Emma Tompson
My heart was racing, my hands were trembling, and my mind was in shock. I looked around, trying to get my bearings in this new environment I found myself in. It was almost like a playground, it was... so familiar but I couldn't remember it at all. I couldn't think clearly at that moment, I could barely see through the haze caused by the tears still falling from my eyes. I felt lost; everything was too surreal to process. Nothing made sense, nothing fit. I was alone, scared, and confused in a place I didn't recognize.
I stood up and walked around the playground. Suddenly, I was under that green sky again. I looked for an exit, any sign of normalcy, or maybe someone, but the place seemed to shift and distort just to play with me. I called out for someone, anyone, and finally, I heard a distant voice. I shouted again, and the voice came closer, coming from a corner of the playground. I ran toward the voice, recognizing it as that of a schoolboy, Logan Forest. His white shirt had a bloodstain on the stomach, as did his face, looking like horror movie makeup.
"Oh Logan, thank God someone!" I exclaimed, running up to him. My heart was filled with a mix of relief for not being alone anymore and fear at seeing his condition. "Are you... are you okay?" I asked, my voice still trembling.
"Yes, I just... don't know what's happening," he replied, his voice sounding weak and shaky. "At least we're not the only ones; come with me."
I raised my eyebrows. Had he found other survivors? I felt a bit more hopeful hearing that, but also worried about what else we might encounter. I followed Logan, but now I was full of questions. "How did we end up here? What is this place?" Logan seemed just as confused as I was. He explained that he was on the school bus when suddenly, the color of the sky changed from blue to green. When he looked back, most of the people on the bus had vanished, and when he looked again, he was in a forest. He had found Amber in something like a bathroom and Ted in what looked like a dollhouse, and now he had found me in the playground. We continued walking until we finally reached a small shelter. There were other people from the school there, many with expressions of confusion and fear on their faces.
"Finally, Logan! It's good you found someone else," said Amber, one of the most popular girls at school. I remember the forced smile she gave when she saw me. We were eight, gathered in a circle, and began to exchange stories about how we ended up there. Each account was more bizarre than the last, and we realized that we were all going through similar experiences: some sort of reality distortion, followed by an unfamiliar and frightening environment where it didn't seem to be day or night, cold or hot, and no devices worked properly. It was almost like an island of strangeness lost in the fabric of reality.
"We have no internet, no way to contact anyone on the outside; we're practically alone," Ted said.
"Not completely..." I interrupted. "Aside from other people who might be alive, there's something here. Before I joined you, I saw a bunch of bodies... All of them had some cuts that explained the blood splattered on the wall." Silence once again filled the space as everyone absorbed my words.
"So, in addition to being trapped, we're trapped with something or someone killing everyone?" Amber questioned, her voice laden with fear and disbelief.
Silence came again. That place was too peculiar for just one thing to inhabit it; the walls were literally pulsing like an organism, distorting on purpose just to confuse us. It was almost certain that this place was home to something beyond our understanding, probably a monster or a sinister entity. "What do we do, Logan?" said Kenny, one of Logan's friends, his voice trembling with the fear we were all feeling. Logan looked around, his eyes passing over each of us before finally responding: "If what Emma said is true, then we need to stick together, look for resources, and come up with a survival plan. We don't know what's out there, but we can't just stand here waiting to be the next victims."
I listened to Logan's words carefully. I've always been a good listener, but that day, it was impossible for me to forget anything. We walked for hours, exploring that maze in search of any resources. I wasn't sure if it was safe to eat anything from that place; after all, the whole structure seemed designed to either trap us or kill us, so who's to say about the plants or fruits we might find there. Luckily... or whatever else... no one there seemed to feel hunger or thirst, so the resources we found were mostly for self-defense. Among some of the distorted trees in the playground, I encountered some bizarre creatures...
First, a butterfly, where its wings seemed to have eyes staring at me as it flew. Then... something like a spider but also a centipede? It was agonizing to see it, moving awkwardly, as if the creature itself didn't understand its anatomy. Well, I didn't believe that a butterfly or a... spider-centipede would be capable of devouring a group of teenagers, but since we didn't know what those creatures were capable of, we decided to avoid crossing their paths. We continued exploring for a while longer until that feeling of being watched returned. I looked in every direction, trying to convince myself it was just in my head, until I noticed a mime staring at me with a smile from a bush. I froze in place, my eyes fixed on that strange being watching me with a sinister grin. It resembled a human, but like everything in that place, even that creature had a flaw. It was crooked, almost as if it had been malformed, its eyes misaligned and its mouth stretching grotesquely when it smiled.
"Emma, what's wrong?" Logan asked, noticing my terrified expression.
"There, in the bush," I stammered, pointing toward the mime.
Logan and the others turned toward the direction I pointed, but when they looked, the mime had disappeared. I knew I wasn't imagining things, but I couldn't convince them of the threat that being represented.
"It's probably nothing, Emma. Maybe it's just your paranoia," Amber said, a bit dismissively. Despite that, I wanted to believe that, wanted to believe my mind was playing tricks on me, that I was just losing it with the whole situation, but I knew it wasn't that. The bodies... the blood... and now that mime... how could they be so blind to the fact that something terrible was lurking in that eternal maze?! Ugh! The frustration I felt at that moment wasn't going to get me anywhere, but... I kept my eyes on the green area, even as the rest of the group continued to move.
We kept exploring that bizarre place, always alert for any signs of danger. Another aspect of the place was that it neither cooled nor heated, at least where the green sky was stretched over us. The more we advanced, the more bodies and signs of violence we encountered, some familiar... but strangely, there were also some we didn't recognize. I noted every detail; if there were bodies we didn't recognize... then this bizarre situation was affecting more than just our school, it wasn't the first time that place had imprisoned people and it definitely wouldn't be the last.
Once again, the feeling of being watched intensified. I took out my compact mirror and started examining the surroundings, looking for whoever was watching us. That's when I noticed the same mime behind the trees, this time with blood on its face, and it was grinning macabrely at us. I watched for a while longer until it realized I was looking through the reflection, then it slowly waved at me. I called Logan, whispering for him to look in that direction. When he turned, the mime had disappeared again.
"What did you see?" Logan asked, noticing my tense expression. "The mime... it was there, behind the trees," I whispered, my heart racing with fear.
Logan furrowed his brow, concerned. "Emma, are you sure? Maybe it would be better to rest a bit and try to calm down. Everyone here is on edge, and we might be imagining things."
I knew he was trying to reassure me, but the truth was that nothing in that place made sense, and ignoring what I had seen could be fatal. "Logan, I know what I saw. It's watching us, playing with us. We can't keep ignoring it."
The others started whispering among themselves, some clearly skeptical, others just more frightened. Amber rolled her eyes, visibly exasperated. "Alright, Emma, but what do you suggest? We don't have much to go on and, honestly, we don't have any way to fight something we can barely see."
My desperation spoke louder than reason at that moment, and I'm sure I said that just to try to calm myself. "There are eight of us, we can handle it!" I said impulsively, and although it convinced me at the moment, the irony of fate was that we didn't have control of the situation.
We moved away from that open space and tried to regroup in the shelter. We discussed for a while about how we should proceed, considered splitting into two groups and exploring the place further, but with that creature still lurking? No chance. The best option seemed to be reinforcing the shelter and trying to search for resources.
So that's what we did. Our only refuge was that makeshift shelter in a place that didn't make sense. It was really strange, you know? Everything around us pulsed as if it were a living organism. Even though our watches weren't working, I know we worked for hours reinforcing that shelter. In fact, time seemed the same since we first arrived there.
Suddenly, Kenny called us all for a meeting. I don't remember his exact words, but it was something about the urgent need to explore the place. Logan pushed back on the suggestion, saying we shouldn't take any more risks, but Kenny was desperate. He had found some evidence that there might be a way out or a path to another area. The group was split in opinions: Some were inclined to explore, believing that any clue to an exit was better than staying locked in the shelter, while others, including me, were hesitant about the idea of continuing to explore.
I felt like my thoughts were being manipulated by something. Maybe even by that creature so it could kill us all more easily. We kept debating until eventually, the decision was made: to explore once more. The group was divided between those who wanted to search for a possible exit and those who preferred to reinforce the shelter. Despite my hesitation, I joined the group that decided to explore. I don't know if it was something inside me or even a fear of being left behind, but I knew that staying in the shelter without answers would make me even more restless.
So, we split into two groups of four. Logan, Kenny, Amber, and I formed the first group. The second group was in charge of reinforcing the shelter, and it consisted of Ted, Olivia, Jake, and Sarah. We walked through the playground cautiously, on alert for any signs of danger. I began to analyze the place more deeply, and everything seemed like a copy of the real thing, but... I don't know, you could tell it wasn't real. The trees, for example, had leaves that looked like they were made of clay. The trunks were defective, with several stumps and cracks that didn't seem natural.
We kept walking and found more traces of violence. There was a large trail of blood on the ground as if someone had been dragged to their death. We followed the trail and found a body, apparently of a man, with a look of terror frozen on his face. He didn't seem like anyone we knew; he wore a dark cloak and carried a book with some strange symbols on the cover. The scene was desolate, and it was confirmation for Kenny that we weren't trapped in some crazy dream. Logan crouched down next to the body, examining the book.
Logan crouched down next to the body, examining the book. Amber approached cautiously, trying not to look at the body. "What do you think this means?" she asked with a trembling voice. "I'm not sure," Logan replied, "but it looks like this book might be important. Maybe it's a clue about what's happening here." I felt a familiarity with the book and kept that in mind. I suggested that we take the book and examine it later when we were in a safer place.
Everyone agreed, and so we continued exploring the area. We kept going until we found a large hole, which seemed to lead to a new area. The hole was deep and dark and appeared to be a passage to something more underground. With the discovery, Amber shouted to the shelter group, but before she could do anything, a series of screams were heard coming from there. I took a few steps forward to see what was happening from afar and realized that the mimic was attacking everyone there. I saw Olivia and Jake running away, severely injured by the creature. Jake ran faster, while Olivia was left behind. I could only watch as Olivia was knocked down by the mimic and brutally attacked by it. So, we wasted no time: we advanced into the hole as fast as we could. The hole was narrow and steep, but we descended with determination. Fear became a driving force, pushing us forward despite the exhaustion.