The One Who Watches | Teen Ink

The One Who Watches

February 12, 2024
By Anonymous

It is 2006, you and your brother, Greg, are working in the woods building a cabin for you and your brother to live in. The day is July 26, in the heat of the summer. Your main focus is to get this done so you have a place to live. Your brother is doing this to spend time with you and bond. He doesn't care if this gets done on time, which annoys you as he slacks off.

You tell him “You need to get working, this cabin will never get done if I am the only one working on it!” ( he says back to you)

“Ya ya, I know that Mom has offered us to stay with her if need be, so if it doesn't get done in time it's not that big of a deal.” 

You scoff and get back to work. As you are working there is an eerie sense. Everything goes quiet and you feel something unnatural watching, observing you and your brother. As you look up, the feeling disappears. You look at the giant sequoias around you. You feel small among these trees like an ant walking through grass. Around 7:30 the sun starts to set and you call your brother

“Hey Greg, it's time for dinner!” No answer. You call again, this time yelling

“Come on, don't mess with me!” Still no answer

You start looking around and you find nothing. When you go to the back of the cabin, you see his hammer and carpenter belt on the ground, almost as if he took off and ran. You investigate further and find small but noticeable blood splatters following a path in the dark end of the woods. You soon realize what happened, your brother was taken. You fall to the ground and begin to cry, you feel something splat on your head. It begins to rain as you start to sob.

The next day, your alarm goes off and you remember what happened last night, you start to tear up and begin to cry. You think that it should have been you and I should have been watching. You sit down on the couch in your mother's house and just sit, sit, and turn on the TV, when you turn it on, Death Note comes on. It reminds you of your brother. Your brother loved to watch Death Note. you begin to cry again. Weeks go by and you have done nothing with your cabin, it just sits, waiting to be built. Soon you've had enough. You pack clothes, food, and tools to help you find your brother.

You set out hoping to end your depressive cycle and make yourself more productive, not to save him but to better yourself. You start where he last was, behind the cabin beginning framing. His belt and hammer are still lying where you found them. You follow the trail of blood that was left and into the forest, during the day the dark part isn't as dark. Just before you enter the forest you get that feeling again. The feeling of being watched. This time you turn fast enough to see something, a tall black figure. But just as quickly as you saw it, it disappeared. A suspicion rises in your mind, could that thing have taken my brother? You continue into the forest, following the blood trail. You follow it to a large wall made out of vines and sticks, nearly ten feet tall. It has 1-inch-long thorns. The blood trail goes through the wall so whatever took your brother made its way through. You pull the chopping knife from your backpack and chop through the wall. 

When you make it through, you find many large bumps that are wrapped in vines. You cut through the vines. Before you see anything, the smell of rotten flesh hits your nose and you look away, nearly throwing up. You look again this time, covering your nose. You see a half-rotted human skull, some skin still covering the face. You assume that all the lumps are passed humans. As you venture deeper into the brush, you pass a bump that seems fresh, like the vines had just grown. This bump is lighter in color and isn't rotten or decayed like the others. No fluid or biomass is leaking from the inside like the others. You feel the air condense around you and you feel the need to pull open the vines. You open the vines to find your brother!

“Oh my god!” you exclaim. Your brother is unconscious, still breathing, thankfully. You pull him out of the vines

“Finally, I finally found you. Now I can finally resume work on the cabin” you state. Your brother's hand has been ripped off. You pull out a blanket and wrap it around the wound. Greg starts to open his eyes.

“Josh, is that you?” he asked

“Yes, it is, now we need to get back to the cabin to resume building

“Really, why do you always think about yourself, it's always about the cabin. The ONLY time you start a conversation with me, is when you need me to do something, or to talk about the CABIN!” he yells. You freeze and are stunned. You’ve never heard your brother speak to you like this before. You start to form a sentence and stop. The feeling from before is back. But this time. The thing watching you is standing by the bush wall. A tall creature, nearly 7 feet tall. The head had the skull of a deer. It was stained red. You Notice that it's staring right at you with its bright red eyes. You try to move but something is keeping you from moving. It starts to move closer. Your brother is now up and walking. He trunks to see that you aren't moving he then sees the creature walking towards you.

“That's the creature that took me, '' he exclaims. You hear him scream, you manage to turn your head to see your brother being restrained by vines. The monster, now on two legs, has summoned vines to keep him where he is. It is looking at your brother. You realize you can move. You pull your knife out and stab the creature.

“Reeeeeeeee '' the monster lets out a wail. It stumbles back and looks at you. You think you can’t move, but you can. You then realize this thing feeds off fear. It wraps its victims in vines and keeps them in a state of fear. He took your brother because of the fear that you would forget him and leave him behind. When his fear became so real, that's when this thing took him. The monster then charges you. You scramble to get ready. The monster tackles you. You look over towards your brother and you see him trying to get out. The monster is now on top of you. Vines start to wrap around your arms

“What are you!” you exclaim. “ I am the watcher, I stalk through the night finding fearful victims.” as more vines wrap around you. They start to crawl up your leg as you feel the needles piercing into your skin. They wrap tighter. Suddenly, your brother jumps up and behind the Watcher and drives a stick through the back of its neck. Its mouth opens as if it is going to speak. Blood pours down onto your chest as the limp body falls over. The vines on your arms slipped back into the ground.

“Thank you, Greg. I'm sorry for how I treated you. You deserve much better than me and Mom was right about me. I'm too self-centered.” you say. “ Yeah you're right, you are self-centered and rude, but you coming to get me, means that you care somewhat about me, and that's all I ever wanted. You can change,” says Greg. Your brother helps you up and you both support each other on your way back, you pass the things you encounter, informing your brother of what they are. You make it back to the work site. You sit your brother down to take a look at the wounds.

“Do you remember what the creature did to you?”

“Yeah it was a blur though, it came right up to me staring and placing both arms on me and before I knew it I was here. It then put me down. After a while of just laying there, the creature slowly came back, bit down on my hand, and tore it off, devouring it in front of me. Then after finishing, it wrapped me in vines, and I blacked out” You start to examine the cloth you put on the wound. It was already covered in the red color of blood. You slowly remove the cloth and replace it with a fresh, new cloth.  After wrapping it tightly, you and your brother start to go back to the work site, so both of you can rest.

You lay your brother down on one of the cots you keep at the cabin. You ask “Are you gonna be okay?” your brother responds with “I’m not sure.” he says this in a distressed voice. You get down and carefully remove the cloth. The wound has stopped bleeding. You inspect the wound. It is mangled and beaten. The arm bone is showing. You take him back to your home and show your mother. Your brother is silent throughout the conversation. Your brother is brought to the hospital by your mother, you stay home. You think to yourself “I can’t believe that I was so selfish, how could I neglect my brother in such ways. I made him feel small and useless.” you decide to make your brother's favorite dinner, grilled chicken topped with the finest marinara sauce, parmesan cheese, sided with sweet butter corn and a baked potato topped with pepper, sour cream, and cheddar cheese.


The author's comments:

This piece was inspired by personal events of my life. it was then mixed with the mystery horror aspect to give it a new feel 


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