I didn't sleep that night. Not really. Not even when my body screamed for rest. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that face—or rather, that smile. It wasn't just a mouth. It was a message. Something ancient, grinning wide with the knowledge that we were exactly where it wanted us to be.
When morning finally clawed its way through the black, the forest wasn't the same.
The trees had shifted. Literally.
What used to be a tight circle around our camp had grown inward. New trunks. Thicker. Closer. It felt like we have become small.
Lia was already up, pacing. Diana sat next to the smoldering fire, arms wrapped around her knees. Nora stood just beyond the clearing, sketchbook in hand, humming to herself like she was listening to something none of us could hear.
"We need to move. Now," Lia said without looking at anyone.
"We need a direction," I replied.
"Any direction. Away from this."
Diana stood slowly. "Lia... the trees. They weren't like that yesterday. They moved."
"Trees don't move."
"They did. Or something did."
Nora turned to us then. Her eyes weren't tired. They were sharp. Clear.
"We don't pick the path. It picks us."
Lia stomped over to her. "What the hell does that mean?"
"He's guiding us."
"Who is he?!"
"The one who smiles."
We followed a trail that led down a slope. Lia took the lead, machete in hand. I kept to the rear, watching for movement. Diana was quiet, eyes flicking side to side. She was shaking but kept walking. Nora stayed in the middle, whispering to herself, her fingers twitching like she was tracing lines in the air.
An hour in, we found something else.
A clearing. Circular. Too perfect. In the center, a single tree, twisted and charred. All around it, smiley faces carved into the bark of surrounding trunks. Hundreds of them. Each with a slit for a mouth that dripped something dark.
"Don't touch anything," I said.
Diana whispered, "This is a graveyard."
Lia approached the central tree. "It's burnt. Like lightning struck it."
"Or something older."
Nora walked up to the trunk, placed her palm against it. Closed her eyes.
Lia tried to pull her away, but Nora didn't budge.
"I can hear him."
"What's he saying?" I asked.
She turned and looked right at me.
"That one of you will break. And one of you will be taken."
The rest of the day blurred together in a long stretch of fear, sweat, and silence.
We heard things. Twigs breaking behind us. Laughter. Low and childlike. Once, a voice that sounded like Diana's mother calling her name.
She ran toward it before we caught her.
"That was her," Diana cried. "She was looking for me."
"Your mom's not out here," Lia snapped. "None of this is real."
"He is," Nora said. "He can be anything."
By dusk, we found a small cabin. Old. Rotting and hidden under vines.
No one wanted to enter, but it was shelter.
Inside: a table, a broken bedframe, and an old oil lantern.
And on the wall, scrawled in black charcoal:
HE SMILES WHEN U LIE.
That night, everything collapsed.
First, Diana screamed.
I shot up, flashlight in hand. She was in the corner, curled against the wall, pointing at Lia.
"She's bleeding. Look at her hands!"
Lia looked down. Her palms were sliced. Not deep, but raw. Carved. And each hand bore a smiley face.
"What the hell?" she muttered.
Nora stood in the shadows.
"You did it in your sleep."
"Bullshit!"
"He was using you."
Lia lunged at her. "You think this is funny?! You think we're toys in your sick little game?!"
"I think," Nora said softly, "you're breaking."
Lia stayed up the rest of the night, hands wrapped in cloth. She stared at the wall with the charcoal writing, mouthing the words again and again.
He smiles when you lie.
In the morning, Diana was gone.
We found her bag. Her shoes. Her sketchbook.
A new message was scrawled across the door in fresh charcoal:
SHE FOLLOWED THE SMILE.
Nora didn't cry.
Lia punched the wall until her knuckles split open.
And me? I finally realized the truth.
We weren't lost in the forest.
We were in it. And it was inside of us, too.
Watching and smiling as it waited.
We set out before sunrise. The cabin behind us already looked half-swallowed by vines, like it had been there for decades.
"She's not gone," Lia said. Her voice was sharp now, hollow. "She didn't just vanish. We find her. We bring her back."
Nora nodded, but with no urgency. "She's further now. He has her scent."
I didn't ask what she meant. I didn't want to know.
We called Diana's name repeatedly. My throat turned raw from shouting. No answer. Just birds, if they were birds, fluttering overhead.
Then we found the trail.
Small boot prints. Drag marks. Pieces of black string tied to branches—Diana's hair ties, ripped apart and knotted to mark a path. She wanted to be found.
We followed them down a rocky incline until the ground turned soft and muddy.
Then we saw the next message, scratched into a boulder with fingernails:
HE LAUGHS WHEN YOU LOOK BACK.
"Keep moving," Lia muttered.
An hour later, we came across her hoodie—caught on a branch, sleeves torn.
"She was fighting something," I said.
"Or someone," Lia replied. She looked at Nora.
Nora didn't blink.
"You think I took her?" she said calmly. "He chooses."
We found the next sign near dusk. A mirror. Propped against a tree. Cracked but intact. Where did it come from? Who carried it into the forest?
And on the glass, in Diana's handwriting:
HE SHOWED ME MY SMILE. IT WASN'T MINE.
Lia started sobbing for the first time. Quiet, angry sobs. She hit the mirror with a rock until it shattered.
"She's not dead."
"Maybe not," I said. "But she's not Diana anymore."
That night, we camped in silence. No fire. No food. Just the forest breathing around us.
And somewhere, just past the trees—laughter. Childlike. Familiar.
A voice like Diana's calling my name.
I didn't run. Not yet.
But I wanted to.
We continued walking.
We found her bag by the edge of the clearing. Her shoes neatly placed, like she took them off herself. Her sketchbook lay open on the dirt, pages fluttering in the breeze.
No sign of Diana.
Lia and I looked at each other, the weight of the silence settling in.
"She can't have gone far," Lia said, voice tight. "We need to find her."
Nora didn't say anything. She just crouched next to the bag, her fingers lightly tracing the sketches Diana had been working on.
"They were all faces," Nora whispered. "Smiling faces. Always smiling."
I flipped through the pages. Each drawing was of a face carved into bark, or a twisted smile on a shadow. Diana had been obsessed with the forest's darkness even before we got lost.
"We split up tomorrow." Lia said, pulling the map from her backpack. "Two go left, One go right. We cover more ground that way."
I hated the idea. Splitting up in the woods was a rookie mistake. But with Diana missing, we didn't have much choice.
I watched Lia and Nora prepare to head off. Lia's jaw was set, eyes burning with fierce determination. Nora was quiet as always, but I could tell her mind was racing.
"Ezra, you're with me, So be prepared." Lia said, grabbing a flashlight and her pocket knife.
The four of us had been together since the trip went sideways, but now, it felt like the forest was peeling us apart, one by one.
We headed into the thicket, leaves crunching underfoot. The sun barely pierced the dense canopy. The deeper we went, the more the forest seemed to close in—branches reaching like fingers, the air thick and wet.
"Diana's not making this easy," Lia muttered. "She wouldn't just wander off without telling us."
"I think she wanted to be found," I said quietly. "Maybe she knew something."
Lia shot me a sharp glance. "Don't start with that weird stuff."
"I'm serious," I said. "Look at her drawings. She was fixated on the smiles. Maybe... she felt something out here."
"Like what? A monster?" Lia scoffed.
"Maybe not a monster," I said, "but something. Something that's been here a long time."
Lia shook her head. "Enough with the creepy theories. We stick to the facts."
We followed a faint trail that Diana often mentioned during the trip—a path she called "the whispering way." It wasn't on any map, just a narrow line through thick bushes and mossy stones.
The trail felt unnatural. Almost like it was made by something dragging along the ground.
Every now and then, we found marks carved into the trees—smiley faces, scratched deep into the bark.
"I hate those things," Lia said, running her fingers over one. "Like the forest is laughing at us."
"I don't think it's laughing," I said, voice low. "I think it's watching."
As we walked further, the sky darkened. I glanced up. No clouds. No storm.
Just... shadows.
Suddenly, Lia stopped.
"Listen."
There it was—a faint sound, barely more than a whisper. A soft rustling, like a voice carried on the wind.
We both froze.
"Diana?" Lia called out.
No answer. Just the whispering wind and the slow drip of water somewhere nearby.
I scanned the forest around us, senses on high alert.
Then, out of nowhere, a sudden movement caught my eye.
Something darted between the trees.
"Wait!" I shouted, lunging forward.
We chased after the blur, breaking branches and tearing through undergrowth. The forest seemed to fight us, thick vines snaking around our legs, forcing us to stumble.
But the figure was fast, slipping deeper into the woods.
After what felt like forever, we emerged into a small clearing.
And there she was.
Diana.
Standing perfectly still, her back to us.
She wasn't looking lost. She was... waiting.
Her hair was tangled, clothes torn, but her eyes shone with an eerie calm.
"Diana!" Lia called again, taking a cautious step forward.
Diana slowly turned.
A smile spread across her face. Not the nervous smile we knew, but a wide, almost unnatural grin.
"Found me," she whispered.
Her voice wasn't quite right.
Something was wrong.
"Come back," I said gently.
Diana shook her head.
"They're here," she said. "They're watching. And they want to play."
"Who?" Lia demanded.
She took a step toward us, then suddenly dropped to the ground, crawling into the bushes.
"Diana!" I shouted, following her.
But the moment I pushed through the leaves, she was gone.
We searched for hours, calling her name until my throat was raw.
Lia started breaking down.
"She's gone," she whispered, collapsing onto a mossy rock. "We lost her."
I couldn't stop the dread growing in my chest.
I wanted to believe Diana had just wandered off, scared and confused. But deep down, I knew it was worse.
Something in the forest was playing with us.
And Diana was caught in the middle.
As night fell, we returned to the camp with empty hands and heavy hearts.
The fire barely kept the darkness at bay.
Nora sat apart from us, her sketchbook open.
"Maybe Diana wanted this," she said softly.
Lia shot her a look of disbelief.
"But what if she didn't want to be found? What if she wanted to disappear?" Nora added.
The idea chilled me.
We sat in silence, the forest outside growing darker and colder.
That night, sleep didn't come easily.
Every crack, every whisper felt like a threat.
And the smiling faces carved into the trees seemed to watch from the shadows.
The fire was little more than embers when I woke, the cold gnawing into my bones. I sat up slowly, heart thudding. The forest was quiet—too quiet.
I should have been relieved. But instead, the silence pressed in like a weight, thick and suffocating.
I scanned the clearing, looking for the others.
Lia was pacing near the edge of the camp, her flashlight beam slicing through the darkness. Nora was sitting cross-legged by the fire, sketchbook balanced on her knees, drawing those damned smiley faces again.
I rubbed my eyes and stood.
"We have to keep looking," I said.
Lia didn't answer. She was staring at something behind me.
I turned.
There, pressed against a tree, was a crude carving—freshly etched.
A smile. But not a normal one.
This smile had teeth.
Jagged and sharp.
I swallowed hard.
"Who did this?" Lia whispered.
"No idea," I said, voice barely audible.
Nora stood and walked over.
"It's a warning," she said softly.
"A warning for what?" Lia demanded.
Nora didn't answer. Instead, she crouched and traced the carving with her fingers.
"I think it's for us."
We spent the next day following faint trails, shouting Diana's name and until the forest seemed to absorb our voices and mock us with silence.
The smiles were everywhere.
Carved into trees, scratched into rocks, even painted crudely on leaves.
And always, that feeling.
Something watching.
Nora grew more withdrawn.
One afternoon, I caught her speaking softly to herself, eyes closed.
"She talks to him," Lia said bitterly. "That thing in the woods."
"Who?" I asked.
Nora opened her eyes, dark and distant.
"He who smiles."
That night, the forest came alive.
We heard footsteps circling our camp, twigs snapping, whispers riding the wind.
Diana's laughter echoed—childlike, haunting.
Lia grabbed her knife, eyes wild.
"Stop it!" she shouted into the night.
But the laughter only grew louder.
Suddenly, a shadow darted past the firelight.
I lunged after it.
It vanished.
And on the ground, where it had been, lay Diana's sketchbook.
Open to a page I hadn't seen before.
A single word scrawled in jagged letters:
RUN.
The forest had become a trap. Not the kind with barbed wire or cages, but one that gripped your mind tighter than any prison could. It shifted, breathed, and twisted in ways that made every step feel like a wrong one.
We weren't just lost anymore. We were hunted.
Diana's absence was a wound bleeding through every moment. We went back to the cabin to rest.
The sun was a dull glow behind thick clouds when Lia, Nora, and I left the broken cabin. The place felt wrong — like it was a wound in the earth, and every second we spent there was poisoning us.
Lia's hands trembled as she slung her backpack over her shoulder, the still raw cuts from the night before few days wrapped in bloodied cloth. She didn't speak much. She just stared ahead, eyes hard but haunted.
Nora was already murmuring something under her breath, fingers twitching as she clutched her sketchbook like a talisman.
I stayed at the rear, alert to every sound, every shadow.
"Where do we even start?" I asked.
Lia didn't answer at first.
"We follow the signs," she finally said.
The signs were everywhere, like a twisted breadcrumb trail. Bits of Diana's things tied to branches, torn fabric snagged on thorns, faint footprints in the mud.
But there were other signs too — carvings in trees, more smiley faces, but distorted now. Some grinning wide with too many teeth, others with empty, hollow eyes.
The forest whispered as we moved. It wasn't the wind. It was voices. Low, echoing murmurs that made my skin crawl.
Nora kept stopping to listen.
"He's close," she whispered. "He's watching."
That afternoon, we found a small creek.
Clear water, cool and fast.
We drank, washed dirt from our faces, but the moment I looked upstream, I saw it.
A figure standing just beyond the bend.
For a second, my heart nearly stopped.
It was Diana.
She wore her hoodie, but it was torn and dirty.
Her hair was tangled, face pale but unmistakable.
She didn't move.
Didn't look at us.
Just stood.
Then she vanished.
We sprinted toward where she'd been.
Branches clawed at my arms, thorns tore at my legs, but I didn't care.
"Diana!" Lia screamed.
But she was gone.
The forest swallowed her again.
We collapsed near the creek, breathless and shaking.
"She's here," Lia said. "Somewhere."
"We have to keep moving," Nora said, but her voice was distant.
I looked at Lia and Nora.
Both exhausted.
Both scared.
Both broken.
I realized then we weren't just fighting the forest.
We were fighting ourselves.
Night came fast and cruel.
We built a fire, but the flames flickered weakly, like they didn't want to burn.
The shadows danced just beyond the light.
I kept thinking I saw eyes watching from the darkness.
Lia kept clutching her bleeding hands, mumbling something I couldn't catch. Nora sat silent, tracing symbols in the dirt.
Then the laughter started.
Soft at first. Like a child's laughter.
Then closer.
Then everywhere.
"Stop!" Lia yelled, standing with shaking hands.
But it didn't stop.
It circled us, a sound without source.
I stood up, flashlight trembling in my hand.
"Who's there?" I shouted. No answer.
Just the laughter.
Suddenly, a branch snapped near the fire and we froze.
I swung the flashlight toward the noise.
Nothing.
Then a whisper, cold and sharp.
"Follow me."
It wasn't Diana's voice.
It was deeper. Older.
We debated what to do.
Follow the voice and risk falling deeper into the trap?
Or stay and wait for morning that might never come.