The Forest Of Lost Souls

Once upon a time, there was a haunted forest.

In the suburban town of Crestwood, which bordered the eastern edge of the forest, this was a truth that was never uttered by anyone over a certain age. That age was generally determined to be when a person was old enough to accept rationality and logic over superstitions and urban legends.

In fact, any utterance of the words “haunted” or “cursed” in reference to the forest were immediately condemned as “childish” or “foolishness” or, in some extreme cases, “insanity” by every parent and every person in a position of authority. Anyone who dared press on past the first two terms, triggering the application of the third, was made into a joke until they rescinded their previous beliefs and fell in line with the more acceptable ideology.

Once in a while, though, someone would hold firm to their truth beyond any efforts to apply reason belligerently, and in those cases, the stubborn believers were made into pariahs. In time, they too would learn to conform outwardly, even if their skepticism remained internal.

Clara Mariposa was one such person. When she was twelve-years-old her best friend, Henry Keane, went missing in the forest. While Henry was determined to be missing, Clara was more inclined to believe that he had been taken. Her belief stemmed from the account given by Dominic Chizelli, who had been the last person to see Henry prior to his vanishing.

Dominic, another of their friends, had returned from the forest telling breathless tales of living shadows and hulking monsters. Even Clara had to admit that it sounded like the rantings of a fevered mind struggling to come to terms with intense trauma. But Dominic did not change a single word of his story for months, even after his parents got him counseling to help deal with what they knew had to be a case of survivor’s guilt.

Still, the boy held fast to his tale. He’d even gone so far as to venture back into the forest to find some shred of evidence that would support his claims. He told neither his parents nor anyone other than Clara about this expedition, and he only told her because she was the one person who seemed to truly believe him. After he returned from this second trip, however, he finally did openly accept the truth as it had been drilled into him.

Clara had asked him why, after all that time, he changed his story? Was it simply that he hadn’t found the proof he’d sought? His reply to her was that he had, in fact, found something. And that something gave him no choice but to accept the reality of things. He gave no further answer than that, and that was the last time they had spoken.

That was nearly five-years-ago but even now, with her high school diploma in-hand, and parents and students alike cheering for the graduating class, Clara still believed in Dominic’s original story. She still believed that the truth had been buried. First by the police and parents of Crestwood, and later by Dominic himself. But she had been careful enough to keep that belief to herself.

When asked what she thought of Dominic’s story, she wouldn’t mock him or belittle his wild claims. Instead, she would offer rote responses such as, “He’s been through a lot,” or, “I’m sure he just needs time to process everything.” She went about her day-to-day life as was expected of her. She’d spend time with her parents, or hang out with her friends, and she’d excelled at her schoolwork.

No one would raise an eyebrow at her activities, and no one would ask questions outside of what was typically asked of teenage girls. But she still had questions of her own, and she never stopped asking them. She knew better than to ask them of the people in town, but that didn’t stop her from searching elsewhere for the answers.

On her own time, she would research disappearances in the area and the myths and folklore that might pertain to what really happened to Henry and Dominic in the forest that day. She found herself increasingly troubled as she dug deeper into the history of the forest and the disappearances associated with it.

She’d lost more than a few nights of sleep as she immersed herself in the potentially supernatural explanations. Legends led to myths, and myths led to stories of monsters, and stories of monsters led to stories of demons. This avenue of investigation made her skin crawl and her blood run cold.

She never lost sight of the more practical explanations, including local wildlife, the labyrinthine cave system that ran throughout the forest, and the potential for human predators. But something in her bones told her that the souls had been taken by unnatural forces. Clara made herself stare down these nightmarish notions in order to steel herself against them.

This duality of her life, the external side that she wore as a cloak, and the internal side that she wished to keep a secret from others in Crestwood, led her to keep her distance from almost everyone. Nothing obvious enough to raise concerns, but something that could be felt by those attuned to it.

Clara herself bore the burden as well as she was capable of. But she took solace in knowing that she’d be going away to college in just a matter of months. Once she was out of Crestwood, and freed from the stigma she would be branded with had the locals discovered her true beliefs, she would be able to find more open-minded people who could accept those beliefs.

But she also knew that she was not yet done with Crestwood, and she never would be until she learned what happened to Henry. As her friends and peers planned beach trips and house parties to celebrate the start of their new eras, Clara planned to venture into the forest to seek the absolute truth about who – or what – lurked there and preyed upon wayward souls.

She now felt as prepared as she would ever be to embark upon her quest into the forest and face whatever evils might lurk there.