Stuck in the Horror Woods - A story by Vrishaan Master

In September - October of 2024, Vrishaan was part of the Storytelling Secrets Gifted Online Course at Gifted World. A student in Grade 5 in GEMS Modern Academy, Dubai, Vrishaan was an enthusiastic member of the course. Under the able mentorship of Anusha Krishnan, here's his final story submission. Buckle up and join him on an adventure in the Horror Woods!

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Once upon a time, two friends named Jake and Lim lived in a small village named Tranquil Hollows, located between the beautiful “Peaceful Valleys” and a dense forest named “Horror Woods.” 

Jake was courageous, spontaneous and knowledgeable, and Lim had virtues of patience, creativity and imagination. Both the friends grew up playing in the beautiful meadows and flowerings of Peaceful Valley, but they would always look thrill.  There was no tree in Tranquil Hollows that both the friends had not climbed on, or the lonely trails on the hills of the Peaceful Valleys that they did not hike on. Their families and villagers would always be worried and advise them on not to be too adventurous whenever they expressed their desire of exploring the “Horror Woods”. All of their childhood, Jake and Lim had heard uncountable stories and rumors about the Horror Woods depicting ghosts, skeletons, wild animals, magical vines and never-ending darkness among the dense trees. Everyone feared the Horror Woods, but not these two teens!!  They had been secretly discussing their silly ideas about encountering wild animal and fighting ghosts of Horror Woods.

One lazy boring Sunday, Jake sitting in his home, thought of doing something adventurous and runs up to his friend Lim’s home. Looking excited with his bright eyes, Jake threw up an idea to Lim about going to the Horror Woods. Lim immediately dropped his drawing kit and jumped up in thrill to see his friend talking about their dreamed adventure. Though the look on Lim’s face was of confusion and fear. 

Lim, collected himself and asked, “Jake, why do you suddenly want to go to the Horror Woods!? It will be dark soon and you know the scary stories of the Horror Woods,” almost expressing his denial to go with Jake. 

Jake wrapped his arm around Lim’s shoulder and said with great confidence and courage, “Come on buddy, let’s do this adventure and bust all the rumors in the Tranquil Hollows!” Lim excited and thrilled, thought for a while and said, “Let’s go!” 

Both Jake and Lim, sneaked out of Lim’s house at first and left their village and headed for the Horror Woods. As they reached close to the Woods, Lim again asked Jake, do you really want to do this? Jake looked at his friend, winked and said “there is nothing in this forest that can scare us Lim! Let us prove that to the villagers”. 

Just twenty-thirty steps into the woods and they started realizing why the villagers call it Horror Woods; the bright afternoon sunlight had already started to dim, and they started seeing strange things all around. Scratched tree trunks, hastily left stuff by previous adventurers, torn clothes hanging off the bushes, and shoes scattered. It looked like the visitors were chased by something. Both held each other’s hand tight and kept waking further carefully observing everything around them. 

All of a sudden, Jake gasped and almost screamed seeing a skeleton of an animal near a tree, but he did not want to scare Lim so kept waking. As time and distance increased, more piles of animal bones became visible.  Lim noticed a big pile and worriedly whispered to Jake, “Can you see the bones under that tree?”  Jake as if reassuring them, said “Don’t worry, there were many behind us. You didn’t see, but it won’t do any harm to us.”

Suddenly, Lim turned to Jake and said, “Oh no, Jake I forgot have math homework, I must finish it now!” Jake instantly said, “Oh yes, I too have to finish my math homework, let us go home and finish it! We will come back again.”  Both trying to hide their fear under the math, turned around in a flash and were about to start running but as they turned their hearts started beating faster.

Turning back to return, they could not see the walking trail that they had been following all the while. The forest entrance which led to sunlight had disappeared. Sun was slowly going down and the dense trees made it impossible to find where they came in from. Their route to Tranquil Hollows had disappeared and all they could do was stand in awe with their mouth wide open from shock and holding each other’s hand tightly out of fear.

Lim said, “See Jake, I told you it wasn’t a good idea to come to Horror Woods, where is the way to Tranquil Hollows?!!” Jake too was scared but he calmly said to Lim, we came from this side and turned back realizing they had lost the track of the directions now. The adventurous duo started sweating and praying in their mind thinking what to do now.

Suddenly they heard a deep, low-pitched, echoing voice out of nowhere, “Welcome to the Horror Woods, a place which no one has ever left!”  Both full of hope thought that someone else was also stuck in here, asked “Hey hello, are you also lost here, please come out, we will together find a way back to the Tranquil Hollows.” But the voice turned to a loud laugh in reply. Both Jack and Lim were in shock and scared to the tip as they never imagined that the rumors they heard in Tranquil Hollows will turn out to be real!

Their hearts started beating faster, even in the cold of dense forest they stared sweating like pigs, yet shivering, holding each other hands and almost crying. Lim started mumbling in crying voice, “Oh jungle ghost! Please let us go home, we made a mistake, we will never come back.”  Jake looked at Lim with questioning eyes and softly said, “Ghost!?” 

The deep voice broke the silence, “I am ScarrWood, and you have entered my forests. Anyone can come here at his will, but he cannot go back without completing my three challenges.”   Jake and Lim look at each other scared, while the scary voice continued, “If you cannot do that, you will stay with me in the woods forever in the darkness and never see anyone or the light ever again!” 

Jake and Lim had no idea what to do.  A few moments later, Lim started speaking in soft pleading crying tone, “We are sorry ScarrWood. We are just kids; we made a mistake of coming to your forest instead of doing our homework. Please let us go back! We will never come back here.” 

ScarrWood angrily said, “You have no choice, but to take my challenges. You want to try, or you accept to stay in the woods forever?”  Jake without wasting a second, said “Yes, yes, we are ready!” holding Lim’s hand to stop him from speaking further, making ScarrWood angrier. Silence prevailed for some time while Jake and Lim waited fearfully yet eagerly.

“The first challenge is a riddle,” said ScarrWood in his deep voice, and continued “You always make me but never take me with you, what am I?” Jake and Lim looked at each other and thought this ghost is not intelligent, and it was a silly challenge to get out of this scary forest. Making up scared looks on his face to disguise ScarrWood, Jake stated looking around and he saw his footsteps. He held Lim’s hand and mumbled, “Lim, we make footsteps, but we never take them with us.” And he it aloud, “FOOTSTEPS!” 

Lim looked at Jake scared and in awe as Jake did not hesitate before replying, what if he was wrong!! Lim was scared as hell, his eyes and mouth wide open out of shock. ScarrWood broke the silence in a pleasing voice, “You are right!” 

Both Jake and Lim got excited thinking ScarrWood’s challenges are going to be a cakewalk for them. And they stood there wondering, how ScarrWood looks, if it is a ghost or a real person.

ScarrWood started again in deep commanding voice, “Your second challenge is to reach to the “Hollow Gates””. Lim got excited hearing the word gates with part of his village name, hoping it will take them to close to their village. But Jake, being more aware, asked ScarrWood, “what is Hollow Gates and what is the challenge in it?” and how will we find it. 

ScarrWood, in his deep voice, said, “You will see my forest creatures and they will lead you to the Hollow Gates”. Jake and Lim looked at each other in confusion as there was no direction or destination and then there was silence again. 

Both started walking, hoping that the forest creatures which ScarrWood mentioned, are dreamy, fancy non harming animals or birds roaming eating tree leaves. And suddenly they heard fast footsteps, coming from their right side, Jake pulled Lim a side in a flash and all they could see was back of a wild beast with long swirly neck like giraffe but instead of the ears it had horns, sharp like arrows. It looked funny but before they could laugh the giraffe neck turned back to them and slowly the beast body too and started rushing towards them. Jake shouted, “Lim, RUN! It has horns too.”  Both started running for their life holding each other’s hand jumping bushes and stones as the beast started chasing them. 

A little later, Jake felt that there was no sound of footsteps chasing them and he stopped Lim.  They looked back and to their shock the beast was gone. Jake jokingly said, “I wonder how would the Giraffe Beast… “, his eyes lighting up even in the scariest situation, “or Gireast hit us with his arrow like horns when it can’t bend it down?”, Lim thumped on his shoulder, Idiot, it has beast legs too, good enough to mash both of us in a second”, and chuckled “should we call him Gireast or Biraffe!?”  

They were relieved but still scared if the Gireast was still around. Both sat for a while catching breath and kept looking around if the Gireast was hiding behind the trees. Just then they heard a sharp scream coming towards them and passed right over their head almost bumping off Lim’s head. “Are we playing Jumanji?!!!,” screamed Lim and started running out of fear. 

Jake looked back at the direction of the scream and saw it was a giant Bat with the face of a Goat!! He almost started laughing but as he saw the Goat? Bat? GoBat? Spreading its wings to come towards him, he turned and chased Lim as fast as he could. 

The scream started again and GoBat started jumping from tree to tree like a monkey. Jake and Lim saw this over their shoulder and ran for their life. Suddenly, Lim hit something on the ground, lost balance and fell down badly shouting out of pain. Jake was still running towards him and so was the GoBat! GoBat came close howling to scare Lim, looking absolutely funny with its Goat face, and suddenly saw a shiny bright light behind Lim and GoBat ran away jumping, disappearing between the dense trees in a flash. 

When Lim fell down, his wallet had popped out and it fell wide open. The little fluorescent stickers on his wallet shined like a bright light in the darkness of the forest. Jake said, Lim looks like GoBat is afraid of the light. “I have found out a solution to save us from the forest animals, nothing can harm us in this forest. We will use these little stickers to shoo away all the animals!” announced Jake proudly like a victorious prince. 

But then Lim’s painful voice brought Jake back to reality, both of them looked at each other sad, scared and regretting their decision to come to the Horror Woods. Jake helped Lim get on his feet; Lim had hurt his leg and was limping with help of Jake mumbling if they would ever find the Hollow Gates. 

Just as they started walking again, Jake said “Oh Shoot!”  Lim looked at Jake and then saw his mouth wide open in shock looking at right of them. He saw a giant bird with big red eyes like car’s taillights. Lim spoke, “what is this, realizing a long swirly snake tail behind the bird”. Jake replied, “Looks like it ate a snake, and that snake is still alive after digestion”. 

Lim was unable to control his laugh hearing to live snake after digestion but yet he got angry artificially at Jake’s joke in such life-threatening situation, sarcastically spoke, “oh mighty Prince Jake, take out your weapon and attack this creature!”  Jake looked at Lim wondering what Lim was saying. Lim spoke again “You just announced my wallet as your weapon for all forest animals,” Jolting up Jake. Jake, recalling his speech few minutes back, quickly reached out for Lim’s wallet in his pocket, and pointed the stickers to the creature. He looked more like a young Police man showing his badge to criminals, instead of a teen lost in a scary forest facing funny looking wild creatures. 

Nothing happened as both of them stood still hoping the bird sees the bright light from stickers and runs away like the GoBat. Lim mumbled again “What is this creature? Is it an Owl or a car? Will it be scared of the wallet sticker light when it has such bright red eyes?!”  

And just then they saw the long tail like a snake swirling behind the bird and Jake whispered it is a snake! Next moment Lim said, “a snake with wings, seeing the bird spread his wings and the eyes shined fiery red as if the car hit the brake!!!” Both of them shouted together, “RUN, it’s a SnakeOwl!!”

Third time in an hour they were running for their life. Jake, huffingly said, “Is this a jungle or an animal fusion laboratory?” Lim forgot his injury, but he trailed few meters behind Jake. As they looked back running hard, the bird was not there. Just then Jake saw the snake tail coming from top towards Lim and he shouted, “Lim run it’s above us.”  The snake tail swept down wrapped itself around Lim’s waist and lifted him in the air, flapping is wings causing dust storm around Jake. Jake looked aghast and helpless to save his friend hanging in air caught in snake tail of a giant Owl with fiery red eyes like car taillights, unable to believe if they will be alive today.

The SnakeOwl started moving forward and Jake started chasing his dear friend Lim, exhausted, thirsty, and about to lose his consciousness. Few minutes into the run, Jake blanked out, all he could feel was he fell into some kind of water.

Sometime later when Jake opened eyes, seeing Lim trying to wake him up with teary eyes; scared and sad. Jake looked at Lim and hugged him, “oh Lim, you are alive!?” Said Jake. Lim sarcastically said, “Oh yes, you too!!??” and hugged Jake thanking him to chase the SnakeOwl to save him. 

Jake realized both of them were floating on water, he burst loudly, “it this a scary forest or a magic house!? We saw three fusion creatures and now we are floating on water.”  Lim shrugged and said, “Shut Up! We are on a giant lily leaf. I think, the SnakeOwl was taking us to the Hollow Gates. When you crashed in the water, it immediately dropped me near you. I am sure the ScarrWood is playing games with us, and soon we will go home,” looking at Jake with bright eyes and pointed at the strange green gate on their left. 

A moment later, ScarrWood’s voice started, sending chills through Jake and Lim’s spines, “Well-done boys. Now that you have reached the Hollow Gates, you need to solve how to open it.” “You have to tap the door.” continued ScarrWood. 

Lim, frustrated and excited, spoke impatiently; “That’s it? Just tap the door to open it? Is that the challenge? Why are you playing games with us?”  ScarrWood, added in a stern voice, “Equal to the total number of eyes that were on you this evening.” This was weird, as Jake and Lim both had seen the wild creatures fearfully finding out what they looked like, but they were not in the zoo taking notes of their body features. 

Both looked at each other in disbelief to their task which seemed simple compared to what they had been through the evening but was decisive for their freedom from this scary Horror Woods.

Both started recalling the horrors of the evening to find the correct answer. Jake said all three animals had two eyes, let me tap the door six times. Lim pulled him back saying, “Why are you always in so much hurry!!?, What if we are wrong and this is a puzzle to trap us here forever?”  Jake realized this was the time to think wise. 

Lim continued, “Three animals attacked us, so there were seven eyes”. Jake looked puzzled for the seventh eye. Lim placed his arm around Jake’s shoulder and continued, “When the SnakeOwl lifted me, I saw its third eye on the tail, it winked at me when I was looking at it.”

Jake said, “Yuck, eye on the tail, you have gone mad. And by the way, Lim, how does one eye wink!? It must have flapped the eyes.”  Lim, getting angry at Jake’s show of logic in the situation, said “Shut up, have you seen anything sensible to apply logic in the forest today?”  while Jake smiled at him funnily. Lim ordered to his friend, “Get serious man, count the eyes. All this time both of us were looking at each other so that makes it eleven.”  

Jake interrupted with an authority in his, “ScarrWood said how many eyes were on us, which means it’s the animal eyes on me, your eyes on me and the ScarrWood’s eyes on me.”  Lim looked Jake with praise to recall what ScarrWood, and spoke, “But is ScarrWood a real person or does it have 2 eyes?”  

Jake was losing patience now; he decided the answer is eleven and rushed to the door. As he started tapping the large door with the wooden hammer hanging on the side, tap one, tap two……. Lim was in disbelief, seeing his dear friend hastily tapping the door. 

As Jake tapped the door ninth time, Lim pushed him away from the door stopping him from tapping the door. Jake angrily looked at Lim for pushing him away and rushed at Lim shouting, “Why did you push me? Have you gone mad?!” Lim shouted back, “What if ScarrWood doesn’t have eyes?” 

Just then a loud screeching sound started and both of them stand still scared, holding each other’s hands and ScarrWood voice started laughing scarily and loudly and started in its deep voice, “Boys you have completed the challenge… … …” And the door swung open slowly amid this. Jake and Lim looked at each other with smile and rushed to the door. And just then ScarrWood shouted in an angry voice “UNSUCCESSFULLY” causing winds to blow the fallen leaves fly. Jake and Lim running to the door bumped into the invisible wall between the doors. All they could see was leaves and dust hitting the invisible wall amid their beautiful village Tranquil Hollows behind the Peaceful Valleys. 

Both of them kept looking for their home in Tranquil Hollows far away, while the door swung close slowly with screeching sound and all they could hear was the heavy echoing laughs of ScarrWood as darkness surrounded them completely this time….