"We're heeeere!" announced Ari as she unceremoniously dumped the bags she had been carrying onto the ground. She and her two friends had just arrived at the site where they would be setting up camp for the weekend. It was a medium-sized clearing in the middle of a fair sized forest, plenty large enough for the single tent they would be using; of course, the girls had chosen the too-large clearing by keeping in mind the fact that they'd be building a campfire and didn't want to accidentally burn down the whole forest, which would be just their luck.
Ari looked around the deserted clearing with a wide grin on her face, framed by her curly and exceptionally colorfully dyed hair which was always up in some strange, new experimental hairstyle. She was the 'middle child' of the three girls though she usually acted like the youngest even though the girls were all about the same age, having been born in the same year and hardly months apart. Along with being the middle in age, she was also the middle in height, standing at a height nearly exactly between her two friends. Her pale blue eyes inspected the forest around the clearing and her grin grew broader by the second. Finally, some time away from it all, was the thought running through her mind as she enjoyed the sounds of the forest and the lack of authority figures to restrain her actions. With a loud cheer that her friends had been expecting (and were prepared to shield their ears from), she twirled in a circle with arms outspread, reveling in the freedom. "This is GREAT!" she exclaimed with a laugh.
Shaking her head at her friend's exuberance Effie muttered something about setting up the tent that the three girls would be sharing before grabbing Ari by the arm and dragging her off to help. Effie was the oldest of the three girls, along with being the shortest. She was, perhaps, the one who acted the most like the middle child. The quietest of the three (through when they were all together, none of them were very quiet) she usually simply sat back to watch rather than take part in any strange endeavors that her two friends might make. With a loud sigh at Ari's expense, or more specifically at Ari's attempts to pull the tent out of the small bag it had been forced into, Effie blew her long, purplish bangs out of her face and ran her fingers through her short, almost shaved blue hair at the back of her head before joining in the battle to free the tent. "On three," she said as she grabbed the bag while Ari held the tent. "One..." Her eyes met Ari's. "Two..." she counted down before suddenly realizing that Ari's grin meant either one of two things; either she was going to be pulling the tent extremely hard or... "THREE!!" Effie yanked her hardest on the bag, hoping that she had guessed right and could counter Ari's pull. Unfortunately she had guessed wrong this time; Ari let go of the tent and Effie toppled over onto her back, the tent (still in the bag) flying over her head. Effie groaned, not out of pain but due to the fact that she should have known better. Ari's chuckle came from directly above Effie, who opened her eyes and glared at her friend. This, coming from Effie who had perfected the art of glaring and managed to amplify the effects having one bright blue eye and one deep brown one, only made Ari giggle before offering her friend a hand to climb to her feet.
Turning from her inspection of the surrounding forest Nadi, the youngest of the three, kicked at the tent that had rolled practically right to her feet. She shook her head at her two friends, shoving her long hair back behind her shoulders, the small streaks of color that Ari had applied standing out in comparison to the rest of her dyed white hair. "Y'know," she said as she turned her deep brown eyes back to the surrounding forest, "this would make a perfect setting for a horror story." She grinned, a bit mischievously; though she was the youngest Nadi acted like the eldest in a trio of siblings, often taking charge of any situation and also taking great joy in trying to frighten the younger two, which usually failed miserably. She chucked lightly and continued, "Three young girls alone in the middle of nowhere...Far, far out of range should we scream for help..."
"You think so?" Ari asked eagerly as she and Effie both stopped what they were doing (which was trying to get Effie back in an upright position, which Effie was purposely making a difficult feat) and directed their gaze to the trees and other normal forest stuff that surrounded them; there were no more dead plants than usual, none of the surrounding trees were particularly old or gnarly, and none of the trees looked to have frightening faces or branches that looked like hands that would grab you and...Well, anyway, there was none of that scary forest setting that Effie or Ari usually associated with horror stories.
"I don't see it," Effie replied simply.
"Well I don't care what either of you see or don't see," Ari interrupted, "but if you don't both start helping me get this tent out of the bag I do know what you will be seeing shortly, and that's the inside of a bear because I'll make sure you both get eaten!"
Effie opened her mouth to argue that it was Ari who had kept them from getting the tent out, but started to laugh instead. "Alright alright, let's get set up already." With everyone finally on the same track it didn't take long for the three girls to get the clearing set up into a reasonable camping ground and finish with just enough time to set out and collect some firewood before it got too dark. Of course, walking through the forest it didn't take them long to lose track of both the time, and the reason that they were walking through the forest. In other words, they completely forgot about the firewood. However, they did have something of an excuse for their forgetfulness this time; soon after they were out of sight of their camp they had come an interesting area of forest, something that they hadn't expected and something that they couldn't resist trying to explore. 'Trying' was the key word here. The area of the forest they had come across seemed much older than the area they had set up camp in and the large, thick trees were growing so close together that they seemed to form a kind of protective wall around a small area of forest. Of course the girls' curiosity quickly got the better of them and they set about trying to find a way through the trees, and this involved trying to squeeze through any opening that looked big enough.
It was Nadi who soon noticed that it was beginning to get dark. "Um, we gotta go," she said reluctantly. "If we're not back at the campground soon it'll be too dark to find wood for the campfire, and if you haven't noticed, we have no firewood yet."
"But I want to have a look over there," Ari half argued and half pouted, having managed to squeeze herself halfway through a narrow opening.
Nadi looked at the half of her friend that was still visible and shook her head. "It's getting late and we need firewood. Besides, you're just going to get yourself stuck."
Ari blinked and shifted slightly before looking to Effie, who, taking one look at the expression on her friend's face said only half questioningly, "You're already stuck, aren't you?"
Laughing sheepishly Ari replied, "Only a little."
In unison Effie and Nadi groaned before each grabbing onto Ari's free arm and pulling, hard. Luckily Ari wasn't stuck too badly so the girls were able to free her after only a couple threats that they were going to leave here there to become food for the forest animals or the cannibalistic serial killer that stalked the woods. Soon enough the three of them were on their way back to the campground, collecting firewood as they went. Of course, by the time they reached their campground it was nearly dark and they had collected very little firewood, certainly not enough to last the whole night. But that didn't bother them too much, as long as they had enough to last until they went to sleep. As it was they sat around the fire until long after dark, chatting loudly enough to scare away any sane animal that might roam too near. Eventually though, as usually happened, the girls did run out of topics though they weren't yet ready for bed and so they simply sat around the fire, each thinking their own thoughts as they stared into the flickering flames. As was the norm though, the silence from the girls didn't last long.
"Did you hear that?" Nadi asked suddenly as she glanced over her shoulder.
"Hear what?" Ari questioned, sounding a little paranoid. "I didn't hear anything." Maybe she was still mulling over the threat of a cannibalistic serial killer on the loose in the woods. "Did you hear anything Effie?"
"Nothing," she replied, not even considering the question. It was a reasonable assumption that Nadi was just trying to scare them again.
"I swear I heard something," Nadi insisted. "In that direction," she added as she pointed out the direction from which she claimed to have heard the noise. "Just listen."
Reluctantly Effie and Ari cocked their ears in the direction Nadi had pointed and together the three girls waited in silence for some sort of sound, or lack of sound that would refute Nadi's claim. Effie, personally, was half prepared for Nadi to yell suddenly in an attempt to scare the living daylights out of her and Ari. She was surprised, then, when through the silence she suddenly heard a distant sound, and it sounded like something that she certainly didn't expect to hear at that time and place. Her brow creased in confusion. "Was that...?"
Ari cocked her head, also having heard the noise this time. "That sounded like laughter...Evil, maniacle laughter."
"I think maybe you're exaggerating," Nadi replied, "but it did sound kind of like laughter...Or maybe someone crying." A brief silence brought on the comment, "Let's go check it out." Ari and Effie simply blinked at Nadi. "What?" she asked at their blank expressions. "Someone could be in trouble."
"Or it could be that some psychopathic killer just escaped from a mental institute and is looking for victims," Ari suggested dryly. Then, somewhat more cheerfully, "Maybe there's a reward for his capture." Obviously Ari wasn't very worried about her own suggestion, and in fact the more the girls listened, the more the noise sounded like someone sobbing not all too far away. "What do you think Effie?" Ari questioned.
Effie shrugged. "Sounds like someone might need help," she said. Then she repeated with emphasis the word, "Might. Or it could, like Ari first suggested, be evil maniacle laughter we'll forever regret investigating, but when has the threat of regret ever stopped us from doing something before?"
"Right!" Ari exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's go check it out then!"
Grabbing a flashlight the three girls headed in the direction of the sound, and soon enough they came to a familiar barrier in the form of a wall of trees. It sounded as if the noise, which the girls were no longer so sure about it being laughter or sobbing or anything human at all, was coming from the other side of the trees that blocked them. The noise now was incredibly loud but they weren't so sure they wanted to figure out what it was any more. Even so Ari and Nadi began to call out to whatever was making the sound while Effie tried to cover her ears while holding the flashlight steady and in a helpful direction. When the noise stopped suddenly the three girls looked at one another uncertainly. "Well," Effie said slowly, "who wants to go in first?"
"You mean assuming we can find a way through," Ari replied, remembering what had happened the last time she had tried to squeeze her way through the wall of trees. "And assuming we really want to find out what's on the other side of that wall."
"Well," Nadi spoke up, "I for one didn't come all this way just to turn around and go back."
"All of a five minute walk you mean?" Ari retorted.
Effie sighed. "Well then Nadi," she said before Nadi could start to reply to Ari's comment, "I guess you don't mind going through first then."
"Um..." Nadi began uncertainly as she eyed the wall of trees. Then she suddenly struck a brave pose. "No problem," she said. "Just find me a way in." That, of course, was the catch. They had been unable to find a way in earlier, so the chances of them finding a way in now, in the dark, was slim. Unfortunately for Nadi that didn't make it impossible and within a few minutes of scouring Effie came across an opening that it seemed they had missed earlier in the day.
Ari grinned at Nadi as she and Effie looked through the gap that was formed by the roots of two of the trees. "It's certainly large enough," Ari said cheerfully. "May be a tight fit, but it'll definitely do. So, after you oh fearless leader," she added as she cleared the way and gestured towards the opening, grinning at Nadi.
Nadi growled, realizing that she'd never live it down if she backed down now, especially since the noise had stopped and there had been no other signs of life from the other side of the wall of trees, and despite the fact that she knew that neither Ari nor Effie would go first, Nadi knew that she couldn't refuse. "Can I at least have the flashlight?" she questioned.
"Of course," Ari replied quickly as she filched the flashlight from Effie and handed it to Nadi with a mocking bow. Nadi promptly used the flashlight to pretend to whack Ari over the head with it before she turned to the newly discovered opening. She glanced back at her friends, finding Ari grinning broadly and Effie waiting patiently with arms crossed. With a sigh as she prepared to squeeze through the hole she muttered, loud enough for her friends to hear, "Down the rabbit's hole," before beginning to push her way to the other side of the wall of trees.
Blinking, Ari turned to Effie. " 'Down the rabbit's hole'?" she questioned. "Why's she likening this to 'Alice in Wonderland'?"
Effie shrugged in reply, her eyes glued to the hole Nadi had just disappeared through. The light from the flashlight was moving around, visible through the cracks between the trees. She and Ari waited in silence for some word from Nadi. It wasn't long before a snort was heard on the other side of the trees and Nadi's voice broke the silence. "Are you two coming or what? There's nothing in here that's going to kill you y'know...Except maybe me."
With a relieved sigh Effie was the next to squeeze through, followed shortly by Ari, the way shown by the flashlight Nadi held. "See," Nadi said once her two friends had both made it through the hole. "Nothing." She was about to shine the light around when suddenly everything went black.
There was a moment of silence before Ari spoke up. "Shit," she swore. "We would have to bring the defective flashlight."

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to be continued...