Creative Writing: An Inspector Calls

Crunching of leaves rang out and filled the everlasting silence, where bird calls and the drone of insects were not. “Hello?” I exclaimed, exasperated, hoping someone would hear me. A heavy fog lingered between the trees as it hugged itself to their bark, making it difficult to see past a few feet. Additionally, shadows swarmed me like flies flocking to a decomposing corpse. I made a yelp of surprise as I stumbled over an uplifted root and fell to the ground. The gravel that seconds ago was stabbing my feet was now cutting into my hands and knees. Meanwhile the shadows swirled and weaved through the trees in a taunting manner. As I rose from the forest floor, I had a hissed when I attempted to brush the dirt off of the wound. A child-like

His head was tilted slightly to the left, examining me. Hastily, I picked myself up and took a step back. “Where are we?” I asked, staring. I must’ve looked like a mess. Covered in grime and filth, my clothes still soggy, my hair sticking up in all different directions. Regardless of this, he shrugged and leaned against the tree behind him. His eyes never left mine, an expression of awe and wonder painted on his face. “You’re the first I’ve been able to see,” the boy said, more to himself than to me. “And alive at that.” If jumping to conclusions was a sport then I’d be the champion. And right then, I was leaping to all sorts of obscure reasons for his statement. I was still contemplating that when a thunderous roar pierced the otherwise silent day. Face paling, his posture changed and he looked ready to run. He glanced from where the sound came from and back to me. Petrified of what kind of beast could have bellowed such a noise, I desperately hoped he wouldn’t leave me. He noticed my discomfort and took a second to think. “Hey,” he turned to me finally, a facade of calmness covering his once obvious terror. “I’m going to take you with me, but you have to promise me one thing,

Soon though, I felt like I was going in circles. Every tree looked the same. Same roots tripped on. Stumbled over the same mistakes. Something unusually beautiful happened. Although I didn’t know that it had happened. At least not immediately. No, because I had been so tired of repeating those same mistakes that I kept my gaze to the forest floor. Yet I still made missteps. Noticing a strange glow in my peripheral vision, I took my attention off of the ground and up to the trees. Even during the day one could tell that they seeped and unnatural amount of sap, but this was different. The sap seemed to give off a mysterious glow. It was the same amber color and gushed out of the bark at a more accelerated pace than when the sun was up. Hesitantly, I stood still in front of the liquid. At first I considered that my sleep deprived mind might be tricking me, but it indeed gave off a faint light. I reached out and connected my fingertip with it and pulled away to examine it. A burning sensation like that of acid on my skin made me jolt and wipe it off on my pants. A rush of wind broke my concentration. It felt like a body moving behind me and regardless of my desire to turn around, I