The Forest Of The Hawks

The adventures of Larissa Renald and her friends – the forest of the Hawks

‘As they walked through the dark and silent forest all that could be heard was the faint howling of wolves. Larissa’s hands trembled, her courage shook and her forehead was covered with sweat.’

‘I wonder how it would be to have such an adventure,’ wondered Larissa Renald as she finished writing an imaginary story on her worst experience in life. As she walked into her classroom the next morning and settled at her desk, she glanced at her partner beside, jumpy and excited. Larissa’s friend, Yasmine, believed that spirits existed in every corner of the world and always tried to influence her to perceive the same. She was usually very calm and collected, but today was different.

She was very fidgety. When Larissa first asked her, she was persistent but you may want to know that Yasmine is a very bad keeper of secrets and so she filled the girl in. ‘I’m going to the forest of the hawks tonight!’ and even as she said this, Larissa could tell that something stranger was coming next. ‘Everyone at school thinks that I’m mad because I believe in what can’t be seen. But today, I will prove them all wrong. I’m going to take my camera and record everything. Legend has it that all the spirits that wander the earth come out at night and can be found in the deep woods of that forest.’ Larissa was bewildered by what Yasmine had told her. Yasmine had always been very erratic and unpredictable but this had come as a surprise. ‘Why don’t you accompany us?’ she asked Larissa, her eyes round with excitement. ‘Elisa and Waleed are coming too! It’s going to be so much fun!’ She doesn’t even know how but Larissa just instinctively blurted out ‘yes’ without thinking and Yasmine was elated. ‘See you tonight at Park Street at six. Don’t be late!’ she exclaimed before turning and making her way to the classroom.

Larissa was unsure about this and was trying to reason her decision as she walked towards Park Street. Her watch suddenly indicated that it was six and she rushed her footsteps. When she reached, the other three were already there. Elisa and Waleed weren’t very good friends of hers. Elisa was the nerd of their class who always topped the exams, but on the contrary, was too scared by the mention of anything superficial and Larissa was still wondering how Yasmine had convinced her to come on this trip. Waleed, on the other hand, was very mysterious and usually kept to himself. His personality always made her curious, though. ‘Right!’ Yasmine let out. ‘I don’t want you guys to be scared. This adventure will be amazing, believe me. Today, we will uncover the scariest secrets no one has ever dared to know about.’ At this point, Larissa could see Elisa shaking with fear. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,’ she whispered and the scared girl smiled at her, but Larissa could see in her eyes that she wanted to go back. ‘So are you all ready to start this journey?’ Yasmine said, and they could see that she was absolutely thrilled. ‘Let’s go!’

The forest of the hawks was at a walking distance from Park Street and after a few minutes, the group found itself at the mouth of the woods. Larissa asked Yasmine, ‘Are you really sure about this? I’m not scared but we don’t know what might be in that forest.’ ‘That’s the best part!’ she cried. Larissa sighed and followed the others into the deep woods. The forest was silent and dark and as they continued walking for about an hour, Larissa got a strange feeling that something wrong was going to happen. ‘I’m just a bit scared,’ she told herself, dismissing the thought. But she wasn’t just scared…

During the long walk, Waleed hadn’t uttered a single word and sometimes, it felt as if he wasn’t even there, but when Elisa shrieked and told them what they hadn’t realized, Larissa’s queer thought changed into a reality.

They were silently walking through the dark forest, and Larissa was secretly hoping that they don’t find anything there. Every few minutes, she looked around at everyone just so that she was sure that nothing wrong had happened yet. Yasmine was smiling wickedly as she walked, her camera in one hand, ready to record anything queer. Elisa was scared to her fingertips but Larissa just couldn’t tell what Waleed was feeling. He was walking at a steady pace with his face calm and expressionless. But after sometime, Elisa suddenly yelled, ‘Yasmine, Larissa! Oh no!’ and she started crying. Yasmine and Larissa turned around and rushed to her at once. They looked around for Waleed but couldn’t see him anywhere. A wave of panic ran through Larissa’s body. Elisa then cried, ‘Waleed, he is not here. He disappeared, he disappeared. I told you not to come here, Yasmine. I knew that something wrong would happen. I knew it.’ Elisa was sobbing so much that she couldn’t catch her breath at one point. The two girls were trying to console her but what worried them more than anything was the sudden disappearance of Waleed. Larissa didn’t know what to think. She looked at Yasmine and shook her head. Yasmine nodded, disappointed. Larissa was trying to tell her that they couldn’t go any further now, but she could see that the girl was twice as worried as her.

They had spent hours looking for Waleed, yelling out his name and looking for any trace of him but were unsuccessful. As they walked through the dark and silent forest all that could be heard was the faint howling of wolves. Larissa’s hands trembled, her courage shook and her forehead was covered with sweat. She wondered, ‘can this get any worse?’ But her fears came true and they got the biggest shock of their lives.

Larissa suddenly heard something moving in the bushes nearby and held Yasmine’s hand. She picked up a wooden stick but her hands were trembling so much that she felt that she was going to drop it at any moment. In the blink of an eye, a pack of wolves leapt out from the bushes and appeared in front of the three girls, their tongues salivating. All three of them were scared to death. The wolf started circling them, its shining eyes staring at them with satisfaction. Larissa suddenly had an idea. She nudged Yasmine and Elisa and they nodded. As the wolf came right in front of them, they started retracing their steps as quickly as they could, but alas! Yasmine tripped and fell on her feet just as they were gathering speed. ‘Aargh!’ she cried. The wolves at once started at them but Elisa grabbed Yasmine’s hand and they ran for their lives, yelling and shrieking.

But as they ran, Elisa was left far behind because of her slow pace and one of the wolves got her. ‘Larissa, Jasmine!!!’ the girl yelled as the animal raised his claw. It was just about to attack the girl when Larissa stabbed a knife she had picked up from the ground in its back from behind (She had quickly run when the wolf had caught up with Elisa.) As the wolf howled in pain, its voice echoing in the silent woods, the two girls ran way from there towards Yasmine and rushed to leave the forest as quickly as possible. They didn’t stop or turn back once. After a few minutes of running, the three of them were back at the mouth of the forest. None of them said a word. They just quietly returned to their houses. It was nine o’ clock now and all Larissa could think about was where Waleed would be right now. Yasmine certainly had made a mistake by coming here, and they all had too by agreeing to go along.

The next morning, Larissa went to school but was avoiding both Elisa and Yasmine and she didn’t meet either of them. But she did meet someone she was least expecting. ‘Waleed!’ she cried when she saw him in the corridor and ran across to him. ‘Waleed, are you alright? How did you disappear yesterday? Oh my god, they were so worried!’ He was very embarrassed as he looked at her and said, ‘Uh… I didn’t actually disappear. I came back home. I was too scared to go any further down the woods. I’m sorry for doing that, I didn’t know you guys would be so worried.’ Larissa had never expected Waleed to be afraid of something like that, or maybe he hadn’t let anyone know him that well. But she didn’t care about

Well, that was it and you just finished the adventures of Larissa and her friends in the forest of the hawks!