The Missing


 * RECOMMENDED: Turn off the lights and read this story in a room where there will be no noise and where no one will be able to bother you. This story is to create the illusion of what dreams can become reality*

Hey...You may not know me, but that's okay. It's too late for me to introduce myself, because I'm gone. The reason was that I was a child, alone, forgotten. We all are children, in our own eyes. Children, innocent, loved... Only children imagine a life of safety, of no worry, unlike me. I knew the truth, the things that hide from you. The things parents shelter you from, try to avoid telling you, keep you from seeing... I remember my life, when everything was happy and colorful, until my world fell around me, crashing, shattering... into pieces that can't be put back together.

This is why I write this, for you, whoever cares to read. Whoever finds it, the person who cares to glance at the scribbled writings on these papers. To know of the life that was broken because of the Missing.

The story of my life until its end, the end I want more than the one that awaited me, to get it over with so I can avoid what it wants...

Please, don't take my words for granted, because you might never see them again... I wrote these words for you, and you alone...

~J

Born on a cold day in January,

A small kid, never went to school because we were always moving around. I always wanted a permanent home, but it just so happened that when I was ten years old we actually stayed in a house, a small one. My parents were struggling to hide the fact that we were poor and had no money, so that I would never know. I'd hear them fight though, about money, about me. Trying to prove each others opinions about the problem I grew up in.

I would always be in my bedroom, looking out the window across the street, where the prettiest trees would grow. I always liked to watch the animals run by, living a happier life than I would in this house...

I would spend hours looking out that window, wondering what I was doing with my life. Being 10 years old, with no friends, raging parents, and nobody there for you. Letting my mind wander to the sky, watching the clouds float across the deep, azure sky. I would daydream and imagine a life I could never have...

I remember everything, what father said.

I heard him in the living room, shouting at mother. I wouldn't care, I would just listen to him and look out the window. Only this time, he did something unlike himself. I heard the front door slam and I saw father walking across the lawn to his car, he looked very angry.

I watched him get in the car, and drive away...

I was puzzled because he never did that before, I didn't understand.

I heard mother crying in the living room, she always did when they had a serious fight. I felt bad, and I wanted to know why father drove away... but I learned to never ask these questions, because it would just make my parents mad at me or just make things worse for them and myself.

So I didn't bother.

The next day I would watch out my window, to see father when he came home. I stared, I day dreamt, I wondered and thought, but I would always think about the woods. They were just so pretty to look at. Each night I'd get out of bed to stare at the trees, for an hour at the least. I always felt happy looking at the leaves, waving in the breeze, with soft, white moon light streaming through them to exaggerate the color scheme.

I even open my window sometimes, to listen to the silent song of the forest. So pretty...

So safe...

Days turned into months, and months turned into a years, and father never came home.

Mother would go to work each day, leaving me home with the computer, trusting that I will get my online tutoring done. I would, most of the time at least. It's hard to work on school assignments when the leaves outside would rustle in the wind and distract you with the vibrant colors.

It's almost my birthday again, four not-so-happy years living in this house. I'm about to turn fourteen, and my father wouldn't be here, again.

Life could be better, I sit in my room, looking outside to the forest.

Well, not always the forest. Sometimes I would see some kids laughing and hanging out in the street, some girls and some boys about my age. I wished all the time that I could just go say "hi" to them. I never could though because I didn't want to make them hate me before they even met me.

I was always the awkward kid that was in the background, always stayed near my mother, and always stayed inside my room, only coming out for meals and for the bathroom. I'd stay in my room just to stare out the window. Through the curtains to the thick landscape full of trees...

I remember my sweet sixteen, I hated it. I was home alone, decorating my room with my new posters and pictures, putting my jewelery on my jewelery tree, ignoring my studies. That was the good part of the day, mother bought me all sorts of presents and I liked them a lot. My friend, Claudia, gave me some cool romance novels, a "Make-up = Cutie" T-shirt, and makeup to go with the shirt.

Claudia was a really cool person, she understood my depression and she was always the popular kid at her school, so I knew a few kids from her campus, which is cool since later I might join that campus when I'm in my senior year or something.

I loved life until the moment my doorbell rang, it was almost like time had slowed down. I walked to the door to see who it was.

I didn't even think about checking my window, but I was already walking to the door to get a chance.

I opened the door to see a man standing there, wearing a uniform and a badge, with a belt at his waist with a pistol in a holster.

I was scared, to see this man at my door. Why would the police want to pay me a visit?

He said hello to me and I greeted him. I invited him inside (my mom always tellsme to do this with people worth trusting, police, firemen, her best friends, etc.), but he turned down my offer and cut right to the chase.

He said he was on a patrol when neighbors up the street informed him about a horrendous smell coming from outside. He told me that he called in his partner and his K9 because the rotten air had come from the forest and he wanted to be able to find the source quickly with the dog to ease the neighbors.

I saw him reach into his pocket and pull something out.

He reached over and handed me the thing, which I saw was a wallet.

He told me that he found a man in a grove of bushes, with scars running up his arms and his legs from an animal's claws. He told me that the scars weren't recent, but they were definitely an animals.

I asked him why he told me this, only to have my life, the one that took so long to build up... to crash down...

30 feet under.

He told me to check the wallet.

I rubbed my thumb across the spine of the wallet... waiting, wondering if I should be looking through this wallet...

I stuck a finger under the flap and opened it.

The picture, the name...

Death, claim me now.

Why? Why me?

Do I deserve this? Why...

Tell me why!

Demons from hell, they surround me. They taunt me, why... They enjoy my sorrow, everything that causes my pain and suffering,

THEY LOVE IT! THEY EAT IT! THEY ARE ENGULFING MY SOUL!

Why don't they just leave me alone...

I never asked for this to happen, I never wanted my life to have this much conflict...

My mother always hears my screams and I always hear her weeping in her room.

Wishing this had never happened, that on my birthday, nobody found the body. Just left it there, to rot.

I never wanted to know what happened after that car drove away... mother didn't want to know...

I was ready to forget... everything

I left,

the house, that cold house on a summer night.

I remember wandering into the forest...

The forest in my dreams, the singer in my dreams, singing of the forest.

I remember the song. That's why I wrote it down on this paper, keeping a pen close in case I get flashbacks to my dream tonight.

The moon was high, shining down on the leaves.

Bright light surrounding me as I remember the song...

~Within the wood, in the trees, under the leaves, Secrets lie there. the wind whispers softly, Ohhh so softly...

The leaves rustle, singing their mel-o-dy, ohhh their mel-o-dy... their song of fall, oh the sweet song the trees sing...

In the night, it muffles the sounds, the sounds of those never again to be heard... the place quiets those who venture into the woods, following... following... the still sweet mel-o-dy...

The creature, he hungers, the creature who feeds, careful to smother the sounds... the sounds of those it hunts... luring them into the wood...

The wood, the wood, the softly singing trees... the creatures fanfare, ringing through the trees...

Sweet sounds bring the prey closer... the goddess of hunt never knows, never knows of the creature, the forbidden creature, hiding in the woods...

The creature, the demon of the night, of the forest, of the leaves... lurking in the woods.

Bringing the spectators into the trees, the trees that hide their screams, their very last screams...

So the goddess never hears a thing of what the creature does in her forest, her beautiful forest the beast claims...

The spawn of the devil, striding through her woods, through her trees, through their leaves...

It hides itself, it hunts... it lures its victims in... within the deep, auburn forest... the creature's great and beautiful domain...~

The song played over and over...

I could hear it, as I walked through those woods.

I don't have much time to write.

please, forgive me for heading to the hellish song... I...

I just wanted to see what was in the forest, he came from behind me.

The creature came from behind me, and hurt me.

It had shaggy hair, and black eyes... It was as big as a small horse with wicked teeth and sharp claws that were quick to claim me, soon to claim my life as its hunger grows steadily.

It left me in its cave, where there is a small pool from a bubbling spring, enough for me to at least have that luxury before I'm forced out of this lifetime.

The creature ripped up my calf and my thigh... I can't move.

please, please...

Find the creature, no one else deserves this end.

If you find my body, and if you searched my pockets and found these scraps of paper, know that I carried them till my end, and that I didn't go painlessly.

It hurts, please, remember...

I don't want this t...


 * FILES*

June 9th, 20**

Female girl about age 16 found dead in a bush in a forest near a neighborhood,

We checked her pockets and found a full on description of what we would like to call her "Journal" of sorts that she carried around with her. It is a small pocket book, with a small pencil, able to write down things like in the description above.

This is word for word documentation of the event that lead up to this teenager's violent death.

She died with her arms and legs having scars on them with blood loss, we believe that this "creature" didn't care for meat, but it did care for a life substance running throughout the body known as blood. Which explains the cuts and the missing blood levels.

We classified the girl as ****** ******* (name will not be known, required by mother) about 16 years old, 5 foot 6, 136 lbs. (possible weight before the blood loss) hair color and skin color will be confidential (again to mother's requests for secrecy concerning her daughter's appearance).

These files are to be in the hands of the appointed persons to conclude the case of The Missing, or so as the girl called the creature.

We have a picture of the creature, described in the pocket journal, we had a sketch artist draw an image of the creature, which became the result of a ghastly animal with many features too frightening to describe.

Whatever this girl encountered, she suffered at great levels.