Avery drank her coffee and closed the curtains to make it seem like she was asleep; peeking outside, she could see a few people coming out of the other cabins and walking towards the town. She had decided to wear a black sweater over her t-shirt; her little neon pink bunny stuck out too much, and she had to try and watch the nightlife without them noticing.
Avery waited at least an hour once the moon rose over the horizon, and she didn't see anyone else passing her house. She went out from the door in the back to be extra careful. She quietly escaped her home and dipped into the forest, making sure not to go too deep inside that she could get lost but enough to be able to use them as cover.
Avery moved from tree to tree, trying to be as sneaky as possible. She checked her pocket for her phone. God, she wasn't left without her most precious tool! She had to duck underneath a couple of bushes once in a while as she took a photo of a few people taking the path down to the town.
Her heart was practically beating out of her chest as she approached the town; she had come up with the expectation that the night would change her perception. Initially, she wasn't met with anything shocking, as she climbed up a tree and took photos of the town from above. She only realized the distinct lack of little people apparent in the town; in the day, they were plentiful, yet they were practically missing during the night. The occasional child was walking along with their parents, but that was it.
Why weren't they out and about? Avery expected a decline since nobody wanted to be active at night. Still, none of them were out and walking about, which was strange. While checking her photos, she decided to ponder the reason for the absence and still had to find the mayor after this. While looking through the pictures, she began to notice a worrying pattern.
This wasn't possible; what she was seeing shouldn't be happening. As she looked through each of the photos, Avery began to notice a strange pattern. It was her first time looking through the pictures. Why had she taken so long to do that? Was she stupid?!
While not apparent initially, each photo had a few gazes of the people looking directly at the camera. That wasn't that weird, but the pattern repeated in every photo. The photos with the people from the cabin seemed to be a small exception. Their heads didn't turn, but their eyes did. The eyes were looking her way; it wasn't a trick of the camera.
Avery looked through the camera and used it to find someone looking her way when she took a previous photo. This time, she zoomed into their face. She waited until their gaze turned to look at someone beside them and took a picture immediately. She gulped nervously, and as soon as she opened the photo, she nearly fell out of the tree. Their eyes were looking up at her at the moment of the photo.
Avery didn't know when she climbed down the tree or began running; her fight or flight had kicked in, and she had chosen to run. What the hell was happening? Her camera wasn't flashing or anything like that, so it wasn't like she was advertising her photo. It would be impossible to react correctly and move their eyes before the picture was taken. Right? Was she freaking out for no reason?
She rested against a tree, catching her breath. She had to be freaking out for no reason. Maybe she hadn't slept enough, and the fatigue was catching up to her. Avery had wandered deeper into the forest, but she still could see the lights from the town, so she wasn't too worried. She could easily find her way back into town like this.
Avery was about to return, but Maria's voice kept her hidden. Sure, she knew Maria, and she didn't strike her as unusual, but how did she know where she was or find her?
"Avery, are you out here? You shouldn't be out in the woods at night?"
Avery stayed hidden behind the tree, not answering her call. As more and more details stuck out, Maria didn't have a light with her. Even with the town nearby, Avery struggled to see that well in the dark. The second one was less easily explainable. She had a looming sense that Maria was staring at her. She held her breath and closed her eyes, trying to keep quiet. The feeling of Maria's gaze loomed over her, almost as if being stared at from all angles.
The only noise was Maria's footsteps, which drew closer as she huddled and hid close to the tree. No matter what, she kept her eyes closed and didn't turn or react to the gaze she felt. Eventually, the footsteps grew still.
"Where the hell did she go? How far could she go?" Maria seemed to be speaking to herself, but soon, a voice joined hers.
"Who knows? She kept up with you during your little walk around town. I wonder what creeped her out; she took off running like she saw a ghost." The voice wasn't familiar to her, but it sounded like a much older male. How did he show up? Was he here from the beginning? She hadn't heard a second set of footsteps. Her heart raced as she worried what would happen if they found her.
"We should find her before she gets lost, and if possible, try and avoid any misunderstandings that could occur. The last thing we need is to have the witch help us with this."
The older male said quietly; they must have been just a few feet from her location. Maria hummed in response, and almost like the wind, the two disappeared. She felt the looming sense of being watched disappear. Avery opened her eyes carefully and peeked out from behind the tree; there wasn't anyone there or any sign of the two having been there. She was losing her mind; it had to be…she should go home and rest; this will all blow over.
Avery didn't notice her body trembling as she stood up. She tried to step back towards the town, but her legs refused to budge.
"C-come on, you stupid things, move!" Avery told herself, punching her legs to try and get them to move. If she couldn't get home that way, she could walk through the forest and find her way. The town would be to her right if she got lost. She turned on her flashlight and began walking north? She was heading toward the mansion; her home was in that direction, so she just had to walk that way and would end up home, or at least she believed so.
Every sound in the forest made her jump. She was also scared of being found by Maria or that stranger, so she kept looking over her shoulder. Eventually, the paranoia became too much, and she shut off her flashlight. That was a mistake; she failed to notice the hole in her path.
Avery tried to grab onto something but hit her head against the floor. She fell in, and everything went black for a moment. This was a blessing as her body got battered, bruised, and cut as she rolled through the hole and hit the walls. She didn't have to suffer the pain for now. By the time she regained consciousness, she was underground in a cavern. Her body collided with the ground, and the wind was knocked out of her.
Avery gasped and groaned on the ground. Her body was in pain, especially her right arm, and she rolled to the side. She couldn't see anything, not even her hand, as she tried to raise it. She couldn't even raise her right hand; she breathed heavily while searching for her phone in her pocket. As time passed, most of the pain came from her shoulder as tears fell down her face. Her frantic searching eventually yielded results as she turned on her phone's flashlight; her right arm had gone slack, and any attempt to move it made sharp pain shoot through her.
Avery wanted to scream and lay there crying, but she had to get out of this cave and, hopefully, to a hospital. She tried to pull herself to her feet and nearly toppled to the ground as she slammed against the wall and hissed. Her right ankle ached, and every step made pain shoot through it. She didn't even want to look down and see how it looked, as she used the wall for support to walk.
Her flashlight barely illuminated, and she tried to follow the path before her. The pain and tears made it hard to see anything. Every time she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, it didn't take long for more tears to form. As well as the anxiety of dying down here overcame her as she felt like she wasn't moving at all with how slow she walked.
"H-Help! Somebody!" Avery screamed in hopes of anyone hearing. Sadly, she was met with silence, and she cried from the pain and fear. Yet she persisted, forcing herself to walk instead of curling up in a ball.
Her only solace was that her phone had plenty of battery; the darkness was oppressive, and she doubted she could keep walking if surrounded by darkness.
Avery had been walking for what felt like hours, but she was forced to stop as the path ahead was blocked by cobwebs. It would have been easy if the cobwebs weren't the size of the tunnel she was walking through. They looked like they were made to capture people. She wanted to drop to her knees and give up as she realized she might die here…and be eaten by spiders, human-eating spiders! What a fucken joke, what was she thinking! She couldn't believe she was excited about this!
Avery barely managed to swallow her, screaming, cursing, and crying. She refused to lose hope, not yet, damn it! She can still move; she can still think. She can and will find a way to get out.
Avery used some rocks on the ground to break the edges of the web, opening a path for her to pull herself through. It took a while, especially with only one hand, but eventually, she managed to do it, pushing through and moving forward.
"You shouldn't be here." A voice spoke out behind her. Avery turned around frantically, looking for who spoke. She saw only the web and the hole she had made. She tried to run as far as she could, but with her leg in the state it was, she kept looking behind her. The voice didn't speak up again, making her think she must have imagined it.
Avery walked past more webs, each as thick as her arm. She could make out the vague shapes of cocoons wrapped in silk hanging from above, but she refused to look out of fear. She was barely holding herself together and didn't need to break yet.
Avery noticed a silhouette following her just at the end of her peripheral vision. She gulped, trying to keep her gaze from looking directly at it. Her breathing grew ragged as she tried not to panic. The corridor she was following started to grow smaller, if she wanted to do something it had to be now.
Avery took a deep breath, letting go of her phone and slamming the camera into the silhouette. An inhuman hiss followed soon after; the phone landed on the ground, illuminated the two, and let her see the creature.
It was a spider the size of a dog, and her camera broke as soon as she struck it across the head. Panic and fear immediately filled her mind, and she took off running. She briefly felt pain across her forearm, but the adrenaline coursing through her didn't give her time to register it. She was running mindlessly through the dark corridor and slammed into a wall once the path changed to a turn.
Avery felt short of breath and tried to keep running. She ran for a few more seconds before hearing a nasty crunch and falling to the ground. Fear would set in almost immediately as she screamed.
"H-HELP, SOMEBODY! PLEASE!" Avery yelled with all she could muster. She was short of breath and felt like her heart was about to beat out of her chest. The silence that followed was deafening; the only sound heard was her struggle to breathe.
That wasn't good, what was happening? She tried to get up, but her body had gone numb; the pain was starting to surface again, and she could feel her broken ankle as well as the puncture wounds she received on her forearm.
Avery felt her entire body numb, from her legs to her face. She couldn't even blink or breathe anymore as everything slowed down. Her heartbeat grew weaker, and she couldn't even scream for help anymore. Her thoughts grew muddy and disorienting; regret and pain seemed so far away; it was almost peaceful as everything went black.