They arrived. Saken took in the sights, and the first thing that came to his mind was suspicion. This place looked too good to be true. He looked up at the sky and saw that deep blue sky with twinkling stars and thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him. He took a deep breath and the air was almost like he was breathing air freshly made. He glanced at Mina and saw she was enjoying it. Saken decided not to voice his suspicion for now but he would never trust this place. As they walked, the crunch of the leaves and the wind rattling the branches was the only sound made. It was so soothing that Saken’s suspicion had faded and he actually smiled. Walking for a couple of minutes, Saken spots a flawless apple on the ground. Curious yet cautiously, he picked it up and examined it. The apple was perfect in every way, even down to the shape and color. Saken took a small bite, it was delicious. Saken had never had an apple this good even in his past life. Saken offered it to Mina.

“This is delicious.” He said as she took a bite from the apple. Mina’s eyes sparkled as she devoured the whole thing in one bite. Saken smiled and turned to continue walking when something very odd caught his eye. It was a human skull, but it was so purely white and sparkly he thought it was a crystal. When he noticed the skull, he suddenly started seeing more and more bones hidden in the leaves. His suspicion came back, but it slowly drained away again. He didn’t like that, it’s almost as if this place wouldn’t let him think anything else besides what it wanted him too. But as he had that thought, it disappeared and he smiled again at the sky and continued walking. When they finally arrived at the town they saw, it looked like everyone had just left to go to a party somewhere. The candles in the houses were still burning, the dust on the windowsill just beginning to collect. Saken looked around and saw a bonfire that had just become embers. He told Mina to look around and he entered one of the houses. It was fully furnished, and well decorated too.

“Whoever lived here had great taste.” He thought to himself. When he checked the kitchen, he found food still on the table. Warm and almost like it was made for him. Saken face lit up.

“Mina! I found food!” Mina didn’t take very long to get to him when he yelled that at her. They prayed for their food at Saken’s request, which earned him a strange look from Mina but she went along with it. Afterwards they dug in. After feasting for a little while Saken saw another apple on the table. Ignoring the roasted beef, pork, and chicken he grabbed it and took a bite. He would never get over the sweet taste of it. But something was off, the texture didn’t feel quite right. Saken took a napkin and spat out the semi chewed food, and what he saw made him instantly nauseous. He found bits of maggots and worms in the napkin. Saken looks up and then freezes from fear. The table wood is black and rotten, the food looks like it had been there for years. It was covered in maggots, and fungi. Saken shot up from the table and ran outside to throw up. After emptying his stomach, Saken looked around and he broke out in a cold sweat, eyes wide with fear. The town was so vile he couldn’t even look at it for more than a few seconds. Bodies were piled on the bonfire, making the air reek with the smell of burnt flesh. Saken looked at the trees and saw that each and every one of them looked to be dead and rotten. Everything was vile to him. He couldn’t see through the thick fog that had suddenly appeared. Saken felt like vomiting again, but when he blinked the tears out of his eyes everything went back to normal. The stench left his nostrils and the calm feeling overriding his suspicion returned. Mina ran outside concerned,

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What’s wrong?” She asked Saken. He stared her in the eye, unable to answer. When Saken next blinked, it all changed again. Saken screamed, Mina’s eyes were missing and all her teeth were gone. Her skin had turned black with a blue-ish tint and her hair was a mangled mess of blood and ice. Saken couldn’t take it, he shot up and bolted away from the town and Mina. Everytime he blinked, it switched from the peaceful forest to the dead rotten version and back again. When Saken stopped for breath, the taste in his mouth was overpowering and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. The stench, the stench was indescribable. When Saken blinked, he saw hung corpses on the branches of the trees around him. Saken heart sank so far he thought it would fall right out of him. Sweat continued to drip down his face and body, but he felt extremely cold. When he raised the face of a corpse to see who it was, he nearly screamed and threw up once more. It was Dante, an eye gouged out and blood dripping from his mouth. Saken back tracked violently only to trip over another corpse, and this one was even worse. Saken’s chest felt so tight, he thought his lungs would burst. The corpse he found next was Dumont, whose head was flipped upside down to an awful angle because his neck was shattered. He also had a hole in his chest where his heart was, and Saken could’ve sworn he heard a heartbeat somewhere behind him. Saken couldn’t hold back his tears now, he sobbed and ran out of the forest, tripping on corpses of the people he loved, his mother, burned and flattened from a car accident, his crush beaten and abused and a bloodied knife in her hand. Saken’s anguish was overwhelming at this point and he ran. He heard screams and crying and laughing in the distance, he wanted nothing more than to prick out his eyes and to stab his eardrums to end this nightmare. When his eyes blurred up from the tears he blinked them away, but the forest stayed the same. He hit a hanging corpse and fell hard on his knee, hearing an awful crack. Saken limped to the tree to lean on but when he saw the corpse that was hanging, his will to continue living left his body. It was his dad, with a gunshot to his forehead. Saken wept silently for an unknown amount of hours, until Mina found him again. She said nothing but she picked him up and carried him out of the hellscape. When they left Saken saw Mina normally again and the pain and exhaustion hit him both like a train.

“Sleep.” Mina said simply, and Saken complied.

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Mina looked after Saken for a couple of hours, and had no idea when he would come too. She was extremely concerned for him, he just randomly started freaking out. But what hurt her the most was the scream of fear he let out when he saw her. She’s praying it’s because something happened in the forest and not her, but her insecurities gnawed at her the whole time she knelt by his side. After about 3 hours Saken woke up again.

“You’re awake!...” Mina trailed off as he shook in fear.

“Mina… I can’t open my eyes. I’m scared”