I'm out

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night… a candle burned in the window. The small cabin may still have been covered in cobwebs, had small holes in the walls and even was slightly sinking into the ground due to a bad foundation. But it still functioned as shelter for anyone who may have needed it. This particular night, the rain was extremely bad, thunderstorms throughout the area. An explorer, who’d just wandered a little too far from his campsite, was about to get more than he’d bargained for.

“I can’t believe I lost my campsite.” Jonathan said, wandering around the woods. “I have an amazing sense of direction!” He sat down on a fallen tree stump when he spotted the cabin. Slowly, he approached the cabin. “Hello?” He called out as he noticed the state of it. Jonathan took a few steps closer to it. Noticing the cracked window. “Huh, must be abandoned.” Carefully, he pulled the door handle, and the door fell off its hinges with a thud. Just wanting shelter, Jonathan entered and looked around. It was a small cabin, a table with a melted candle sat in the window. A bed frame with a mattress that was falling apart, but there was a blanket under the bed that only had a few holes in it. “Whatever, it’s better than nothing. I’ll have to make it work.” Jonathan took off his coat and put it on the small table.

Jonathan sat down on what’s left of the mattress, trying to figure out how he’ll get back to his campsite. “I’ll figure it out in the morning…” Jonathan laid down the blanket to lay on the falling apart mattress. He laid down trying to sleep for the night, when he heard it.

The knocking on the walls. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was loud and angry. Whatever it was could have entered at any point, but Jonathan never noticed anything entering. “What is happening?” Jonathan demanded to the Oak cabin. The knocking only got angier from that moment on. Jonathan’s hair stood up on the back of his neck each time the knocking happened. He wanted to leave but he didn’t have much of a choice, without knowing where his campsite was, and the thunderstorm raging outside, he was stuck. He was only there originally to check on the trees as there was recently a forest fire, when it clicked. “How is this cabin still standing? According to the burn marks on the trees around this, this should have been near where the fire started?” As Jonathan made these connections out loud, it felt like a hand crept up his back and grabbed his shoulder, but of course when he turned, there was nothing. He couldn’t sleep, so he decided he would investigate the cabin a bit more. Looking back at the candle. He noticed the small platform it was on was wet. Jonathan looked up, and despite there being holes in the roof, there wasn’t one anywhere near the candle. He certainly didn’t touch it when he came in. He tries to look out at the trees but it’s become very dark, almost pitch black if not for Jonathan’s flashlight on the table. The wind began to pick up, howling past the doorway, louder and faster. It began to sound like screaming and in the screaming it sounded like there was a tiny whisper. “Let me out” it cried, almost impossible to hear. “I have to get out of here.” Jonathan proclaimed.

He didn’t care about the rain anymore, he picked up his flashlight, put on his coat. And headed in the direction where he thought his campsite was. As Jonathan trekked through the whirling wind in the forest. He kept feeling the hand running up his back. And the whispered scream of “Let me OUT.” getting louder despite him getting even farther from the cabin. Scratches on the trees became more obvious to him as he traveled closer to where he thought the campsite was. His vision was blurry, when suddenly, he passed out. The rain hit his unconscious body and the screams continued. When Jonathan woke up, he was just outside of his campsite, it looked exactly as he left it. Extinguished campfire, tent still set up, he looked in the tent and all his stuff was still there. It wasn’t until he was packing up his tent he noticed what was scratched into the side of his tent “I’m out.”