Survival

Monroe told him to make an appointment with his secretary for his first session. It was good to possibly have an end in sight to his confusion. Danny still thought that it all sounded just too neat though, he still had the clear memories, and it was a struggle to convince himself that none of those things ever happened. He made the appointment for the following Tuesday, hopeful that it would at least begin to solve things. He just had to hope that nothing else strange would happen between now and then that would cause any problems with his friendships. It was only now that he was starting to feel embarrassed, as he thought about what his friends must have been thinking about him. Despite this, he still couldn't shake off how real his memories were. If false memories could seem this real then it could be easy to question anything. That unnerved Danny and he decided not to think about it any longer.

THE FOREST

James pointed to the ground a few metres away, there was little to see other than some leaves disturbed.

“That's where he was, he was lifted off of the ground and then just broke into pieces” He said with tears welling in his eyes, “Then the thing seemed to suck him up or absorb him or something”

Mike still didn't believe the story, it was too impossible to be true, James was suffering some kind of traumatic stress from what happened here. Mike was determined to find whatever creature was out here, he knew it must have carried Jarrah off somewhere. There was no blood anywhere to give him a clue as to where he might have been dragged. He took a close look at the ground for any prints, but drew a blank.

“So, it came from up the track?” He asked to which James nodded, “Okay, well I'm going to have a look up there, Jarrah must be around here somewhere”

“I told you, he was eaten or whatever the fuck it was, by that thing”

“Yeah you said that already” Mike replied dismissively as he started creeping towards the foot of the mountain. James followed him nervously, making sure he was far enough behind Mike to be able to make a quick getaway. He didn't want to see that creature again, and if he did, he wasn't going to hang around.

They took steady precise steps up the track, their heads searching from side to side for any sign of movement, their ears ready to hear a pin drop. All of a sudden there was that strange sound again in the distance, a mix of what Mike could only describe as an analogue roar, something in between organic and synthetic.

“What the fuck?” Mike exclaimed; he had never heard a sound quite like it before.

“That's it, shit, shit.... we're turning back and we're getting out of here, come on” shouted James fearfully.

“Wait will you, I need to find out what it is”

Then there was a ground-thumping movement that caught them both off guard and the trees and leaves in front of them suddenly took on a swirling pattern. It began to arrange itself into a pulsating mass of green and blue, faceless but recognisable enough to make it out as some kind of figure. James turned and ran and shouted Mike to do the same. Mike was transfixed by this entity, thoughts racing through his mind, barely any of them sitting in a synapse long enough to cause him to move. What the hell was this thing? It then began moving towards him, which snapped Mike out of his terrified trance and he held up his shot gun towards it.

“Stay back for fucks sake” He shouted, like this thing could understand English.

He quickly pulled the trigger with the gun pointed in the creature's direction. The bullets seemed to split apart and disappear into a black void that had emerged to swallow them up, a void which then instantly disappeared.

“What the...?” He screamed.

James was now fifty metres away, his legs moving wildly, trying to get him as far away as they could, all the while shouting at Mike to follow. Mike tried to fire more bullets, but his hand locked up and started to tingle. The creature began to dissipate into a blue pulsing fog and started to envelope Mike. The Shotgun appeared to melt as if being rubbed from reality with an eraser. He looked up at the entity that was now mere feet away from him and panic now took over. With all his might he tried pulling away from it, but his body was being drawn towards it, his legs starting to pulse as if in communication with the misty forest creature that was getting ever closer. He felt a sudden tear and let out a scream as the entity engulfed him and he gasped in astonishment at a deep never-ending void of blue pulsing veins, rippling all around him and pulling him apart. With one last exhalation of air, Mike found he could fight it no more and his mind seemed to explode into countless fragments of pulsing blue ripples.

James had heard the final desperate screams from Mike and had watched in complete horror as his friend was shrouded by the blue veined forest creature and then sucked into some kind of vacuum, his last breath seemingly echoing out from the void hopelessly. The only option James had was to run, to run and not look back. Luckily, he still had his car keys in his pocket so didn't have to waste any time searching through his backpack. He left the campsite and all their belongings behind as he sprinted ferociously along the track they had come in on, to get to his car. His adrenalin was the only thing stopping him from collapsing; the urge to keep going and to survive was all that mattered at this moment. Everything in his whole life, every second meant nothing without him obeying what his adrenalin was