The door opened with a creak and dust flew out. It was quite obvious that it had been quite awhile since the inside of the room had seen any signs of life form. Alex's mouth dropped as he picked up the stick which was still on fire, and stepped on the small flames that had now spread not very far on the damp moss. His steps were hesitant, a cold fear shook his body; but he fought through it as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

There in front of his stood the most beautiful woman. She was tall, and slender. A mess of curls fell along the sides of her angelic looking face and freely down to the small of her back. Her skin was ivory white, and looked as smooth as silk; yet as cold as stone. Fighting against the alcohol, he tried to make sense of the beautiful yet colorless figure in front of him, but his mind couldn't wrap around it. All he could think of was  her ivory features, this greyscale beauty. 

"Alex, can you pick your jaw off the floor and lets get out of here?" Carl asked, taking in the practically empty room. The only thing that he could make out, in the dark anyway, was the statue of a woman holding her hands over her chest. Alex took a minute to continuously stare until Nate tugged at his arm to pull him out of there and break the gaze. "Where are we going?" he asked, dazed.

"Back to camp, the girls can't be left alone for that long."

"We're in the middle of an empty forest." Alex reminded Nate, looking at him as if he grew a third eye.

"That's exactly it," Carl began. "Haven't you seen any horror movies? I'm not trying to die tonight." He replied as he began to walk back to site, the alcohol obviously fading from his system. Alex went to turn back to the statue, but Nate pulled him back again.

"Seriously, lets go." 

_________________________________

The next morning, all was well. The girls were up before the guys, and had started a fire on their own to warm up from the crisp morning air, dew still hanging in the atmosphere. Leah was on the ground with her knees to her chest and back against a log, while sketching away in her notebook. Pencil lines dark and light filled the page in the most graceful manner. The page looked like another world, anyone could easily get lost in her drawings. They were so realistic. Captivating. It was hard for Kendra to look away when she finally looked over the notebook to see what Leah was doing.

"That is beautiful." She commented, simply. Leah did not look up at her though, instead she just continued to go at it with her number 2 HB pencil. Kendra sighed and looked at the picture for a few seconds longer, then up at the overcast sky. "I wonder if it will be nice enough to swim today."

"I really don't know. I would say lets turn on the radio, but that would involve walking the guys up for the car keys." Just as she answered that, the sound of tents unzipping could be heard.

zipppppppppp

"My head." slurred/whined a very now hungover Alex as he stumbled over his feet and almost fell into the fire pit. "What's for breakfast?"

Leah looked up from her notebook and at him with a raised brow. "Want to rephrase that?"

"Not really." Alex replied, looking back at her with a dead serious expression, trying to block out the pounding headache. Leah just rolled her eyes and went back to drawing. He scraped his brain to think of a good comeback for her. It took awhile for him, due to the fact he couldn't concentrate very well, but his hangover had little to no effect on his douchebag self. "What was the point of you coming on this trip, if you're not going to cook?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leah asked, not bothering to look at him.

"Well, I mean, you are going to Harvard for catering. Are you not? And besides, the only one here that really wants you here is Carl. No one else really cares." At that point, Leah was ready to get up and tackle Alex. But she told herself it wasn't worth it. What good would beating his head in be, if he was already in pain? No, she pulled herself together, and promised herself that later on she would give him a good kick in the balls.

"You're such a douche." She murmured, while trying to take deep breaths to stay calm.

"Thank you," He smiled. "But seriously, wheres the food?"

Leah had no response to this. There was no response she could give him, the didn't involve her geting violent anyway. So she closed her notebook and got up from the ground, walking away from the campsite without a word. The other girls didn't say anything, and maybe thats what pissed her off more then Alex's normal self. If they were supposed to be her friends, why couldn't they stick up for her? Oh yeah, because Alex is 'mr. dreamy'.  That was complete bullshit, and she hoped one day it would dawn on them that all Alex is, is a piece of shit douchebag living off his family's fortunes.

Many thoughts filled her infuriated mind as she walked deeper and deeper into the forest. Then, something distracted her.

"Leah."

A voice whispered her name like the wind. She searched around her, not seeing anyone. All that surrounded her were tall trees, moss, and broken logs and branches on the ground. She shook it off and told herself she was just hearing things. That had to be it. And she continued even farther, the trees got thicker and the derby on the ground got greater. It got harder to walk through seeing as there was no path, but she didnt mind. She didn't have a destination in mind, she just wanted to get as far from the camp as possible. As far away from those bitches as she could, so she could clear her mind.

"L e a h"

She heard the whisper once more. This couldn't just be her hearing things could it? No, it had to have come from somewhere, someone. Her eyes searched around her frantically, not seeing anything. 

"Leah, don't fear."

Okay, this was beyond weird now. But she looked to the direction the whisper had come from, and her eyes landed on something odd. It looked almost like a house in the far off distance. What was it? Curiosity filled her as she rushed over to it, completely forgetting about the wind whispering her name, calling to her. When she reached the house-like object, she examined it, the outside walls were some of the most beautiful she had ever seen. Celtic knots ran along the grey cement walls, beautiful swirls. She ran her finger along them, following from one wall to the next until she reached a wooden door.

Should I go in?  She asked herself. Her curiosity answered for her. Yes.

So she did. The Celtic knots followed their way inside, covering the inside of the walls as well. Leah was so focused on this that she almost didn't notice the statue in the middle of the otherwise empty room. Her eyes looked up at the statue, it was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Not that Leah was into women, but she was comfortable enough to acknowledge that whoever this statue was modeled after must have been drop dead gorgeous.

Her eyes took in all of the beauty before her. The statue had strong features but a sad, soft expression on her face, almost as if she were crying. Leah could have swore she saw the statue's eyes watering. But that had to be impossible right? It was just a statue, cold concrete. There was no way that it could have actually been tearing up, right? But before Leah could tell herself that, she felt something drip down on her hand. A warm liquid. She looked down at her hand, and saw red where the drop had fell.

Red?

She looked back up at the face of the statue and saw that it was crying. Tears of blood.

Keep Out.

- you should have known, to leave it alone.

_______________________________________________

Moments after settling in on site, checking out the place, and finding a spot to set up camp; tents were finally up and the girls took it upon themselves to hit the sheets first. They were out before their little heads could hit the pillow on their air mattresses; dreaming about various things but all along the lines of hot guys and money. As this was happening, the guys built a fire and sat around passing around beers.

"Were you catching the way Leah was looking at you?" A tipsy Nate questioned Carl, as he held a stick with a marshmallow over the fire, not even realizing that it was slowly burning to a crisp. In his other hand, the tipped can of BudLite was dripping out all over the already damp ground.

"Dude, does it even matter how she was looking at me? She wants Alex, they all do." Carl stated plainly, looking into his beer can. Now, Carl was never the self conscious type, so the comment came out more rude then anything else. Nate just shook his head, and glanced over at a overly drunken Alex on the other side of the fire as he gulped down another beer. As much as Nate liked Alex as a friend, he knew the dude was a douchebag at times and didn't deserve half the girls he had falling at his feet. But with looks like his, and parents that had enough money to own the world, who wouldn't fall for a guy like that? Nate had to admit to himself, that if he was a female, he probably would go for him too. But that was neither here or there, point was; Alex was a douche, a drunken douche at that.

"You know that if they go for that, then you deserve better. They're all superficial and going after the money right?" Nate asked and Carl just shrugged. "WHatever dude."

There was a momentary silence, one so thick that even a knife couldn't cut through it. Leave it to Alex though to cut the ice.

"You know what I think we should do?" Alex's words slurred through his teeth.

"What's that?"

"Lets explore the place!" Excitement flowed through his words as he jumped up, a little too quick causing himself to spill his beer all over the front of his shirt. The other two looked at each other and then back at Alex, they knew it was probably a bad idea to go walking around the woods at night, but the alcohol clouded up their conscious minds.

"Hell yeah! Let's go!" He shouted, but quietly, as not to wake the girls. Then he jumped up too and looked at Nate who just smirked and got up.

Walking through the forest was hard, bad enough in the day time due to there barely being any paths. But at two o'clock in the morning? Yeah, it was definitely a pain in the ass to try to get through all the broken down branches and trees, all to get to nowhere. The air smelt of fresh rain, moss, and old decaying wood. Definitely not an appetizing scent. But this didn't stop the trio as they paraded through the trees with a dimmed flash light. Well, Nate had the flash light. Alex on the other hand, was walking around trying to be 'retro' as he put it, with a enflamed stick pretending it was a lantern.

"Alex," Carl came to a stop.

"Yeah?" Alex asked, half slurred.

"What is that?" Carl pointed to what seemed like thin air, Alex shrugged.

"I don't see anything."

"Right there. Come here." Alex walked over to Carl, who was a few feet ahead of him, and then looked out into the distance. Far off into the trees there was a wall. A wall. What could it be? Alex being, well Alex, had to find out for himself.

"I don't know dude, but lets go check it out." He answered and again, the two followed, letting the alcohol cloud up what normally would be their common sense. A strong wind wisp pass them as they got closer and closer to the wall. This did not phase Alex, as he continued to lead them. Nate's stomach begin to punch him from the inside though. He shook his head, there was something bad about this place.

"I don't think we should be here. Can we go back to camp?"

"You don't think we should be here? Why not?"

"I just don't feel good about this." Nate answered.

"Pussy." Was all Alex could say as he walked all the way up to the wall. Carl looked at Nate, but followed leaving Nate with a broken ego. He knew if he didn't go that they wouldn't let him live this down, but his common sense was beginning to over power the beer in his system. And his common sense was telling him to turn back and run. Ultimately though, his ego won, as he joined the other two in front of the giant concrete wall.

It wasn't just a random wall, but a wall connected to three others and a roof, making it a room of some kind. On the outside there was Celtic knots engraved that ran all along, Alex ran his fingers over one of them and followed it as it brought him to another wall, and then another until it stopped at a door way. His eyes lit up with adventure, and he dropped the fire lit stick. "We should go in!"

"Go in?" Carl asked confused, as he walked over to the other side where Alex was, to see what he was talking about. His eyes lit up with the same sense of adventure was Alex's as he pretty much soaked up the tall nine foot wooden door. There was a golden handle, and it shone as the flames on the ground from the stick reflected upon it. All Alex could do was nod.

if only they knew to leave it alone.

if only they had enough sense to stay home.

Deep within the Boreal forest; trees swayed with a cancer filled wind, crows croaked a death filled song, and the night was filled with an eerie silence and fog. People almost knew to stay away, almost like the trees put up their very own 'private property' signs. Protecting the secrets that laid inside. The secrets that were trapped inside these towering trees and fallen dead leaves. No one dared to walk these derby covered paths for years, and the condition of deserted forest said that. No life at all crossed these paths. Not a giant bear, not a tiny chipmunk. Nothing. 

But it wasn't deserted for just any reason. And it wouldn't be deserted for too long.

----

"Alex! Come on, lets camp somewhere else. Please." Kendra Jones whined, she didn't have a good feeling about the place. Something just didn't seem right. The water front was beautiful and looked like it went on for days, yet there was not a cottage or other campers in sight. That meant there had to be something wrong with the area, right? Where was everybody?

She just wasn't sure if this was the prefect camping spot, but if Alex Clayton insisted, that had to mean something. Alex was close to never wrong. She knew that he would not lead them all wrong for the last trip they may all have together. Six almost-adults, all by themselves in the woods? It was just asking for trouble, they knew that, but it was the only time they had to waste before college started and they all go their separate ways.

Alex shook his head, and looked at Kendra as he just silently prayed for the rest of the guys to hurry. He wasn't sure why he agreed to drive Kendra and not Adriana, but he was starting to regret it. She was such a whiner, and it was driving him insane. He knew before anything else, if not before, then definitely now; that he would not be lasting this whole three weeks in the woods with her. It wasn't happening. Before the trip is over, he knew he would be throwing her into the lake. Hopefully, with cement shoes attached to her feet.

"Aleeeeeeeex!" A manly voice emerged from a few feet behind him, and Alex recongized the voice as the one and only Nate Law. His hero, if he was there, that meant that Adriana Jones (also known as the pretty sister), Carl T (no one knows what the T stands for, but no one has enough balls to ask), and Leah Woods were finally there. Which also meant, Alex was not alone with Kendra anymore. A smile etched his face as that very thought brightened up his day. He had spent a long and agonizing three hours on the way to the camp site alone with her, and that was hell. He didn't think he could handle any longer.

"Nateeee!" Alex called out, in the same excited tone Nate used.

"Dude, how did you find out about this place?" Nate asked as he looked around. The trees towered higher then Carl, which is very tall by the way. The lake water looked crisp and clean, and even though the camp ground was covered in dead leaves, the surrounding area was inhumanly beautiful. It was like looking at one of those post card pictures. Hard to look at because it was so prefect, but even harder to look away, because, well, it was that damn prefect. "I mean, there must be at least no one around."

"My great grandfather used to own this forest. Now no one owns it, but I used to come camping up here with my father and grandpa." Alex explained, falling into flashback mode. He closed his eyes for a second, imagining the prefect scented air and prefect feeling days. Everything just seemed amazing back then, thats why this was the definite spot for a last trip.

"Aw, how cute." Leah smiled and looked around. "Can we pitch up tents now though? I'm tired. Never pull an all nighter. Not fun." She giggled which caused everyone else to laugh.

"Okay lets go guys."

If only they knew what was in store for them. They would have stayed home.