"The Unknown" by Alyssa A

On an ominous night where the crows begin to cry, and the clouds began to cover the tracks of suspicion, the sound of my engine began steer away from what it usually is like. And after driving for a couple miles with the engine sounding like nails being dragged on glass, my car stopped. In the depths of Oregon, a shroud of darkness and fear enveloped my surroundings. Luckily, the cabin that my mom and I were staying at was only about a mile away. Since the car was functionally useless at that point, I left it on the side of the road to be picked up by the local towing company, while I took a trip through the forest to test my courage. Walking into the woods wasn’t the most terrifying experience I had been through in my life; however, walking through the forest was a completely different task. I could hear the breath of coyotes preparing their plans for a glorious meal, the caws of crows announcing my presence, and even the howls of wolves that wanted a kill just for the hunt. Although I knew I only had a little more ways to go, the idea I could lose my life at any moment from any direction, gave me an agonizing experience that haunted me. The anxiety of fear became so intense that the only solution was to overcome it with a source of unimaginable adrenaline. I was only a few yards from the front of our cabin when I saw a strange dark figure looking out the window on the second floor. I could see the only light of the cabin on the porch, which was the all the incentive that I needed to make sure I was able to survive. Even though I was met with the horrors that lurked within the forest, I was able to make it to our cabin in front of the lake under a cool moonlit night. As I walked through the door, I could hear the warm call of my mom saying my name from the second floor, but as I began to walk to the stairs, a hand flew out and grabbed me by the wrist. It was my mom’s hand and all she could say to me was, “I heard your name too”.