ISOLATION

“It’s just your mind playing tricks on you, Ella.”

She looked around, still nothing.

The stone monolith stood before her, its strange symbols looked the same as before except…No. Something was a bit different about these. They weren’t faded like in those trees before, they looked almost fresh.

Ella hesitated, then reached into her backpack, pulling out her notebook and marked the stone in her map with a charcoal pencil. The weight of her breath felt heavy shaking her fingers as she began to sketch the markings with rough strokes, her fear overwhelming her.

The forest held its breath,

And then…

A single word, spoken softly but so close to her right ear she felt a cold breath of it against her skin.

“Leave.”

Ella yelped, touching her ear quickly. Her body stumbling backward dropping her notebook and landing on the forest floor. She dusted off her arms and attempted to get up only to stumble again. Her ankle was caught on something. A root?

“Was this here before?” she asked quickly looking around,

There was no one. She was alone.

She exhaled sharply removing her foot from the root and quickly bent to snatch up her notebook.

She wouldn’t run…but she sure as hell wasn’t staying here any longer.

She shoved her scattered belongings that had fallen from her backpack in her unexpected stumble. She noticed she was missing Tom’s journal. She turned in circles searching the ground before she saw it was on top of the stone with the carvings.

“What the…”

The journal was open. she looked at the page and there it was… a written word.

“Leave.”

Ella had read the journal from top to bottom. Looked at the final page countless times, there was nothing written then. So how could this be?

“Hell no, I’m done.”

She slammed her backpack shut, strapped it to her shoulders, and ran for it in the direction she came from. She ran, and ran and ran, her lungs burning. She came across the fire pit from earlier, her last landmark. She raced past it.

She could see the path clearly in her head but…

“No, No, I must have made wrong turn somewhere.”

She removed her notebook, her hands shaking as she flipped to the hand drawn map, looked at it carefully. She tried again.

Back to the fire pit.

And then…back to the stone. Five more times.

She had been careful, marking her route as she went, but now…the landscape was different. As soon as she passed by the fire pit, she saw the trees with the carvings, and then she was back at the stones again.

“Retrace your steps. Find a landmark. Stay calm.”

Her grandfather’s voice echoed in her memory, his survival lessons the only anchor against the rising terror in her gut. Ella removed his old Swiss knife from her pocket—the same all-purpose knife he always carried, the one he had passed down to her.

Retracing her steps didn’t work, but her grandfather prepared her for this. She took the knife and made scratches as she passed by again, next to the clearing she made three horizontal line scratches. She then broke a twig as she neared the fire pit.  A clear sign.

Sure, enough she was back to the stone again, but this time she had a new plan. She scanned the trees for her markers. The scratches she had made on the bark. The broken twigs she had left in her wake.

Gone.

Every sign of her path had vanished. As if she never made them. She was back at the stone again.

Her breath hitched and she clutched her hair. Exhaling slowly.

Then… she heard a crunch.

A footstep. It was close this time.

Ella’s fingers tightened around the straps of her backpack. She didn’t turn around.

“Don’t acknowledge it.”

“Don’t show fear. There's nothing there.”

Her grandfather’s voice whispered in her memory:

"If you ever feel the wilderness looking back at you, don’t run. Running makes you prey."

Ella took another step forward slowly, then another, careful not to look back.

Another crunch. The sound mirrored hers exactly.

She slowly reached into her pocket and removed her Swiss knife from her pocket.

Another step.

Another crunch.

She stopped suddenly near the firepit. But the footsteps behind her did not.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

A sharp breeze cut through the trees, carrying a faint scent of something rotting. She turned around, gripping the knife tighter with both hands. She looked keenly at where the sound was coming from.

She could feel it. A presence approaching. She took a step back.

A gust of wind rushed past her, leaves flew covering her face before a force pushed her sideways crashing onto the dead firepit. A whispering chorus rose around her, a dozen overlapping voices speaking words she couldn’t understand. She landed awkwardly on her ribs and gasped feeling extreme pain. Her eyes could not make out clearly but she saw a shape. A shadow, darker than the trees, moving toward her.

Screw not running.

She got up and ran the opposite way, through the trees. She was panting excessively now, her feet pounding against the forest floor. Branches scrapped at her arms, roots clawed at her ankles but she kept on.

The whispers grew louder. Faster.

She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even look forward.

Then through the chaos, she saw a familiar sight. Her old campfire.

The whispers stopped.

Ella’s footsteps slowed as she turned in a circle, gasping for air,

A nervous, breathless laugh erupted from her lips.

“ha ha ha, it’s gone.”

Nothing but the trees and the distant call of a bird overhead. Ella let herself sink onto the dirt, relief washing over her. She sat down and felt a hard surface against her butt.

Ella looked down and her blood ran cold

Lying at her feet—covered in dirt, edges tattered—

Was Tom Granger’s journal.

But she had left it in her backpack.

She yanked her bag forward, it was still closed. She took the journal and opened it.

Beneath Tom’s last entry—where before, his unfinished words had ended—

Was a new line.

Freshly written.

“I told you to leave.”

Ella’s breath came short and her vision blurred, like she was spinning.

Behind her, she heard a whisper.

Close.

Right at her ear.

“Run.”