yandere-overwatch:

You make perfect sense, don’t worry about it! Hope you like it 🙂 

---

You turn the map upside down, then the right way up, then sideways, then the right way up again. Then, you scrunch it up and throw it down onto the wet ground with an angry yell. The light paper barely makes a sound, so you kick at a pile of leaves, yelling again in anger.

You’d agreed to come on this dumb orienteering trip with a group of eager hikers from your university as a way to make friends. You’d overheard a group of them in one of your classes talking about it as they blocked the doorway, and they’d mistaken your awkward dithering behind them as a sign that you were actually desperately hoping for an invite. In reality, you’d just really needed to pee, but had been too shy to ask them to move.

They’d been nice enough, and introduced you to the dozen other walkers who were joining in, giving you maps and lending you walking boots and a whistle and a torch, and giving you a crash course in how to navigate through the forest.

All for naught, obviously, because now you were hopelessly lost.

The aim of the game was to manoeuvre your way to a hill about 5 miles walk from where you had been dropped off. Some people had split off in pairs and groups, but you and a few other far more intrepid walkers had struck out alone, getting a head start on the bickering bunches of friends.

Bad idea, clearly.

With a deep sigh, you crouch down and pick up your map, brushing leaves and dirt off it and unfolding it again, trying to make sense out of the tiny drawings and squiggles and lines and patterns. After peering at it, pretending you know where you are and what it says, you look down at your compass.

It shows that north is somewhere to your left. You remember overhearing that the hill was north of where you’d been dropped off, so you angle yourself in that direction, and begin walking.

Thick fog curls around your ankles, obscuring your path and making you stumble multiple times. It threads in and out of the trees ahead of you, and closes off the path you’d come from behind you. All in all, if it weren’t for the chatter of birds and rustle of animals and the chatter of a nearby stream, the whole forest would seem very scary.

You walk for about 20 minutes, and then check on your compass again. You hadn’t deviated from your path, but it was worth checking.

“What the hell?” you think aloud as you frown down at your compass. Instead of north being directly in front of you, it’s now to your right. Somewhere, you’d obviously taken a turning. You think back, but don’t recall making such a sharp turn. Maybe you’d been slowly curving that way.

You strike out in what the compass now declares as north, and continue your lonely trudge.

You don’t so much mind the solitude. From an early age, you’d always been a solitary child, more content to make your own fun than to find it with other children. The sounds of nature are more than enough for you.

After another 15 minutes, you check your compass again, and that’s when the first stirrings of dread thread through your stomach.

You hadn’t changed direction. Of that you were sure. But now, the compass declares that north directly behind you, and that you’ve been walking south this whole time. You look around you, trying to make sense of your surroundings, but nothing is familiar. With a soft groan of annoyance, you turn around and begin your lonely trudge back in the direction you had come, making regular checks on your compass.

You walk deeper into the forest, and the trees begin to lean in, blocking out the light. Every now and then, you’ll glance up from the compass and swear you see something moving silently through the trees.

The sounds of the forest slowly sink into silence, but you barely notice, you’re too focused on trying to get to the damn hill.

It isn’t until you see the notch slowly but definitely swing from pointing toward what you thought was north, to instead what you thought was east, that panic really begins to set in.

You turn around, trying to get your bearings again, and the arrow turns with you, so north is constantly changing. As you turn in a full circle, the arrow remains pointing outwards.

According to the compass, north is all around you.

You hold it up, hoping that maybe, somehow, it will right itself with a somewhat higher altitude.

You shake it a little, turning it this way and that, focusing on that little red dial and hoping it’ll pick a direction to point in.

As you tilt it to the right, you catch sight of your reflection in the glass, and you grimace at yourself.

But then, you freeze.

It’s not just your reflection in the glass.

A face hangs over your shoulder, demonic and twisted, with shining grey skin and blank red eyes that are fixed right on the eyes of your reflection.

With a scream, and spin around, hitting out and expecting your fist to connect with something.

The forest is silent, save for your laboured breathing. You clutch the compass close to your chest, looking around frantically, trying to peer into the fog filled shadows between the trees.

A tiny movement flits past your eye, and pain races through your cheek. With a yell, you flinch back and clamp your hand over your stinging cheekbone. When you take it away a moment later, your hand is slick with blood.

You spin around, half expecting someone to be standing there, but there’s no one. You’re alone.

Something with a shining edge catches your eye, something not a part of the forest, that sticks out of the tree about level with your eyes. You step forward, walking slowly toward the tree with your hand still clamped over your bleeding cheek, tilting your head a little to get a better look at whatever it is.

It’s a throwing star, the kind you’d been in old samurai movies. You narrow your eyes at it, shaking your head in disbelief. The light catches the sharp black edge, and as you grip it and work it out of the bark, the red centre seems to glow a little brighter.

This has got to be some kid playing a trick on you.

“I believe that’s mine,”

The sound of a voice so close to your ear almost makes you jump out of your skin. With a scream, you spin around, throwing star in hand, ready to gouge out the eyes of whoever spoke.

A hand closes around your wrist, stopping you in your tracks.

You scream again, as loud as you can, making the birds high in the trees above you take flight in fear.

The face staring down at you matches that of the reflection you had seen on the glass of your compass, and as you inhale to scream again, the eyes of the mask glow brighter.

The tip of a blade presses against the soft skin of your throat, and the scream dies before it can even reach your lips. You gasp for breath, trembling all over, and look up into the soulless eyes of the mask glaring down at you.

“When I remove the blade,” says a synthetic sounding male voice from behind the mask, “you aren’t allowed to scream. Understood?”

You nod stiffly, and the blade slowly moves from your throat. You take the opportunity when you aren’t faced by imminent death to study the figure before you. He’s intimidating, towering over you, wearing what seems to be skin tight body armour on every exposed part of his flesh, with jagged red spikes on his forearms and shoulders. He’s at least a head taller than you, with thick fabric wrapped around his neck and over his head. Whatever he wants, it clearly isn’t benign.

He plucks the throwing star from your hand, and with a deft flick of his fingers, it seems to melt into the back of his hand.
“I’ll take that back,” he says, and then, to your utter shock, his hand easily pulls your own from your sliced cheek, and he lays his palm over your skin, “I wouldn’t want you to be anymore hurt than you already are,”

You gape up at him, and then shut your mouth, trying to summon up the last vestiges of your bravery.

“Wh-who are you?” you ask, trying to make your voice sound as stern and fearless as possible. The man’s shoulders shake slightly, and he laughs. You clench your jaw.
“What’s funny?” you demand, and try to shove his hand off your cheek, but his arm is like a boulder. No matter how much you tug and push it, it doesn’t move.

When he grows tired of your shoving at his arm, he strokes his thumb over the fresh cut, and you cry out in pain, trying to pull away.

“Get away from me!” you yell, and hit out at him, but his chest is like metal. Hitting it actually hurts you more than him, and you reel backwards, cradling your throbbing hand.

The man shakes his head as he steps toward you.
“You’d best not behave like that when we get back,” he says, his fingers going to the edges of the mask. You blink up at him, reaching sneakily for your phone, ready to snap a picture of this freak to show the police.

But you never get there.

As he pulls up the mask, you feel yourself getting increasingly drowsy, and by the time you see the red glow of his eyes, sleep overtakes you, and slump to the ground, a faint cry of protest the last thing to leave your lips as you slip in unconsciousness.