Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

Mirror Mirror #38

They call it the Whispering Woods, but no one in town could tell Molly exactly why. It was one of those names that stuck, whispered from one generation to the next. The trees were thick and ancient, crowding together so tightly that not even midday could pierce their canopy with sunlight. It was a place where shadows lingered and the air held a chill that wasn’t entirely due to the breeze.

Molly had always been curious about the woods that skirted her small town. As a child, her mother had sharply warned her to steer clear of them. “Bad things happen to good people in there,” she’d said with a stern look. But warnings only fuel curiosity, and by the time Molly was sixteen, she felt too old to heed old wives' tales.

It was on a dare that she entered. Her friends, a mix of skeptics and thrill-seekers, watched from the edge as she stepped under the gnarled limbs that formed the forest’s threshold. They didn’t follow, their courage faltering at the boundary that so many in town respected either out of fear or superstition.

“Just go to the old willow and back,” Jake called out, his voice a mixture of mockery and genuine concern. The willow was a well-known landmark, a twisted, leafless giant that stood about a mile into the woods.

Armed with nothing but her phone’s flashlight, Molly ventured deeper. The sounds of her friends' laughter and the distant noise of the town faded away, replaced by the soft rustling of leaves and the occasional snap of a twig underfoot. The deeper she went, the colder it got, and the more she felt watched.

The trees seemed to lean in, their branches like fingers stretching towards her. Molly kept her light fixed ahead, trying to ignore the goosebumps prickling her skin. Every so often, a low murmur would drift through the air, so faint she wasn’t sure she was really hearing it. Whispers, carried on the wind, unintelligible and eerie.

She reached the old willow at last. The tree was more massive up close, its trunk wide and hollowed, branches twisted skyward like a plea. Molly touched the bark, its surface cold and rough. “There, I did it,” she muttered to herself, feeling a mix of relief and disappointment. There was no sign of danger, just a creepy old tree in a creepy old wood.

As she turned to leave, a cold wind gusted through the clearing, and the whispers crescendoed into a voice. “Stay,” it hissed, a command more than an invitation, threading through the trees.

Panic gripped Molly then, her heart racing as she realized the voice was no trick of her imagination. It was real, as palpable as the chill that wrapped around her bones. She sprinted back the way she came, the willow’s plea echoing in her ears.

The shadows seemed to chase her, elongating and twisting as if to snatch at her heels. Branches snagged her clothes, tugged at her hair. The whispers turned to mocking laughter, rising in volume until they were a cacophony that filled the woods. She didn’t dare slow down, not even to catch her breath, not until she burst from the tree line and into the fading light of dusk where her friends waited.

They saw the terror on her face, the way she clutched at her chest, gasping for air. “What happened?” Jake asked, the earlier mockery gone, replaced by worry.

“I heard it,” she managed between breaths, her eyes wide with fear. “The whispers... they spoke to me.”

Her friends exchanged uneasy glances, their skepticism faltering in the face of her genuine fright. No one laughed. No one dared.

Molly never went back into the Whispering Woods. The experience haunted her, a memory that lingered long after the leaves had fallen and the paths had overgrown. At night, when the wind was just right, she’d hear it again—that same sinister whisper, begging her to return.

And though she never did, sometimes, just on the edge of sleep, she wondered what would have happened if she had stayed.

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(683 words)


Prompt: Set your story in a deep, dark wood.