his words. The trees groaned, their branches moving in slow, deliberate sways, as if alive, as if they were listening, responding. The air felt thick, oppressive, like something was closing in from all sides. “You were one of us,” Willy’s voice sliced through the air, sharp and mocking. Ben’s gaze snapped to the boy standing at the edge of the clearing—Willy, but
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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
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A Night at Wildwood The new blood
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
A Night at Wildwood Birth of wildwood
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
A Night at Wildwood Hollowed
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
A Night at Wildwood The hollowing
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
A Night at Wildwood The dawn
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
A Night at Wildwood The last escape
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
A Night at Wildwood The hollow soul
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
A Night at Wildwood The heart of wildwood
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
