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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ritaculous on 2024-10-18 06:18:52+00:00.

The mosquitoes that weren’t dead yet were coming out in full force tonight. I slapped at my arms as we sat, crouched next to my Grandmother’s porch and wondered, again, why we were outside instead of watching cartoons.

My dad had been involved in an accident the year prior - a multi-lane pile-up on the Kennedy interstate right outside Chicago. Between taking car of my dad and having to go back to work, my mom hadn’t had time to raise me, so she’d shipped me off to her mother in the lower, farm-centric side of the state. They’d both told me that it was just for the summer, but school had been going on for weeks now, and there was no word of me returning yet.

My grandmother was okay, really, and I didn’t want to complain, so I’d started making more of a concentrated effort to get along with the other kids. Mom had always called me her little trooper, and if making friends so I could tell her how well I was doing on our weekly phone calls helped, then I would troop away. 

Which was why I was sitting outside, acting like a buffet to the bugs.

Damion, Jackson, and Meghan were all in eighth grade with me, and had been the most welcoming when my grandmother had dropped me off at the summer flag football program. The school was small enough that we were all in the same classroom, too, and we’d been, if not as thick as thieves, then as thick as petty crooks, at least. 

Presently, the three of them were discussing the “Omavolk” road, some kind of dare that had been cooked up in the highschool and was trickling down the grades.

“I could do it, no problem.” Damion said, puffing out his chest and discreetly glancing at Meghan. 

She didn’t notice. “You have to do it on a full moon?” 

Jackson, the one whose older brother had given him the scoop, swelled with importance. “Yeah, so we have to do it tonight, because it’s definitely going to be too cold by the next time.”

“And we’ll be like the only eighth graders who haven’t done it yet. Talk about lame.” Damion swatted at him own arms in solidarity with me.

“So it’s settled. We’ll go tonight.” Jackson beamed, and I scratched at a spot I’d left unguarded. 

“What’s this all about?” I asked, for the first time that I was being signed up to tag along.

Meghan took pity on me. “It’s an old town legend. How if you follow the Omavolk road, at the end, you get your wish granted. Step off the path though, and your wish will be twisted into something evil.”

“Okay… and where exactly is this road?” I took the bait, pulling my arms into my shirt. At this point, I didn’t care if it stretched it out.

They all looked at each other and shrugged in unison. Moments like these revealed that they had all grown up together, and I had not. “Guess we’ll all meet up after dark and see what we find,” Jackson said at last, and the others agreed.

I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being out late on a school night, but keeping friendships going required sacrifice. And if that sacrifice was a pint of blood and a few hours of sleep, I could put up with that.

I had literally never done anything underhanded to my grandmother before, so sneaking out was easier than it should have been. I didn’t even bother putting pillows under my blankets, just grabbed a jacket, my flashlight, and slipped out the window.

The three of them were waiting for me down the road, flashlights casting an eerie glow on their faces. Jackson was the first to see me, and he waved me over, light bobbing erratically. “Rowan!”

“I asked my brother, and he said you have to turn off your lights, close your eyes, and wish really hard, and the path will appear,” he caught me up to speed as I joined them. 

I didn’t like the idea of standing in the middle of a road with all our lights off, either, but it would be quick, and the roads out here were nothing like the roads back home. I clicked off my light, and squeezed my eyes closed, involuntarily thinking of my dad, and of the pictures from the wreck on my mom’s phone. She hadn’t meant for me to see them, and I’d regretted snooping for than once. The image of the twisted car skeletons had burned itself into my braid, and I had trouble thinking of anything else in car rides now.

No on spoke. “Uh, Jackson, how long are we supposed to stand here?” I asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, I opened my eyes, annoyed.

In front of me was a path.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and clicked my flashlight. It didn’t turn on, and the path stayed there. I looked around quickly: no sign of the other three. Behind me there was a tall, dark forest, and the path in front of me wound through a gentle meadow, painted blue in the moon’s soft glow.

I zipped my jacket up as goosebumps erupted down my arms. 

“This isn’t funny,” I said, even as I knew it wasn’t a joke. I was on the Omavolk road, and I didn’t see any other option but to walk it.

I clenched my now useless flashlight to me. It was plastic, but heavy enough that I could maybe smack something hard enough with it to defend myself. Maybe.

I glanced back at the forest one last time, and started walking down the path. Whatever lay ahead, at least I could see in the meadow. The forest was too dim.

I was maybe twenty feet down the path when I heard it: a rustling behind me.

I spun around quickly, squinting, but whatever was there, it stayed in the edge of the tree line, where I couldn’t see.

I swallowed. I really, really didn’t want to turn around. I tried shuffling back a few steps, keeping my eyes on the woods, but stumbled and almost tripped when my heels  hit a divot. I spun my arms to keep upright - who knew if falling off of the trail would count. What had Meghan said about getting off? Something evil would happen?

Maybe that was the trick. Maybe whatever was in the woods couldn’t get to me so long as I stayed on the trail.

I slowly, carefully, keeping my gaze fixed on the woods, turned myself around, even as I had to crane my neck. So far, nothing. I inched along the trail, taking minute glances down and then right back up.

There, something to the right - or maybe not. I squinted, but couldn’t make anything out.

Picking up the pace, I heard the rustling again. There was definitely something there, right where I couldn’t see it.

Maybe it was one of my friends, I thought, but even I knew that was just me trying to comfort myself. My best option was to finish this Omavolk road quickly, and go home. 

Whatever was in the woods seemed stuck there, and while I kept glancing back fairly often, I was mostly concentrating on following the path. At part, the lines between it and the grass became blurry, and hard to tell apart. I was so focussed on looking back and looking down that I didn’t notice at first when the trail started looping back. It was only when I looked up that I realized that it doubled back.

Straight into the forest.

I hung back, dread twisting in my gut. No way. I couldn’t.

I looked around desperately, but no other path revealed itself. The only way was forward.

Whatever had been there had grown silent, but I knew that it was in there, waiting for me. I swallowed again, hoisted my flashlight like a club, and inched forward.

The trail itself was just wide enough that the moonlight reached it between the trees, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being swallowed as I edged my way past the treeline. 

In the woods, the darkness was so dense I couldn’t make out what was on either side of the path. Only inky blue darkness, and the promise of something dangerous lurking just out of my sight. 

There was a crack behind me, and I didn’t even want to look. Whatever it was, it was too close for me to fight. I’d rather not have to face whatever it was.

After a moment passed and I was still alive, I relented and looked back, only to see that the path behind me was gone. The forest had closed over it, making sure that I knew there was no retreat, only forward. 

Stupid forest, I thought, and then immediately regretted it. What if it could read my mind, and took offense to it? Nice forest, I tried to think, very hard, but I didn’t think it made much difference. The woods continued to follow my footsteps, doggedly swallowing my retreat. 

A glint caught my eye, and I almost sobbed with relief when The trees pulled back a little to reveal a clearing, with a merry bonfire crackling in the middle. 

I hustled over, glancing over my shoulder to watch the forest swallow the last of the path behind me.

Near the fire, it was warm, and the first non-blue thing I’d seen since starting the road. I huddled over it, before turning my back to it to scan the trees. They had grown quiet, but I didn’t trust them. 

Maybe I allowed the fire at my back to give me a false sense of comfort, because when I heard the thump behind me, I jumped and spun, heart hammering like woodpecker at my ribcage. I found myself almost face to face with a girl my age, eyes wide with shock. 

I noticed, belatedly, that she was carrying a dead branch and realized she must have built the fire.

“It’s okay!” I held my hands up, quick. “I won’t do anything!”

She eyed me cautiously, and then tossed her branch into the fire. It sent sparks crackling up between us, and I flinched back as the flames caught her eyes, making them glitter. “Why are you here?”

“I- I saw the fire, and I was scared, so-” I stammered, before thinking that she probably meant the Omavolk road. “Oh! Some friends and I though- Well, we didn’t think it was real, and-”

“It is a nice fire.” She cut me off. “St…

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