Edgar

Part 1

Edgar crashed through the brush in front of him. God, where the hell did the trail go? He must have lost it soon after he started running…

Behind him he heard the screech again, ripping through the woods. Fuck! He kept running, jumping over the occasional log that stood in his way. Come on, come on, there must be another campsite around here. Surely someone had to have heard that noise.

“Hello!? Heeelp!" he yelled out as he ran. Behind him, he heard the crash of the brush as whatever it was grew nearer. Okay, okay, what to do, what to DO!? His mind raced a million miles a second. No campsites, it was gaining on him, he was getting tired…

Okay, time to hide, right? Yeah. He spotted a particularly large, rotted tree and dove behind it, trying desperately to keep his breathing as quiet as possible.

Behind him, he heard that…thing crash through the brush before it burst out of the trees behind him.

He looked at it from around the edge of the tree and stifled a cry. God, what was that? The way it had torn apart the others and the tents! No, stop it, keep calm. Breathe slowly.

His breath calmed and shuddered as he waited, the creature not moving. He peaked again to see what it was doing. No point in waiting here for it to find him if it knew he stopped. The creature stood on its back legs, seeming to sniff the air as it did. No, no, that’s bad. He closed his eyes again and focused on his breathing. Before much longer though, he heard it drop back down before tearing into the forest again.

Edgar felt himself slump down by the tree and begin to cry.

Part 2

He wiped his eyes and tried to get his thoughts back together. He was somewhere in the woods, probably a half mile from their campsite, which was...probably that direction. He wasn't on the trail anymore, and the creature had went the opposite direction of their camp. Okay, so the best plan was to find his way back to camp, salvage what he could, and try to navigate from there.

Edgar let himself take a deep, quaking breath. He couldn't hear the creature's movements anymore, so it should be far enough away that he could get moving. He stood up, dried his eyes again, and started walking in what he thought was the right direction before he stopped.

Their bodies would still be there. He saw them ripped apart again in his mind's eye again and shuddered.

Wait...what if someone was still alive? He felt adrenaline rush through him again as he began to run. He passed the occasional familiar tree that he'd jumped over before, so he knew he was on the right track. Soon enough, the trail that he'd left was found again, having veered off to one side.

He was breathing hard now, and broke back into the clearing of their campsite. Looking around, he saw the familiar forms of the people he'd been camping with and fought the urge to vomit. Forcing himself to think, he counted the bodies. There were 7 there, plus him was 8, but there were 9 people. It was that girl in the grey coat that was missing. Okay, check the tents.

He walked over to the first of the three tents and tried to tear through the remains of the cover. After a while, he got enough of it open that he was able to look inside, but there was no one there.

He moved to his own tent next, mostly spared from the monster's fury. He went inside to grab his backpack and suddenly a knife was swung at him, stopping just short of him as the girl in the grey sweater saw him. Edgar stumbled back in fright and the girl looked like she was about to cry.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked. "I mean, are you hurt?" There was blood on her clothes, but it didn't look like it was hers.