It happened on a Friday morning. A group of students called the police to ask for a search party to look for their missing friends.
One of them had apparently disappeared after another friend called him for a ride. After two hours with no response, the rest of the group assumed they simply were not coming back.
Only one of them felt that something was wrong. He kept flooding the inboxes of Jean-Francis and Loïc with messages, but nothing came back. Just silence.
Even though the two of them rarely wrote in the group chat, it was unusual for them to stay silent for hours. After eight hours without a single reply, Gabriel called the police, afraid that something might have happened to them.
It did not take long for the police to find Jean-Francis... or rather, his corpse. Before informing Gabriel, they sent a second group of officers along with a scientist to determine what had happened. None of them ever came back.
The government then deployed an entire SWAT team to investigate the forest. But the forest in question seemed to have grown exponentially, stretching several kilometers farther than it had the day before. The team decided to remain there for the entire day to investigate. Once again, nothing came out of it... not even the team that had entered the forest.
The government soon issued a warning to the population about the forest, declaring that anyone who entered it would be shot on sight. In reality, that was never the case. Anyone who went in disappeared long before the police could even find them.
Each time authorities placed barricade tape around the dark forest, it continued to spread at an incredible speed, expanding again in less than an hour.
Out of fear, the world's leaders reached a unanimous decision: the forest had to be destroyed by any means necessary. Their solution was an atomic bomb. To many, the decision felt rushed and reckless, but the aging leaders seemed too desperate to stop and reconsider.
The atomic bomb completely destroyed the forest. Yet by the next day, it had returned, as if the explosion had never happened. In the end, the only thing they accomplished was making whatever lived inside even more dangerous.
If they had only read Jean-Francis's journal, lying just a few meters from his body, they might have known what kind of monstrosity was waiting within.
{Journal Entry — August 28, 2028
It's probably around 7:30 in the morning. I barely survived the night. This forest is the work of a devil — a devil, I swear.
It was around 10 o'clock last night when Loïc called me and asked me to pick him up because his car had run out of fuel.
When I arrived at the coordinates he sent me, I found nothing but an old forest. Strangely, though, it looked about half a kilometer larger than it appeared on Google Maps. At first I assumed it was just a mistake, but thinking about it now… since when does that company make errors that big?
Anyway, I decided to look around in case Loïc had wandered into the forest on his own, but he was nowhere to be found. After searching for a while, I began to think it was some kind of sick joke.
Then it hit me.
I hadn't seen Loïc's car when I arrived and the only reason I had come here was because his car had supposedly run out of fuel.
The moment I realized that, I decided to leave. But just as I turned around, something caught the corner of my eye. Something blue, far off in the distance.
When I finally decided to approach the blue object, I noticed it seemed to be slowly sinking into the ground as I got closer. It didn't take long for me to realize what it was.
It was Loïc's car. His Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, the one that supposedly cost 28 million dollars, the one he had bought less than a month ago. Yet the car sinking into the ground in front of me looked decades old. The metal was almost completely oxidized, as if it had been abandoned in the wilderness for twenty, maybe thirty years.
The moment I noticed that, I knew I had to leave. This was no longer funny. It was terrifying.
To be honest, I had barely walked five minutes into the forest. But when I turned around to go back, the path behind me was gone. The forest stretched on for what looked like hours.
In the distance, I could still see my car. It was sinking into the ground at an abominable speed while trees and vegetation rapidly grew around it, swallowing it whole.
You can probably imagine the look on my face after witnessing all of these strange events one after another. Then, a bush not far from me began to move.
It was old and enormous, and it shifted only slightly, but that was more than enough to put me on edge.
I couldn't move. I knew that if I did, I might regret it with my life.
After what felt like an eternity, a pair of white eyes suddenly opened within the bush. They had no pupils at all, yet I could feel that they were staring directly at me, filled with pure rage.
It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. Less than a week ago, I remember laughing at people who actually believed in this creature.
If I'm not mistaken, this creature is called the Phantom.
There are many myths about it, but clearly, it is not just a myth anymore.
At that moment, I tried to convince myself it had to be a dream. This thing was not supposed to be alive and breathing. It was not even supposed to exist.
But whether I wanted it to exist or not did not matter. It was standing right in front of me. And if even some of the myths about this creature are true, then I am in serious trouble.
If you are reading this journal, the following paragraphs will describe the creature's appearance along with the three most well known myths about it.
First, the creature is known for its intense hatred and violence toward the human race. Its empty white eyes are said to drive people into madness, and its hands end in claws capable of tearing apart almost any living being. Its teeth are strong enough to crush rock, and its body is a humanoid but completely pitch black body.
Second, it is said that the creature can enter shadows and move freely within them, appearing and disappearing without warning.
Third, and perhaps the most terrifying of all, these monsters are believed to travel in packs of thousands.
I knew that if I didn't run, I would soon be overwhelmed by phantoms, and if that happened, I would be dead. It didn't take me long to decide. The phantom in front of me made its move before I could even think twice, forcing me to start running immediately.
I couldn't risk other phantoms arriving. If they did, it would be over.
And so I ran. I ran and ran and ran at full speed for what felt like an entire hour. Then, in the distance, I saw something that made me stop for a moment.
A human arm.
I was certain it was Loïc's. I recognized the red bracelet he had bought for himself recently, still wrapped around the wrist.
The closer I got, the more something about it felt wrong, but I refused to believe that anything terrible had happened. I remember clearly shouting Loïc's name while trying to push the worst possibilities out of my mind.
When I finally reached the arm and tried to grab it, it felt far too light for a human body.
When I looked behind it, there was no body at all.
Only the arm… and an enormous amount of blood still spilling out.
I remember screaming in shock as I stared at the dismembered arm of my friend. Even now, I don't know if he is alive… though with an injury like that, he probably isn't.
Without thinking twice, I started running again. This time however, I barely managed to stop myself before reaching the edge of an enormous cliff. Before I could even step away from it, I heard a low growl right behind me.
The phantom had already caught up.
That likely meant it was incredibly fast… or that the myth about traveling through shadows was true.
This time it didn't hesitate. It must not have seen the cliff behind me, because it leapted at me with all of its strength. The impact forced us both over the edge.
As we fell, I caught a final glimpse in the distance.
Hundreds… maybe even thousands of empty white eyes were staring at me from the forest.
When I woke up, I found myself lying on a strange beach with three different sand colours. That alone made me wonder if I was even on Earth anymore.
When I looked around, I quickly realized that the phantom that had been chasing me had not been as lucky as I was. The creature that fell with me had been impaled on a tree less than a meter away from me.
The top of the tree had pierced straight through its chest, likely through its lungs. Even then, the creature was still moving slightly, as if it were somehow still alive. It was a horrifying sight. Thick black blood was pouring out from its body.
Now that I think about it… how did I survive that fall?
The water is far too distant from where I landed, even if the tide were at its highest. But in the end, it does not matter. Somehow, I survived.
What is clear, however, is that I may be stranded here for quite some time before I find any help. I am fairly certain I saw apples on some of the trees back in the forest.
The only thing that truly worries me is the possibility that the information about phantoms appearing only at night might be false.
Still, I have no choice. I need those apples, or I will starve to death here.
If you ever find this journal lying on the ground, then it likely means I did not survive.
Farewell to whoever reads this.}
In the end, no one ever found Jean-Francis's journal.
What they did find however, was far worse.
Search teams eventually discovered his torso, dissected and partially eaten. His head lay several meters away from the rest of his ruined body. The other parts were never recovered.
They were likely eaten as well… carried away by the phantoms like pieces of meat.
But who can truly say what happened to them?
Perhaps only God knows.