Plagued lives - Reaching Faylake

I've decided to start naming parts with some mini titles instead of just numbers. Hope you enjoy the read!

The second part of his long drive was going by much faster than the first, all the small towns he passed so far now seemed like a long line, nothing more. Hamond was now focused, determined to reach his destination, to reach the answers he’s been waiting for so long. For the first time in a long while he felt fearless and he believed everything was going to be alright. For a moment this whole adventure started to feel like an everyday routine, like taking out the trash or washing the windows, like nothing could go wrong and stop him. Sadly that feel didn’t stick for too long as the sun was starting to descend again and the darkness made Hamond feel uneasy again, especially because he was finally near his destination. He was strongly considering spending the night somewhere next to the road, but after the events at the motel, he really didn’t want to risk being in the jeep if someone was to play another prank on him. In fact he didn’t really have much time to think about it. In less than ten minutes Hamond speeded by a small dirt road and slammed the brakes. He put the car in reverse and slowly approached the intersection. There was no mistake, he has finally arrived. Even though there wasn’t a single other vehicle for miles he turned on his blinkers and made a turn. After no more than thirty seconds the road has gotten so tight that it was impossible to keep going forward with his jeep. On both sides of the road there was thick grass and it reached so high that Hamond couldn’t see over it.
“That’s strange. It didn’t look like this in my dreams”, he thought to himself. His logic was telling him to turn around, that this can’t be the place he is looking for, but his gut lead him forward. He stepped outside of the car and pulled out his backpack with him to check if everything necessary was packed before moving on. After making sure everything was there he took out a big flashlight and pointed it at the road in front of him. The feeling of invincibility was long gone and fear was creeping up on him. He was having second thoughts about this expedition, but he didn’t go through all this trouble to get here and turn back. Carefully, step by step he started walking down the path.

The moon shined extra bright that night and Hamond didn’t really need a flashlight to be able to see, but having it turned on made him feel more secure, like a child that sleeps with the lights on. With every step he took it felt like the grass was closing in on him, like it’s trying to suffocate him. For the last couple of minutes he even had to move the grass away from him in order to push through. And suddenly there was no more of that pesky grass. He walked through the last layer and found himself standing between a thick line of trees in front of him and a huge field of grass behind him. It felt so weird, like someone purposely surrounded the woods with grass, using it as a barrier of sorts to hide what’s behind it. The reason for this became clear real soon. It wasn’t something a person did on their own, no, it has been caused by something far worse. The whole ground from that point forward looked as it was sick. Nothing grew past that line besides those giant trees which looked a lot older than Hamond recalled from his dream. When he finished examining the grass and the area around him, he finally remembered what he needed to look for, the two tilted trees making an x shape. It didn’t take him long to find them, they certainly drew attention from the rest of the forest. Hamond walked a little to his left and finally found himself standing between the two trees, at the begging of the tiny path leading nowhere. At this point the flashlight wasn’t optional and Hamond was swinging it back and forth trying to make out anything in the distance, but his efforts were in vain. Pure darkness and a curvy road were all that was ahead of him. After a while of hesitating he finally made the first step onto the road, ready to reach the end of it.

You would expect that going through a forest would be scary because of all the sounds that you can hear and imagine, wolf howls in the distance, twigs snapping that made you feel like you’re being followed or at least an owl hoot, to scare you for a second because you weren’t expecting it. But walking through these woods was scary for all the opposite reasons. There were no sounds, real or imaginary, only endless silence in pitch dark. Hamond walked for what felt like hours and yet it seemed like he hasn’t moved an inch from where he started, the road looked and felt exactly the same from the beginning of it. Hamond was exhausted and he was already starting to think that this whole trip was a tremendously stupid idea and that he will die there alone, without anyone knowing where he was. As he was thinking about turning back and trying to follow the road back to his car, he finally found himself standing on a crossroad, a place where the path split into three ways. Every one of them appeared to be exactly the same and Hamond could finally see further than two steps in front of himself. But despite being able to see, he felt even more disturbed than while he was walking up to this point. Something about that spot gave him the chills and he knew in his heart that he was there for a reason and that he will need to choose a path to follow. He didn’t know how the choice will affect what happens, but he knew it would. All of a sudden things started coming back to him, fragments of his childhood he was so desperate to remember were forming a memory. He remembered this place and how the children from Faylake used to play in these very woods. He saw a vision of his younger self, when he was about four or five years old, and how he disobeyed his parent’s warnings and went down the left path. Him and all the other children were ordered to stay away from it at all times, but his curiosity got the best of him and so one time, while all the children were playing around the village he decided to go and explore the left path unnoticed. Hamond still couldn’t remember how the whole thing happened, he only remembered that in the end, the child, his former self stumbled upon a graveyard and fell into a deep hole. It took hours for the village people to find him and he was left traumatized and scared of going back there for the rest of his time there. Hamond snapped out of his vision and tried to focus. How could he forget something that had such a huge impact on him when he was a little boy? He was confused, but at least now, with his new acquired memories, he knew which path is which. The left one led to that horrific place that gave him the chills to think about, the center one led to the nearest lake and the right one was the one he needed, the path that led straight into the village center.

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