You never realize as a child just how dangerous the world is. As a child, you have no worries, no fears, nothing to dampen your curiosity. You feel free to wander and explore the world. You feel free to run from your parents into a lake or the woods because of course, they will always find you.

But one day, when you run, they don’t catch you in time. One day, when you escape outside with the creak of a rusty screen door, they don’t notice. One day, as the grass is tickling your bare feet, and the wet morning dew clings to your skirt, no one calls out for you to stop.

You’re still a child. You don’t understand how dangerous the woods are. So you wade through the creek, the cold water sending shivers of warning up your spine. You’re still a child. You don’t perceive the creatures watching you from the shadows, the monsters that lurk around every corner. The woods grow ever quieter as you walk, and the silence of the birds a deafening roar that you don’tunderstand is unnatural.

It is as though the very woods are rejecting you as you wander aimlessly through the trees. You, a child, have never felt true fear before, after all, your parents were always there. They could always save you. But as the branches clawed at your dress, and the broken sticks dug into your feet, you begin to feel doubt.

Anxiously turning around, wanting to find an escape, you feel your heart start to pound faster. Every noise in the forest feels like a gunshot, the skittering of squirrels like knives on the tree bark. The heavy footfalls of your own feet become a monster chasing you through the woods. You can never outrun them, the footfalls are always right behind you because they are your own. And yet in the dark of the forest, they become imbued with an evil connotation. A mystery that is bound to bring only ruin.

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You want to scream as you run from the monsters that you can now feel peering at you from within the woods. The monsters that know, as you do now, that you are intruding upon their space. They want you to leave. You could feel it in the howling wind, the cracking of branches thrown against tree trucks, and the very sky bemoaning your presence, its tears pouring from the sky and soaking your very bones.

Slowly, light began filtering through the trees, and the rushing water made its way to your ears. It’s like hearing your mother’s voice again after camp. You are so gloriously happy, so extrinsically thrilled with the prospect of safety, that you almost manage to convince yourself that the chasing footfalls are falling behind.

Leaping over the creek and bolting across the lawn, you throw yourself at the screen door, slamming it behind you with a loud bang that shook through the house. Your parents come running out of their room, words of worry echoing on their lips as your father carries you to your bed.

As he tucks you in, your eyes linger out the window at the woods. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as you had thought. After all, the rain had felt nice. In the safety of your house, you begin to believe that the woods hadn’t been that bad. Perhaps you will have to try again tomorrow to know for sure.