Why Me

                                                               Why Me

I was just walking along the old stream behind my grandfather’s cottage. I saw a tree. Only it wasn’t a normal tree, but where he died.

I was just a normal kid with a normal family and a normal life. All that changed when the new kid named Elijah came to school with parents and uncle. We were in sixth grade, and me and my friends were asked to befriend the new kid. He fit perfectly in my group of friends, and turns out, he was really good at chemistry, a subject in which most of us sucked at.

One Saturday, we went exploring in the woods behind his house. His uncle came along with us for supervision, although we were old enough to look after ourselves. It seemed weird when he shot up saying “I’ll go with you”, when we were going outside. 

After exploring the woods, it became dark, so we went our separate ways. The next day, when me and my friends went back to the woods without Elijah’s uncle, we spotted a bare spot of dirt marked ‘Do not ever come here.’ The message frightened us, so we didn’t go to the woods for another two weeks. AFter thinking it was okay to go back, me and my friends went to the woods.

While we were walking, a man with a piece of cloth covering his face told us to stop. He was carrying a hammer, and was threatening us. We were going to call the police, but he lunged at us and started chasing me.

 I sprinted and was worrying. ‘Why me, why me, why me’ I thought. The sun had set, and it was hard to see. I remembered that I had my phone, and I turned on the flashlight. I saw a small drop and decided to jump down it. When I safely got down, I turned off my flashlight and hid behind a bush. Since there was no light, the man couldn’t see, and when he jumped down he tripped on a tree root and hit his head on a rock. 

The man was unconscious, so I took advantage of calling out for my friends. A few minutes later, they all found me. Once they got down, Elijah crouched, and checked his heartbeat. “He’s dead.” A silence fell upon all of us. When one of my other friends took off his mask, all our mouths were wide open. “It’s my uncle,” murmured Elijah.

From that day onwards, no one except Elijah and I went to the woods. We let the police find the body and figure out the incident themselves. None of us ever talked about it ever again.