The Monster in the Woods A lot of people experience terrifying situations, some worse than others. Some may be traumatic, others maybe not so much. Now, this is a story that happened to me a few years ago that still gives me chills to this day. It was a beautiful summer day in the middle of July. In the suburbs of Wisconsin the sun was shining and I was sitting in my backyard by the pool. After a while, it began to get boring. I started wondering to myself on what I should do, then decided that I should invite some friends over for the night. I called over three of my friends: Jack, Ryan, and Daniel. All four of us concluded our friend group, and we hangout a lot. We are all best friends and tell each other everything. Jack has light brown hair, green eyes. Ryan was shorter, and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Daniel and I both have black hair, his eyes are blue and mine brown. “Jay, we’re going out for the weekend. Take care of yourself and don’t do anything stupid, I’m trusting you,” My mom hugged me. My dad nodded in agreement as they began to make their way into the car, and then out of the driveway. They do this a lot, they leave for the weekend on some roadtrip someplace. Sometimes it seemed like they just wanted to not deal with me. But I mean, I didn’t mind it, I got to do whatever and be home alone. Isn’t that the best thing? That’s every kids dream is to be home by themself and do whatever they want. A couple hours passed and I hear a knock at my door. I opened it and the crew greeted me at the door. “Sup my dudes, come in,” I said. They all laughed and pushed their way into my house. We all jumped onto the couch and got some snacks and begin to enjoy ourselves. We decided to play some video games because we couldn’t think of anything else to do. As moments passed, I suddenly heard this weird noise. It sounded muffled, yet distinct. It was a clicking sound. Odd...I thought. I ignored it, it was probably nothing. But it continued, seeming to get slightly louder. Again, I ignored it. But then it came in bursts. I tried to see if anybody else heard the noise. “Hey does anybody else hear that?” asked Jay. “Hear what? I don’t hear anything,” said Jack. I thought that I must just be imagining it, so I went back to playing video games. The sun started to set, and honestly I was feeling a little adventurous. “Hey guys, we should go walk around in the woods.” “But it’s getting dark,” Ryan said. “Okay, but that makes it more fun.” The others agreed with me and Ryan rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. I grabbed some flashlights and extra batteries in case ours ran out. We made our way to the woods. It was a typical forest with tall red pine and maple trees. Sticks, shrubs, and bugs everywhere you stepped. Everything was going fine, Jack and Daniel were grabbing sticks off ground and hitting each other with them, while Ryan and I laughed at them. Honestly we were having a great time. That’s until I heard it again - the clicking noise. I can’t really explain it, but it sounded off. Like the noises the aliens make in a Quiet Place. It made me feel uneasy and gave me chills. I wasn’t the only one to hear it the others heard it too because they went silent. “Did you hear that?” Jack said slightly stuttering. We all looked at each other. I felt like we were being watched. My stomach started to tighten. We all started to get a little nervous, but Ryan the scaredy cat of the group was the most scared of all. We continued down the path, but suddenly everything went completely quiet. The sound of the crickets completely stopped, and we were all clearly freaked out. We were all wondering what the heck was going on and why the forest was dead silent. Ryan was standing there about to lose his composure. I could see the fear in his eyes. I wasn’t the only one to notice it either, Jack and Daniel also saw it and thought the same thing I did. That Ryan was gonna lose it and run off. Luckily for us though he took a deep breath and calmed down. Then, we all sat down wondering what happened. We each tried to come up with some ideas to what could of happened and also to what was making that clicking noise. “Maybe there was a animal hunting the crickets so they were quiet so it couldn’t be detected by the animal hunting it,” said Jack. “But by now the animal would have passed through and the noise would have started again,” said Ryan. “Or maybe the animal ate the crickets so the noise stopped,” said Daniel. “There are way too many crickets in this forest for an animal to eat all of them in a matter of a second. Also, not all the crickets would be gathered in one spot they would be spread out.” “Maybe there were multiple animals,” said Jack. “Who killed all the crickets in the forest at the exact same time,” said Ryan sarcastically. “I don’t think so.” “But what could have made that clicking noise?” said Daniel. “I don’t know but I have an idea on how to find that out,” said Jay. “And what’s that?” said Ryan. “We will sit and wait to hear that clicking noise again and when we do we will follow the noise and find out what is,” exclaimed Jay. So we sat and waited to hear the sound again. We waited for hours and it started to get late and we all started to doze off. Jack and Daniel fell asleep on top of each other. Ryan starts to doze off when suddenly I heard the clicking noise again but it was louder than ever, and is coming from behind us. “Jack, Daniel wake up. Ryan, Ryan,” I said, shaking him. He rubbed his eyes and slowly began to sit up when suddenly he stopped. His skin turned white and his eyes became wide. “Ryan?” Daniel asked nervously. I turned my flashlight on and behind him was this creature. It was alien like: grey, no hair, no eyes, oddly tall, scrawny, long claws, and razor sharp teeth. The creature slowly licked the back of Ryan’s neck. It’s tongue was black and long. It left some sort of goo on the back of Ryan's neck.Then it look at me, and smiled. And that's all I really remember. I woke up in a daze. It was still dark out. But looked around and realized that no one was there. “No, no, what is this? This cannot be happening.” I looked around, the atmosphere felt...different. The woods even looked different most of the trees were broken and were starting to decay. Some of them had this black looking goo on it. Everything seemed closed in and I began to feel weak. My breathing got heavier, like I was in some sort of small box. I heard the clicking noise again and I ran. Not sure of my surroundings, I tripped and fell. “Jay!” someone said. My mind went kind of fuzzy. I looked around hoping it was one of my friends trying to find me. “Hey, help me!” I screamed. But my scream seemed to travel nowhere, there was no echo or anything. I stood there puzzled, wondering where I am. “What kind of game is this?” I yelled. Just then, the clicking noise was behind me, right behind me. There was this really foul smell, like of rotten eggs. I rubbed my nose, but then, I felt its cold breath on my neck. “Your turn,” it said. I blacked out again, waking up in the hospital. My mom and dad were there. “Oh honey thank goodness!” My mother said. My parents hugged me. “What happened, where are my friends.” “We found you passed out in the kitchen. What friends?” “ I invited Jack, Daniel, and Ryan over where are they?” I asked with slight concern. Their expressions changed. They looked at each other. “They went missing a few weeks ago,” my dad spoke up. I freaked out. “What about that creature? Where is it? He took them, he took my friends! I was just with them!” I raised my voice. “Jay, there is no creature.” my mom said. I kept quiet after that. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe it was all a dream. Later that night I went home. And over the past few weeks everything was normal, besides the fact that my friends were still missing. Luckily though they were found a month later passed out together by a weird alien shaped hole in the woods. Strange. All of them were shaken up by the event. Ryan went mad and was sent to a mental hospital. He never recovered. My parents say I sleep walk and became extremely violent to a point where I look like i’m in a trance. Weird, and that I have grown to be quite irritable. There’s nothing I do that I think makes me irritable. Anyway, they also say that there is a foul odor in the house, like rotten eggs. But they only smell it when i’m there. It seems to annoy them very much, but I'm not sure what they’re talking about. I don't smell anything.