“The Woods”

The Morgan family had been in the car for almost 9 hours and everyone was getting a little grumpy. As they were driving up to the campsite they drove by a small town with a population of 2,000. It was small but it seemed like nothing bad would ever happen there. There were quite a lot of people walking around and enjoying their Tuesday afternoon. The family was excited to start the vacation. 

The Morgan family pulled up to the campsite, they smelt the fresh healthy air as they rolled the windows down. After setting up their tents the twins JJ and Derek decided to go on a walk because they still needed to stretch their legs. The rest of the family stayed there and unpacked. 

“Don't go too far,” their mother explained. 

“Don't worry we won't,” JJ yelled as they got farther and farther away.

When JJ and Derek were taking a walk they expected more people to be there because it was one of the most popular campsites in Maine, but surprisingly they had not seen a soul. Derek suggested they should turn around but JJ was begging to keep on going until they saw people or even footsteps. Derek couldn't take it anymore and got mad at JJ and let her go off by herself. They both went their separate ways. 

The family started to worry because the sun was getting close to setting and dusk would be coming soon, so the dad decided to go out and look for them. As the Mother grew in terror she tried calling the police but she had no service which she knew but still kept on trying. 

JJ had always been smart when it came to decisions and always stayed calm, but this time she started to freak out as she realized she had been walking for about an hour and a half wandering by herself in the quiet woods. She had been so caught in thinking about her and Derek's fight that she had no idea where she was. She decided to turn around and walk the way she came, even though she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that she was going the right way. JJ started to move much faster as she saw that the sun was about to set and that it was probably about to be dusk. 

Since Derek didn’t go that far he made it back to where they were camping and his mom came rushing up to him with a terrified look that flashed across her face.

“Where's JJ, is she with you!” the mother explained.

“What no, what happened!” Derek said in terror.

The Mother told Derek that she never came back and he tried everything to calm her down, but nothing was working. The dad shortly came back with nothing and no one, the Mother quickly broke down in tears as she fell to the ground. The dad decided that the only option was to get in the car and go to the police station that was in the small town near the campsite. Derek stayed with his mom while figuring out what to do in the meantime.

The sun was about 5 minutes from setting and JJ broke down in tears while realizing she had been going in circles and had been ending up in the same spot between two trees with an orange mark on it. She decided the best option would be just to start screaming.

“Hello, Anybody!”

There was no response, just the sound of the mild gust of wind hitting her soft skin and the crickets as the sun had set. As it got pitch black out she decided she needed to sit somewhere and try to get rest, even though she knew that could never happen. JJ saw a patch of dirt and grass that was down a hill. As she was making her way down to it she quickly without a blink of an eye tripped over a thick and spiky branch. Before she knew it she was rolling down a steep and bumpy hill, with branches that were as pointy as a porcupine. Once she hit the bottom of the hill her body got covered by a pile of leaves and then there was a sudden silence. 

The dad got out of his car and ran into the station as fast as ever.

“Somebody please help me!”

“Sir calm down, take a seat.” said the police officer with a deep voice.

“My daughter, we were camping and she went missing!” the dad said in an alarming voice

The police officers almost acted like this wasn't their first or even second missing person.The police officer got all of the information about the daughter from the dad, even a picture of her. The police officer decided to put out a search party, as half of the station already got all their stuff and gathered into their cars with the sirens on. The father took a deep breath and then proceeded to follow the other officers back to the campsite. 

The officers got out of their cars, half of them went to the right and the other half went to the left. The mother was relieved to see so many officers at this time of night when most of them wanted to be home enjoying their night. A couple of police officers stayed back with the parents and kept them calm and even told them everything was going to be ok. Derek wanted to go look with the officers and everyone else that was looking because he thought all of this was his fault. 

“I have to go, I can't just leave her out there!” Derek screamed with fear.

“There are plenty of officers out there looking, I don't want to lose you too,” the mother said. 

Once the parents weren't looking Derek snuck away into the woods where a small group of police officers went near. When he was fully in the clear he started running, then sprinting through mud and leaves. After he was running for about 12 minutes he started yelling out her name but nobody called out. It was mostly silent, except for a little gust of wind that helped Derek from not passing out from the heat. After about thirty minutes of searching in what he felt like the whole woods, he had found nothing, not even a track of JJ.

 After Derek was searching forever he noticed an orange mark that he had already pasted and realized he was going in circles. Derek was tired and thought that there was no hope left so he decided to sit down and rest. As he was looking up at the starry night sky there was a faint noise of what he thought was JJ but ended up just being some deer sniffing at some leaves. He was about to lay back down until he saw a piece of blonde hair sticking out of the yellow and orange pastel leaves. He jumped up so fast with an anxious feeling running through him. He pushed all the leaves off of her and she started to wake up. 

“Derek?” JJ said with a questionable tone. 

Derek was so excited to see her and was even more excited that she was alive. Derek kept on apologizing and hugging her so tight that she almost couldn’t breathe. As they were about to find their way back a group of police officers came around the corner while they were in the woods and greeted them with relief. They escorted them back to the main campsite and the parents ran so fast and hugged them so hard with tears running down their faces. A police officer came over while they were hugging and told them that this was their tenth missing person in this campsite in three months and that they only found three. Their jaws all dropped in the shocking news they just heard. 

“Yeah, I am never going camping again!” JJ said sternly as they all got in the car.