//------------------------------// // The feeling // Story: Me, the Ponies and my Grandma (Redo) // by Cybers Link //------------------------------// The sight of houses, buildings, and coffee shops on every corner was quickly replaced with trees, trees, and even more trees as we travel all the way from the comfortable couch in my house to the wild, uncivilized and definitely without a coffee shop forest. It was a family trip as my parents like to call it, I vote more for the name prison but I guess that's only my opinion and since my opinion isn't worth much in this family I am stuck with them. "Monty….MONTY!" I heard my mother finally screaming in frustration due to my lets pretend I don't hear her for a while game. I slowly turn my head to see her with a boring expression in my face. "Monty, are you even listening dear? Can you please clean your little sister up? She could be drawn with her own barf for goodness sake," she said from the passenger seat of the van. I look at my three-year-old sister bond to her custom-made baby car seat mom order online, She was restrained as if she was in one of those mental institutes for crazy people but for some odd reason, it seems that she didn't care. "Calm down Mom, she is ok. Is just a little spit of milk," I said cleaning her cheek with my shirt and making funny faces earning a cute laughter from her. "But not with your shirt sweetie, we have to look nice for your new sister-in-law. We need to have a good first impression. Or did you forget about her?" "How can I forget about that?" I said mentally roll my eyes. Seriously, that wasn't a rhetorical question, how can I forget about it? My mom and dad just can't stop talking about my oldest brother Jimmy getting marry with a woman of a prestigious family, owners of a chain of a 5-star hotel all over the world or something like that, I really don't care enough to remember. "Oh, by the way, We are making him a surprise party too for graduating and obtaining his doctorate in medicine. We even invited all of his friends, So try to be the best you can before the party would you, son?" My dad said adjusting the rear-view mirror of the van to look at me in a serious manner. "What? Jimmy is getting a party? Why hasn't anyone told me before? And why does he have a party? No one throws me one when I pass to 8th grade?" I complain while I become aware that we have already arrived at our destiny, a cabin in the middle of the forest where we used to go every summer and that I loved going when I was a child. Emphasis in child. "Ush, Ush, Samantha. there-there," my mom runs to comfort my sister, the sudden slam of the car door I close scare her and make her cry. She released all the harness from the costume made baby seat and holds her close as she looks at me with an angry expression. "You mean barely passing, right?. You almost fail the semester. Seriously Monty, Jimmy pass with straights A's in his high schools. Sure you can do better than that in... yours." She said dismissively. I roll my eyes and sigh deeply. "Yeah sure mom, sorry for being the shame of the family," I said half joking while grabbing my old and trustworthy blue backpack out from the back of the car. I have to do it by myself since there wasn't anybody to do it for me. Dad has given all our servants a vacation for the week. "Augh, Monty don't be so melodramatic. And I am going to tell you this before you overreact. Grandma called and she said that she will be delighted to come to the party too." I let go if all the stuff I was carrying at hearing that. I quickly turned to see my mother on the face. "Grandma is... coming?" The rest of the day pass as I expected. The party was as boring as any other party my parents organize. Full of fancy stuff with a fancy food, fancy music and all. Jimmy and all of his friends were behaving as expected for students from the New Hampshire Real Academy, stuck-up people who love the sound of there own voices. Jimmy's fiancee wasn't that different either. After a while, when the dinner was over and the sun was getting down, Jimmy's friends call a limousine to go to the real party as they called it. Jimmy will join them tomorrow, Of course, all behind my parent's knowledge. For them, Jim is an angel. If only they know the things he has told me. "Well is getting late. Why don't we prepare everything for some smores and sing songs around a campfire like we used to?" my dad asked just after Jimmy's friends where gone. "Oh, good idea Albert. Jimmy, why don't you come with me to grab some firewood in the forest, hum? What do you say? That is if you think you can keep up with me. " My grandma chuckles softly with her trembling voice graving one of my shoulders with her hand. Since she arrived she has tried to make a conversation with me. I, being the stubbornness teen as I am, try my best to pretend not to hear her walking away from her. I like Grandma, I really do. And maybe that's the problem. But if there is something I hate about her more than anything is that awful habit of hers at referring to me. "Grand he is not Jimmy, I'm Jimmy, did you take your pills?" my brother asked entering the room with my soon-to-be-sister. She was a tall Caucasian young lady with long red hair. I would salute her before if it weren't for the fact of her to snotty attitude. My brother sure knows how to pick them. "And is better if I go instead, is getting late and soon it will get dark." "Oh, darling, you are a sweetheart," she said pinching my brother's chicks. "But I prefer going with little Jimmy over here if you don't mind. Don't worry, I will protect him if something happens out there." Grandma said grabbing from her big purse a bottle with big, yellow and green pills swallowing one them. "Thanks for remaining me about my medicine" "I need no protection. I am already all grown up thank you very much. And who is saying I want to go? " I said while pulling my shoulder away from Grand's hands as well as giving her a quick mad glare. My grandma looks back at me with eyes that I really couldn't read. I never know what is in her mind sometimes so I don't know if she was mad, confuse or sad, I can never tell with her. "C'mon Monty, you know Grands. She always does whatever she wants. You must have gotten used to it by now," my brother said back while putting a hand in my head petting it. "We all know how she is," he finished saying with a melancholic tone in his voice. Grand used to travel a lot in her younger days thanks to her work, or I been told. Now that she is retired, she still travels a lot but without we really know why or even where most of the times. We know she travels around the world only because of the few times she sends postcards of the different places she goes and the quick visits she gives from time to time. From Egypt to Australia and from South America to the North pole. She always goes traveling somewhere without even saying a goodbye. one day she is eating dinner with us the other she is gone for a year. "C'mon everyone, is getting dark! Why are you taking so long to come over here?! Monty, could you please go already for some dry wood? It's getting cold out here!" mom screams from the backyard where we usually make the campfire. "Monty, obey your mother," dad shouted too. "Ugh fine, I am on my way!" I scream back while I go to get my backpack and coat. "But I'm going alone," I said while looking at Grandma while taking my phone and earphones out of my backpack and put them on while I walk towards the door and went outside and into the woods. The sun has just hidden under the western horizon. The animals in the forest started to get ready to sleep only for the nocturnal creatures to start hunting for their food. The first star of the night was already up in the dark sky. I heard that if you are the first one to see the first star of the night, your most wanted wish you had in your mind at that exact moment will be granted at the start of the next day. I really hope it isn't true. I can't wait until morning to get my most wanted wish granted. "Where the fuck am I?!" I shouted out loud to no one in particular hoping for someone to answer. I was collecting dry pieces of wood for the fire but I guess that between the complaints about my life and my music I get distracted and swerve off the path. "Great, I have no signal in here either, damn Verizon. GPS isn't working too." I walked looking at my phone trying to get it to work. Since I have memory, I always use this forest as my playground, I know it like the palm of my hand but… "Hmm?... HAAAAAAA!" I scream well falling down a small hill that was hidden between some bushes and other wildlife and helped by the sudden disappearing of the moonlight. The sudden fall made me lose the firewood I was caring as well as the phone I was using as a lantern. "Ugh, dammit!" I shouted examining my right leg that was bleeding out. I also have some bruise and cuts all over the rest of my body but nothing too serious. "Luckily I'm prepared for this. I have my first aid kit in my backpack so I can... wait? where is my phone?" I tried to look around and using my hands to know my surroundings as everything went black when a cloud blocked the moon's light all of the sudden. As I was searching for it I noticed something. Apparently, I didn't fall from a hill but from a hole in the ground. Deep enough to hide a tree and It was full of vegetation and vines covering the sides. "That's why I didn't see it." I thought to myself blaming the vegetation more than me. Expecting carefully my surroundings, I see the light of my phone had stuck between some branches and vines on the ground all the way on the other extreme of the hole. "How the heck did it goes all the way there?" I walk towards it standing on my knees trying and raising an arm to grab the phone but I move back when I felt a sharp object piercing one of my fingers. "Ouch! what a..." I said while liking the cut in my finger. I suddenly stop all my movements when I notice the low sound of breathing from something near me." Oh, please let that be a squirrel" I prayed. My blood gets cold once the cloud that was blocking the moon moved away and subsequently allowing me to notice the sharp, claws-like branches that were holding my phone dragging it into the darkness. A big dog silhouette with a pair of yellow glowing eyes behind the vines caught my attention. I took slow steps back trying to run the other way but the only thing I accomplish was cornering myself into the limits of the hole. The walls were too slippy to have a good grasp on it and the vines break easily with my weight if I try to use them to climb. I was between the rock and a hard place. "Oooooowhoo!" I heard the howling of the beast before taking steps towards me. It is then that I finally could see the creature on its full glory. The wolf had no fur or even skin whatsoever being more akin to that of wood instead. Its sharp and big fangs told me that it wasn't a friendly creature of the forest and those eyes, those were some frightening, but somewhat familiar, yellow glowing eyes. The strange but intimidating wolf was reaching out to me as some kind of brownish resin oozed from its mouth. I was paralyzed not only because of the bruise on my knee but out of pure fear. When I was able to meet him eye to eye, I couldn't help it, just as when I thought he was going to open its mouth the eat my face off I leat out a scream probably a bit too high for a human male. But regardless of that, it seems that the scream took the wolf by surprise because when I dared to open my eyes again I saw the wolf had already moved back banishing between the darkness behind the vines but not before noticing a small grim of the wooden wolf and the sound of a subtle laugh echoing inside. Di-did that wolf just... laughed at me? I thought. Shaking my head I try to push the strange thought of a smiling wolf out of my mind. "I have to get out of here and quick," I said as I took my backpack from the ground ready to try to climb up once more. Before leaving though, an unsettling feeling passed through my head. You need a quick pick from the tunnel, You need to see what is in there. You know you want to. "No, I-I can't. What if the wolf comes back?" I said trying to convince myself but the more I think about it, the more I wanted it to take a look. Something in my guts is screaming at me to do it. With my curiosity winning over my sense of self-preservation I moved the vines blocking the tunnel and took a pick into the dark cave behind them. It was too dark to be able to see anything. "Here, dear, you can use this," "No thanks, I have a flashlight In my..." I said trying to reach for the backpack in my back as a hand retires a lighted torch away of my face. "Let's go then. Let's see where this tunnel leads to. You wouldn't let an old woman go alone, would you?" My grandma said as she took a step forward into the tunnel with the torch. "GRANDMA! Where? What? How did you…?" I stuttered in surprise at her that was already relative far into the tunnel as the sound of her walking stick echoes all around. "W-wait, Wait for me!" As I enter the tunnel, I grab my phone that was dragged before by that thing only to find out it was broken. The screen has a small scratch and when I turn it on, the screen was glitching out showing random times and dates as the image pop in and out. All while making a hissing sound. "Oh no, this is my third phone this year, mom is going to kill me." Putting the phone into my backpack, I saw my grandma with the torch in hand not so far inside the cave. "How do you find me?" I asked finally reaching up to her. For an old lady, she walks way too fast. "I hear a little girl screaming while I was looking for you so a went to check it out. How about you? Did you also hear the little girl?" She replied looking at me while raising an eyebrow. "Huu?... Oh! Yea right I-I hear the girl too hehe" I lied scratching the back of my head while trying to avoid eye contact with a nervous laughter. "I hear the scream and went to check it out too. But what are you doing in the middle of the forest? in the middle of the night for that matter?" "Well, isn't that obvious Jimmy? I was looking for you. We get worried when you didn't come back. After a few hours, I come looking for you." "Oh! And where did you get the torch?" "But from my purse of course," Grandma said hitting with her walking stick the big old lady purse around her shoulder "I never get out with some torch fuel and a lighter in hand. What I have always told you?" "That you should always be prepared for anything," I say rolling my eyes in annoyance. Telling the truth, she is the reason I have my backpack in the first place, but to be prepared with the materials needed for a torch. Grandma is hardcore. "Exactly Jimmy, I had thought you well" "Grandma, for the last time I am not Jim~" "Shhhh, Jimmy? Did you hear that?" Grandma asked interrupting me. I stay quiet while trying to listen, I was able to hear the sound of drops of water falling. And not only that, I smell humidity in the air, the smell of dirt recently getting wet. "Is it... raining? But the only cloud in the sky I saw before going in was a small one," I said looking back where we came from finally noticing something strange with the tunnel. For some strange reason, I couldn't see the moonlight shining behind us. Even though the entrance was cover in veins, I was still able to see the pale light of the night through it but now I just see pitch black. "I think it comes from the other side of the tunnel, C'mon Jimmy," Grandma motion with the torch increasing the pace of her walking. "Wait, Grandma. I think we should go back. There is something strange in here and I don't like it." I shouted in vain as my Grandma walked out of the end of the tunnel. The other side of the tunnel was cover in vines like on the other side. But where the other side was inside a hole, this was above ground. And, as we thought, it was raining outside. We were still in the forest, I can still see the trees but something was odd about it. It didn't feel the same. "Grands, I don't like it in here we better go back. I satisfy my curiosity already and there isn't any girl in here. Let's just go home, should we?" I said eager to get back into the tunnel. "Jimmy! Where is your sense of adventure? Let's explore a little bit more. Who knows? We may find something interesting." The old lady smiled as she walks into the forest, "Something interesting? What can we even find in a forest that will be even remotely in-ter-est-ing?" I half asked at seeing what was in front of me. Somehow we have walked in the top of a mountain. From up there, we were able to see an old castle a few kilometers away from where we were standing which was strange since I didn't recall ever hearing about a castle being around this place. "Wait, Why is there a cast~ Wait? why are we on the top of a mountain?! How in heavens do we get here? We were at ground level when we enter the tunnel and we walk in a straight line. Why the fuck is there a castle here and why didn't I ever see it before?" Freaking out, I watch desperately at my surroundings trying to find an explanation to all of this. "Jimmy, watch your language, also I think there are bigger problems to be concerned with." "What could be more important than this," I said moving both hands and pointing at the castle in emphasis. There is when I notice, the feeling of something watching us from the shadow and the sound of branches breaking. The howling combined with the sound of thunder in the sky making my legs to shake as I sink down to the ground. The approaching of shadowing figures coming out of the forest makes my blood ice cold once again as I recognize those shadowy figures. "Of course there are more. Wolfs always hunts in packs." "Oh, but these aren't ordinary wolfs, deer," Grandma said with her unchanged trembling voice looking everywhere at her surroundings with her torch still listen on her hand. I didn't think twice of what my grandma means by that. Just as before, wooden canine creatures stood by the dozen or even more around us. If I doubt before that they weren't a wood-like a creatures, now I could make sure they were. "So, I didn't dream them, what the fuck is going on?" I didn't have time for an answer however as one of those wolfs jumped right at us. "Oh, CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAPPPPPPP!"