(Genre: Horror Short Stories)
Since I was a child, cycling has been my favourite pastime. My father was a well-known road cyclist who competed in the Olympics and won multiple gold medals. He taught me how to ride a bicycle when I was six years old, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Unfortunately, he died of an illness 5 years ago. Following this, whenever I feel empty and longing for his love, I would hop on my bike and ride around the mountain area behind my house. And I intend to do so again today.
As I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, I sigh in content as I listened to the birds chirp merrily in the trees. I inhaled the earthy scent from the ground after a night’s downpour, and laughed into the air blowing through my hair as I cycle. Living in the countryside taught me that nature is truly a gift from God and cycling every Sunday morning has helped me realize it.
Ahh…what a great life.
Time seems to pass by quickly when I start living in the moment. I realized that I needed to get back home soon because I promised my mother to prepare breakfast. So, I rode my bike hurriedly, assuming that the road would be quiet and devoid of cars in the morning. However, I let my guard down. All of a sudden, I heard a loud popping noise, like the sound of a tire blowing out. My bike was heading straight for the cliff, and I was knocked unconscious after the fall.
_______
“Ellin! Ellin! Wake up! We’re almost here!”
I was awakened by a woman calling my name. My right shoulder was shaken gently. When I opened my eyes, I saw my best friend June, wearing a pair of track bottoms and a t-shirt with a pink cap, sitting next to me in a car.
“June? Where am I? What are you doing here? What happened to me?” feeling perplexed with the whole situation, I began to fire June questions.
“What are you talking about? We’ve finally reached our destination! We came here to do our research on forest’s myths and folks along with Sarah, remember?”
“Research…..?”
“Are you all right?” You were the one who suggested we conduct our research for Professor Aoyama’s class here.” Sarah chimed in.
What’s the matter with me? Why am I unable to recall anything Sarah and June have just told me?
I started to wonder if I’d lost my memory.
The last thing I remember was falling off a cliff. Does it mean that I’m dead? Is this yet another life that God has bestowed upon me? Has my spirit somehow found another body to live in?
Is it possible that I fell into another world? I mean, I’ve read fantasy novels in which the main character is transported into an alternate universe. But the idea of it happening to me seemed ridiculous.
My mind felt sapped from thinking about the entire situation that was unfolding in front of me and I didn’t want to make my friends worry. So, I lied to them.
“Aha! I remember it now! Bet I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and it’s affecting my memory now. I apologize for making you all worry.”
“Nah, don’t be sorry, as long as you are alright. Anyway, let’s get out of this stuffy car and breathe in some fresh green forest air filled with good oxygen!” beamed June while her face sparkled with enthusiasm.
As we stood at the entrance, June quietly said to me, “I can’t believe there are just so many trails that one can use to explore this forest.”
Undoubtedly. We noticed more than 10 trails at the entrance, and none of them are connected. It is very different from the forest in the mountains where I used to live.
Sarah took out a white and black striped tape from her bag. “What is this for?” Keen to know, I asked.
“The tape? This will be tied to the trunks of the trees to make sure we don’t get lost.”
Get lost?….. I don’t feel good about this. Still, I braced myself by believing that I had gained enough experience from previous forest explorations.
We began our journey by hiking on one of the trails. The girls brought their own cameras to take photographs for our university report.
“Hey, I heard this forest is well-known for its dark tourism. There have been people who attempted suicide and succeeded in taking their own lives here… Isn’t it cool and somehow terrifying?” June spoke in a horrifying tone.
“June…Shut up! It’s not a good idea to bring that up here. We might attract unwelcome spirits in the middle of our hike!” Sarah urged June not to crack jokes while visiting the sacred site.
“Alright, alright….I’ll keep my mouth shut!” June rolled her eyes.
After hiking for 20 minutes, Sarah began to feel weary. We decided to take a 10-minute break before continuing our journey to the end of the trail. We were looking for a place to rest, but then we noticed a dead body hanging limply from a tree. My body began to feel a rush of conflicting emotions. Due to the shock, June began to vomit and fainted.
Oh God…this is unbelievable.
Waiting would be a complete waste of time. Hence, I told Sarah to look after June while I looked for help. While I was out walking, I came across an elderly man in his sixties walking with his trekking poles on both of his hands and a roll of tape hanging from his elbow.
Without hesitating, I asked for help from that man and he agreed. When I returned to the location where Sarah and June were, they had vanished. I tried calling them on my phone, but it didn’t work. There was no signal.
“You can’t use phones here. Due to the high concentration of iron in the soil, it interferes with GPS and cell phone signals generally,” said the old man.
Fear began to engulf my vision, and I stopped thinking. The old man tried to console me by offering his assistance in finding a way for me to escape.
“Escape? Why? I came here with them, how could I abandon them?” I trembled in tears.
“Dear, the forest is vast, and once a person loses their way, it is difficult to locate them again without prior knowledge of the routes.”
But what about my friends? How can I abandon them and flee on my own? What would become of them? They might die from hunger and dehydration! This place is too dangerous and I won’t leave without them!
“It’s okay. The patrols will arrive shortly. They monitor the area every one hour and I believe that they’ll be able to track down your friends soon.”
Somehow I began to have faith in his words and mustered my courage to follow him to find the exit. The old man tried to engage me in conversation to divert my thoughts and calm myself down. He also brought me to a new trail which he claimed to be the shortest path to the exit.
On the spur of a moment, the old man stopped walking.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
Out of the blue, he reached his hand to the zipper of his jacket. He pulled the zipper down and to my horror, wrapped around his spindly fingers was a handle of an axe. The iron glinted despite the deep darkness of the forest. Terror plastered me to the ground, but the old man was too swift. He aimed for my shoulder and swung hard. I rolled over and dodged his axe by inches. He missed. In a state of shock, I tried to run as fast as I could. I didn’t dare look back because I could hear his loud footsteps nearing me. Too exhausted from the running and thirst, my vision blurred. Losing all momentum, I tripped over a root and rolled down a small cliff.
The old man finally caught up to me and I was cornered. Although I was feeling lethargic to the point of dying, I struggled to fight him back. He hacked my neck with his axe, blood spraying out as my world turned pitch black.
_______
I always thought the afterlife was a quiet place but the rhythmic sounds of machinery jolted my senses. My eyes opened wide and I was shocked to see myself breathing. I was lying in a hospital bed, alone. A nurse came through the door on my left and smiled at me. Confused, I asked her what had happened to me.
The nurse informed me that I got involved in an accident and had been in a state of coma for 6 months due to brain hemorrhage.
6 months? Are you kidding me? I thought I was in a forest along with June and Sarah!
“June and Sarah! Where are they? Did you find them? Are they okay?” I stuttered while feeling a sharp pain throbbing in my head.
“Who are they? There’s no one else who got involved in the accident besides you.”
My head started to spin as the nurse explained that the paramedics found me lying unconscious next to my bicycle at the bottom of the cliff near the mountain behind my house. Does this imply that I was not dead? Was everything that happened to me and my friends in a foreign forest merely a dream? It felt unbelievably surreal….Is this even possible?
Were they just nightmares? I began to wonder if the forest really exists. Over the course of the weeks while I was recovering, I looked hard for more information about that forest. Almost to the point of giving up, I stumbled across an album of pictures I found online that matched the forest in my dreams exactly. It’s in Japan. A rush of memories began to flood my mind as soon as I became speechless. The dream felt so real.
Numerous articles talked about the unfortunate stories that had happened in the foreign forest. Shivers ran down my spine but I was still not satisfied with the information I’ve collected. After being discharged from the hospital, I decided to visit the forest myself.
(A week later)
After arriving at the Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, I immediately boarded a train to my destination. Located at the northwest of Mount Fuji, the forest–Aokigahara is famous for being the only forest that grows on top of lava. That explains the reason why my smartphone didn’t work when I tried to call my friends in the dream.
Many distressing incidents took place in this gigantic forest, including suicide, murder, and plenty of others just like what was written in the articles that I read before.
I was sitting in my seat on the train to the forest when I realized my train ticket had slipped out from my pocket and was on the floor. I stood up to pick it up when an elderly man wearing a black cap appeared in front of me and stooped down to take my ticket.
“Thank you.”
I thanked him for picking up my ticket and bowed slightly to the old man as he handed it to me. When I lifted my head to see the man’s face, my heart dropped instantly. His menacing eyes stared at me and a sinister smile formed on his face. Fear devoured me as I looked at the same man who killed me in my dreams. Still smiling at me, I heard him whisper to my ears.
“It’s been a while, Ellin.”
Written by Siti Fatimah (@artifulsoul_ on Instagram)
