He was in the woods.
That was all he knew. No memory of how he'd gotten there — just trees, packed too close together, their branches tangled overhead, blocking out what little light the night sky might have offered.
It was dark. Not completely — just enough to make shapes blur and distances lie.
It was cold. Wrongly cold.
His breath fogged in front of him, pale against the darkness, short and uneven. He could hear it too clearly, like it didn't belong to him.
The forest was quiet.
Not empty — quiet on purpose.
No insects. No birds. Just the slow creak of trees shifting, barely visible silhouettes leaning closer.
A branch snapped somewhere behind him.
He didn't turn around.
Every instinct told him not to.
The feeling came then — heavy and crawling, starting at the base of his spine.
He wasn't alone.
This wasn't something following him.
It was something watching.
He moved, slow at first, boots slipping on damp leaves he could barely see as the ground sloped downward, pulling him along like it had already decided where he was going.
Then the sound came.
High. Thin. Stretched too far to be human.
It cut off suddenly, as if someone had covered its mouth.
The darkness seemed to press closer after that, swallowing the space where the sound had been.
That was when he felt it shift.
Not footsteps. Not movement.
Just attention.
For a brief, terrible moment, he felt seen — not from one direction, but from everywhere at once. Like the forest itself, hidden in the dark, had decided to look back.
He stumbled—
Darren jerked awake.
His pencil slipped from his fingers and clattered against the desk. He sucked in a sharp breath, heart racing, eyes scanning his room like he expected the trees to still be there.
But they weren't.
Gray daylight filtered through the curtains. His homework lay open in front of him, unfinished.
Just a dream.
Then his phone buzzed.
Charlie calling.
Right, Darren thought.
He picked up the phone.
"Darren, are you ready for the trip?" Charlie said.
"Yeah," Darren replied.
He grabbed his backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and headed outside just as a car rolled to a stop in front of his house.
The driver's side window slid down.
Charlie sat behind the wheel, grinning. "Come on."
Darren climbed in and tossed his backpack onto the floor.
As the car pulled away, the radio crackled to life.
"…another cloudy afternoon across West Virginia," a voice droned. "Storms are expected later today, with scattered rainfall and limited visibility in higher elevations—"
Charlie reached out and turned the volume down. "I hate this stuff," he said. "It's always wrong."
Darren glanced out the window. The sky was thick with gray clouds, heavy and unmoving, like it was waiting for something.
"Yeah," Darren said quietly.
A sharp wail of sirens cut through the air.
Charlie glanced in the rearview mirror just as two police cars tore down the road, lights flashing red and blue. He slowed slightly and shifted the car to the side, letting them pass.
They were gone almost as quickly as they'd appeared.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Charlie exhaled. "You think that's about the missing girl?"
Darren stared ahead through the windshield. "Maybe," he said. "They still haven't heard from her, right?"
"I don't know," Charlie replied.
The road stretched on in front of them, quiet again — like nothing had happened at all.
Darren's eyes shifted toward the window, unfocused. There was a tension in his face he didn't seem to notice himself.
"You sure you're up for this?" Charlie asked. "Camping out there?"
Darren didn't answer right away.
Charlie smirked. "Come on, man. It's with Jenna and the girls. You know how everyone talks about her. It's gonna be fun." He shrugged. "It's just a camping trip. Up in the Appalachians, sure, but still just the woods."
He gave a short laugh. "All that stuff people say about the mountains? That's just stories. Legends to freak people out. Tourists eat that stuff up."
"Yeah. Right. Sorry," Darren said after a moment. "I was just thinking about something."
The image hit him without warning.
Dark trees. Cold air. That feeling of being watched.
Darren shook it off. He knew it was just a dream. Still, he'd had a similar one the night before — and with the police cars speeding past earlier, the unease lingered longer than it should have.
He looked back at the road, trying to ignore the tight feeling in his chest.
Charlie turned off the road and slowed, pulling into a small gravel clearing. The car came to a stop.
They'd arrived.
Jenna stood a short distance away with her two friends, backpacks at their feet. She lifted a hand when she saw them.
"Hey," Darren said as he stepped out.
"Hey," Jenna replied, already turning toward the trail. "Let's go."
Darren followed her gaze—and noticed someone else standing nearby.
James.
He recognized him immediately.
Darren exchanged a look with Charlie. Neither of them liked James much. He hung around Jason at school, and Jason was the kind of guy you learned to avoid without being told.
James? Darren thought. Alright… I guess.
Charlie frowned. "Wait. I thought Jason said he wasn't coming."
James shrugged, unfazed. "Just because Jason's not here doesn't mean I can't be." He smirked. "I'm here."
No one argued.
They shouldered their packs and started down the trail, the sound of gravel crunching under their boots before it faded into dirt and leaves.
Within minutes, the trees closed in around them.
And just like that, they were walking into the Appalachians.
Darren tugged his jacket tighter. "Man, it's colder than I thought."
The forest was cold and quiet. No animals in sight. Other than that, nothing seemed out of place — not yet.
"Oh—gosh," Charlie said, slowing to a stop. "Is that a watch?"
The group stepped off the trail and closer to the ground.
It was a watch.
Jenna crouched slightly, squinting at it. "Someone must've lost it."
Charlie frowned. "Wait… is that blood?"
Along the edge of the watchband was a dark, dried stain — brownish-red, like it had been there for hours. The glass face was cracked, one corner spiderwebbed outward.
"It was probably an accident," James said. "Someone tripped or fell."
Charlie hesitated. "Yeah, but… they wouldn't just leave this, right?" He tilted his head. "That looks expensive."
James shrugged. "Maybe they lost it. Or dropped it and didn't realize."
No one answered.
Darren stayed where he was, a few steps back, staring at the watch.
Something about it felt wrong.
Familiar — even though he knew it wasn't his.
My dad's? he wondered briefly.
No. His dad's was darker than this.
The thought didn't make him feel any better.
Everyone brushed it off as an accident and continued down the trail.
Not long after, they found a small clearing just off the path, close to a narrow stream. It felt right. The ground was flattened in places, and the remains of an old fire ring sat near the center — a sign that someone had camped there before.
"Alright," Jenna said. "This is it."
They set up their tents, working quickly. Before long, everything was in place.
"Finally," Darren muttered, wiping a thin layer of sweat from his forehead.
"Um… hey, Darren?" Jenna said.
"Yeah?"
"So me and the girls are gonna head out and look for some food," she said casually. "We'll be back soon, okay? James is coming too — he's good at catching fish." She smiled. "In the meantime, can you and Charlie stay here and keep an eye on our tents?"
"Uh… yeah, sure," Darren said.
"Wait," Charlie cut in. "Why can't we come with you?"
Stacy, one of Jenna's friends, answered before Jenna could. "We don't know who else might be camping around here. It's better if someone stays back and watches our stuff."
"Right," Charlie said slowly.
"We'll be back soon," Jenna added. "Then we can do the whole campfire thing. It'll be fun."
Darren and Charlie watched as the others disappeared down the trail.
Charlie broke the silence. "That was a little weird, right? They invite us, then leave us here."
"Yeah," Darren said.
Charlie frowned. "Also… James is good at catching fish?" He shook his head. "I thought he said he hated fishing."
Darren didn't answer.
But the uneasy feeling returned.
Charlie pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen. "Come on… seriously?" He tapped it again. "Ugh. The internet here sucks."
He glanced over at Darren. "So what now? What do we do while we wait?"
Darren shrugged.
After a moment, the two of them crawled into one of the tents. It was easier that way — they'd been doing stuff like this since they were kids.
Charlie dropped onto his sleeping bag with a sigh. "Wow. Really?" he said. "Sleeping already? That's all you can think of?"
He shook his head. "I should've brought cards or something."
Darren didn't answer right away.
The forest outside was quiet. Too quiet. The steady sound of the stream nearby slowly blended into the background, soft and repetitive.
Before he realized it, his eyes felt heavy.
And not long after, Darren fell asleep.
The sound of the stream faded.
Or maybe it didn't.
Darren's thoughts grew slow and heavy, slipping away from him as the darkness behind his eyes deepened.
Somewhere in that darkness, the cold returned.
And the feeling of being watched came with it.