The Journey: Mary's Nightmare

Fear, a tornado in the rear view mirror. The strong breeze on a cold winter day. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something is dangerous, or harmful against people's will in likely to cause threat. In some cases, younger people, especially teenagers, develop fear when walking alone at night.

The night is always associated with negative activities such as theft and killings. In this case, however, the feeling that evil spirits hover around at night causes fear.

As a young girl, Mary was one of the more courageous girl who enjoyed exploring and believed her interest in learning about things hidden from her could not be stopped by anything, not even fear of any sort.

The city in which Mary lived, Timbertown; was boarded by a vast tract of land covered by forest. The forest was so dense that once a person was inside, he or she could not tell the difference between day and night.

Many citizens living in Timbertown talked about dreadful objects that one could meet if people toured the forest, especially during the night when wild animals, spirits, and death lurked there.

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It is the time of the day where darkness occupy the whole forest.

However, Mary was attracted by the tales told of a castle that existed up a hill in the middle of the forest. Some people said dwarfs lived there while others talked of massive deaths that happened in the castle, leaving the place flooded with vile spirits.

However, would one know the truth without visiting the place, especially, at night, if what people were saying about the forest were true or false? Maybe that question lingered in Mary's mind and made her plan a visit to the castle.

She did this, even though everyone, including the police in charge of managing the forest, already told people to keep off the deeper parts of the forest.

One fateful evening, Mary packed her travelling bag and informed her aunt whom she was living with that she wanted to visit her grandmother. Since her aunt believed denying a teenage girl, her wish would only make them enemies; she easily gave in and wished her all the best in her journey.

The first misfortune that befell Mary was the fact that she forgot to carry her phone and she only realized this when she was already several miles deep into the thicket. Her determination to reach the castle before dusk made her proceed with the journey even after realizing she had thwarted her only hope of communicating with people from the outside in case she needed help.

Mary's journey to the peculiar destination was met with the second misfortune when she realized she would not reach the castle before nightfall. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was almost seven in the evening and soon the unknown, horrific spirits and animals of the night would storm the forest in lightning speed.

As darkness covered the forest, Mary started realizing the chirping of birds in the trees changed to the hooting of owls and hissing sounds of the animals that crawl on the ground. The fear that gripped Mary when she realized she could neither reach the castle and sleep in a room nor find her way back to the city where she lived in time was one she had never experienced in her life. All over a sudden, Mary started listening to the voices of people producing sounds that she could only interpret as hooting horns of vehicles in the traffics of the town.

The voices seemed to come from a mile away. However, the grotesque images of people in masks seemed so close such that she was almost certain the people were seeing her and were coming for her. The thought of cannibals in the forest hit her; in that instance, she hid behind a huge fig tree and close her eyes.

Before she could make any decision on the best way to save herself, something hit her at the back of the head, and the next time she came to, she was within the precincts of the castle with a group of wild barbarians charged with deformed faces dancing around a circle in which she was tied in the middle.

"Young girl, what brings you this far?" one of them asked. For a second, Mary was relieved that the people could talk, which gave her the feeling that she could negotiate her escape with them." Please, I just wandered off the road and found myself deep in the forest as I looked for somewhere to rest."

The lie seemed stupid, but it was the only thing crossing her mind at the time."Good, we always believed our god provides for us a human for sacrifice whenever we hold our annual ritual ceremony." The fierce looking barbarian who asked the question answered as the others laughed and sang intimidating songs at Mary.

In that instance, Mary knew it was her last moments alive, and nothing in the face of the earth could rescue her. Her cries, please, and groan in pain fell into deaf ears. She was tied to a post using a rope and brought close to a big fire where she was to be roasted alive.

Every one of the people dancing in a circle was short, in as much as Mary never wanted to think about anything else apart from freeing herself from the rope and running for her life, she could not help but notice the presence of children who joined in the songs and dances.

After begging, crying, calling for help and struggling to free herself, Mary realized all efforts were a waste of time. She could hardly make her voice louder than the voices of all the man-eating creatures around her. Her strength was not enough to free her from the rope, and her call for mercy was a waste of time.

As she started saying her last prayer, one barbarian came with a huge, bloody hammer that immobilized her so that she stopped wailing once she is thrown into the fierce- fire. Mary realized the hitting, which was meant to immobilize her was a gently pat by her aunt to wake her up from the horrific dream she was having about her journey to the castle. From the instance, she was awake, she had mixed feelings, not knowing if she wanted to visit the forest or not.

The manner in which Mary was sweating with fear written all over her face, her aunt could not help but ask her if she had a nightmare. Due to the fear of revisiting the occurrences of the night, she decided to avoid the story and say she did not know the reason for the sweating and fear. Her face started to melt as a candle, If only people in the city had the same nightmare as Mary, the police would not waste their time disallowing people from entering the forest. It was actually for a reason. A crucial reason.