The Lantern in the Woods
It was a cold October evening, the kind that seeps through your jacket and settles in your bones. The leaves had already begun to fall, forming a rustling, uneven carpet on the narrow roadside, while the tall trees loomed above like black, skeletal watchers. Daniel, Sarah, and Imran were driving back home after a late football match, the car’s headlights slicing through the darkness in thin, narrow beams. They were laughing, joking, and trying to shake off the fatigue of the night, but the forest around them seemed unusually quiet. Then, without warning, the car shuddered violently, coughed once like a dying animal, and went completely dead. The dashboard lights went black. The engine stopped. And for a long moment, all they could hear was the wind through the trees and their own nervous breathing.
