Once
upon a time, there were 3 best friends. Leila, Aaron, and Charlotte. They
always be together everywhere they went. One day, Charlotte died mysteriously,
when she was 10 years old. Leila and Aaron were very sad with her death, but
finally learnt to move on.
10 years later, Leila and Aaron became
explorers. They already lived with adventurous trait since they were little, so
they became real adventurers when they grew up. They had been to Kenya, Amazon,
Nepal, and other places. Leila and Aaron went home to Chicago when they already
lost most of their moneys, but they heard about the unexplored forest around Mississippi.
“Maybe it’ll be a great adventure!”
Aaron said. He tried to convince Leila who was so worried about their
financials.
“Yeah, I’m sure It’ll be great. But we
have no money, Aaron!” Leila said.
“Maybe we can hitch hiking. We’ll ask
for hippies to bring us to the forest with their peace sign van. Then we’ll go
on foot.” Aaron said. Leila reconsidered and realized it wasn’t a bad idea, so
she approved Aaron’s idea and the next morning they prepared to ask some people
to bring them to a forest in Mississippi called Grimm Forest.
A nice man allowed them to piggyback
on his truck, but asked them to sit in the back. He was surprised when Aaron
told him their destination was Grimm Forest, but immediately hid the
expression.
“Well, here we go.” The man said after
the truck stopped in front of a dark forest. It was still midday but the big
tall trees in the forest made it looked so dark.
“Thank you, mister. We really
appreciate it.” Leila said. The man drove away as Leila and Aaron entered the
forest with a compass and a map.
About an hour later, at the middle of
the forest, the compass suddenly fell from Leila’s backpack and it broke. The
compass was no longer in use and the map Aaron printed from the internet was
very confusing. And suddenly the sky went dark and there were thunders
everywhere, not a minute later the rain fell to the forest. Leila and Aaron immediately
ran to find some tree for shelter, but they didn’t find any. They were lost and
wet.
In the middle of that hazy situation,
Leila saw a light from the far, but the light immediately vanished. Suddenly
when she and Aaron turned around, there was a girl with a red cloak and a torch
on her right hand stood next to them. They were so surprised!
“Are you alright?” The girl asked. Her
voice was very warm but also weird. Her face was covered by the cloak. “I saw
you had a problem with the rain. Looking for shelter?” The girl asked again,
now with more friendly tone.
“Actually, yes. Can you help us? We’re
lost.” Leila said. The girl nodded.
“Sure. Follow me and we’ll go to my
house.” She said. She turned around and started to walk away. Leila and Aaron
immediately follow. Aaron noticed something weird from her. The torch. It was
rainy and the fire kept dancing on the torch like an eternal fire. But Leila,
who was worried about the cold that might attacked her and Aaron, ignored it
and kept following the strange girl.
Finally, a house was seen. The girl
walked a little faster and finally stopped on the porch of the house.
“This is my house. Make yourself
comfortable.” She said. She hung her torch on the wall of her house. Then she
got in. Leila and Aaron followed her.
The house was purely a forest house,
made from the woods. There was a fireplace around the corner. The girl made two
cups of hot chocolate for them. After that, she uncovered herself from the
cloak. Her brown hair was flowing like an angel’s hair and her face was very
pretty. She wore a simple dress and a pair of boots.
“Thank you.” Leila said. She
immediately drank the hot chocolate to get away from the cold. “My name is
Leila, this is Aaron.” Leila and Aaron shook hands with the girl. But she refused
to tell her name and kept silent. After Aaron looked at her very carefully, her
face reminded him of someone he couldn’t remember.
They didn’t have any conversation. The
girl just sat on the chair opposite to Leila and Aaron. Her face showed an
emptiness and her skin was very pale. She put her left hand on the table. When
Aaron saw her fingers, he was so shocked! There was something on her finger, a
flower ring. And Aaron suddenly remembered, he made exactly the same ring to
his and Leila’s late friend, Charlotte!
Aaron became nervous and confused. The
girl, noticed Aaron, starred at him. Suddenly her face’s skin tore up and
exposed her flesh. Her hazel eyes turned white and her whole skin turned into
the same form like her face. Water suddenly ran down from her head and from
other body parts. All of her hair fell off and also her head skin.
“Leila,” Aaron shook Leila’s shoulder
nervously. She comfortably drank her chocolate and didn’t notice what the girl
had become. “Look.” She looked into Aaron then to the girl. She was so
terrified until she dropped her cup and the chocolate spoiled everywhere. The
girl opened her mouth and tore it up to her ears.
“Aaa!!!” Leila and Aaron shouted. They
immediately ran away from the house and left their things behind. The forest
became very dark after the rain. Leila and Aaron ran as far as possible and
didn’t look back. When they felt they already ran far enough, they looked back.
“She’s gone, right?” Leila asked,
terrified. Aaron nodded because he saw the girl wasn’t there. But suddenly, he
noticed a light from the far, but vanished immediately. Then he looked left,
and saw the girl stood there with its scary form and a torch on her hand.
“Are you alright?” She asked. Blood
started to spoil from her mouth.
“Aaaaa!!!!” Leila and Aaron shouted.
Just when they about to ran away, the girl threw her torch and burnt every
trees around them. Leila and Aaron were stuck there and the girl approached to
them with a limping leg.
“Don’t you miss me?” She asked. Leila
and Aaron didn’t listen to her because they were too scared to answer a
question from the dead. “Don’t you miss me?!” She yelled. Leila and Aaron
encouraged themselves to look at the girl, and saw the scary girl has
transformed into a lovely little girl. Charlotte.
“Charlotte?” Leila stuttered. Aaron
also looked at the girl. Charlotte smiled. “Don’t you miss me?” She asked.
Leila and Aaron began to cry with regrets. The girl was the dead Charlotte, who
didn’t die in a happy way. She wandered and waited for Leila and Aaron to
reunite with her before she really left. Leila hugged Charlotte, followed by
Aaron. Charlotte transformed again into a scary girl, but Leila and Aaron
didn’t care. As long they knew it was Charlotte. They released their hug and noticed
the girl had the torch back on her hand. “Goodbye.” Then the scary Charlotte
hit them with the torch and they passed out.
Leila and Aaron awoke in a hospital. A nurse
told them they were found collapsed on the main road of the forest. After they
recovered, they wanted to investigate the real death of their beloved friend,
Charlotte. And finally, it was revealed that Charlotte died after her she was
drowned in the river of Grimm Forest. That’s why Leila and Aaron never attend
Charlotte’s funeral, because there was no funeral at all. Charlotte drowned on
the river and her body disappeared. She haunted the forest while she waiting on
Leila and Aaron to came for one last goodbye. She was called “The Girl with The
Torch.” Many explorers went to the forest, and stuck in a storm when a
red-cloaked girl appeared with a torch. She took them to her house, and she
expressed her pain there to them before she killed them.
