**this is just a short story I wrote for a contest once... Enjoy!**

The leaves crunched noisily under my feet. I tried to tread as delicately as possible, though I couldn't help but hurry. I was alone in the jet-black woods at 9:00, not a great situation for someone afraid of the dark. Plus, to make things even better, I had been playing out here with my little cousin Izzy (we where on a camping trip together) when she suddenly decided to run ahead of me. Naturally, I couldn't find her.

Where was she? I couldn't loose her. I couldn't leave her alone in this darkness, just waiting for something to hurt her. Oh, and there's the fact that Auntie Jill would kill me if I came home without her daughter. She was reluctant to let her come out here alone with me in the first place, and quite honestly, I don't blame her.

That was when I started to get paranoid. All the natural noises of the woods were now amplified and turned into something sinister. Every snapping twig became a murderer crouching down out of sight, waiting to attack, while every breeze was a man's breath on my back.

"Izzy?" I called hopelessly into the night. No answer. This was starting to seem like a classic horror story.

When I had been out here earlier, hiking in the light of the sun, the path was beautiful and kind. However, the darkness changed everything. Even the moonlight was casting eerie shadows on the ground. The comfortable, warm breaths of the summer breeze had suddenly transformed into cold, unforgiving gusts when the last rays of sun were shielded by the trees. I was beginning to get goosebumps as the wind howled and hollered through the forest.

I broke into a slow jog, the full responsibility of my little cousin crashing down on me. I needed to find her. As I said, Aunt Jill would kill me the second I walked into the campsite without little Izzy. Actually, no, she probably wouldn't kill me. She'd let me live the rest of my life with it on my conscience. I couldn't live with that. So, I sped up and ran faster.

By the time I was sprinting across the uneven path, I had broken into a cold sweat. There was still no sign of Izzy. How could I have lost her? Why hadn't I found her yet? I knew I had been running faster than she ever could, and yet I couldn't even hear the tiniest hint of her small feet patting across the crunchy leaves. She must have gotten farther ahead of me than I thought.

Suddenly something glinted in the corner if my eye. The moonlight had just illuminated a liquid smeared across the ground. A red liquid.

Blood.

I kept running, my pace quickening even more, if that was even possible. I stopped dead when I saw something in front of me. A body. A small body. Just the right size to be-

No. It couldn't be. Not my Izzy. Not my innocent, kind, sweet little Izzy. Not Izzy who had blown out the candles on her fifth birthday cake just yesterday. Not Izzy who convinced her mom to help her save a baby robin that had fallen out of its nest. Not-

"Katie?" Squeaked a small little voice. "Can you help me? I fell down and got hurt."