I felt as though I had no choice but to follow that light. As soon as it appeared, it zipped through the trees, which caused them to bend outwards like rubber, opening up a new path. I ran to the entrance of the path and stopped for a moment. I was absolutely shocked by what I saw, “there was absolutely no way in hell that could have happened”. But it did. I rubbed my eyes, then looked down the path again. I had chills running down my spine as I stared at the endless path engulfed by white fog. My hands were shaking, my heart was racing, and my legs felt like they were glued to the ground.

I took a deep breath and took slow and steady steps down the path. I felt as though I was being watched by hundreds of curious eyes, but there was no one there. I could hear twigs randomly snapping and the rustling of leaves all around me. I looked side to side, behind me, above me, but saw nothing. I swear to god that out of the corner of each eye, I could see something standing in the distance, but every time I looked around, there was nothing there. I took every ounce of concentration to ignore the overwhelming fear that crawled up and down my spine and continued down the misty path.

If you ignore the sounds of dread, you just might end up dead. 

I immediately stopped dead in my tracks when I heard an eerie, disembodied voice whisper in my left ear. RUN! I bolted down the pathway as fast as humanly possible. Everything around me started to turn into what I can describe in my wildest imagination: hell in its purest form. My surroundings started to fade into darkness and the trees began to seep and drip dark red fluid onto the ground. As I ran I could hear heavy raindrops hitting against the damp leaves around me. A few raindrops turned into an absolute downpour. The skies opened up and flooded upon me. My feet began to lose friction below me and I slipped and fell right on my face. I tried to scramble upwards, but the mud quickly turned to murky flood water. I was being washed away by red fluid that dripped from the trees and heavy rainfall from the skies. My vision was blurred by the murky waters surrounding me. I could feel debris hitting me from all sides of me. I couldn’t tell if they were rocks, twigs, or what, all I know is that they hit me hard, very hard. Suddenly, I felt two bone like hands lift me up from the floodwaters and thrusted me downwards. I was still blinded and could not see where I was falling.

THUNK. I landed face first into a patch of neatly cut grass. It felt as though I was hit by a truck. I slowly used my arms and knees to push myself upwards and what I saw scared me to my core. There it was… my mother’s grave. Freshly cut white, gray, and black granite with a fresh pile of red roses on it. It was a tombstone in the shape of an angel with a black placard sitting in front of it. It looked like as if time had barely touched it.

I’m sorry

The tombstone burst into flames in front of my eyes. I could see my mom rising up from the statue. She was translucent, but her image was clear as day. She was healthy, happy, beautiful. She slowly walked up to me, grasped my hand, and helped me up.

“Mom?” She slightly nodded. I jumped into her arms as hard as I could and never let go. I cried into her chest and told her how much I loved her and missed her.

Don’t trust your brother. Even kin can turn on you.

“What do you mean?” I pulled away and saw that the thing that used to be my mom was an ash covered skeleton with its head tilted back and its mouth fully agape.

“MOM!” I dropped the skeleton and it disintegrated into ash that blew away in the wind. The trees and gravestones surrounding the area were ablazed.

I have to find the truth.