Tim bolted down the street, his breath heavy. He ran past dozens of people, just pushing them out of his way and continuing to run as they screamed and yelled at him. Bolting past his mother who just closed the front door, dog next to her, and straight towards the town edge.
"Where are you going?" His mother yelled after him. Not getting a response she dropped her shoulders in defeat before shrugging and continuing on her way.
He had not noticed his mother talking to him, or that he had just ignored the poor woman. Sprinting into the forest he dropped his backpack at his hideout: "LINA!" His voice echoed through the woods and in return, he got nothing but eerie silence from nature.
He jumped into a crawling position, dropping straight through the towel— Jake had hung up to be used as a door— into the hideout.
The hideout was a small room he and Jake had built years ago beneath the roots of a giant oak tree. They closed the open holes with sticks, binding them with strings they stole from Tim's mother and hid them with leaves and dead grass. Over the years the two continued to enlarge the hideout to fit around 5 young adults with room to spare. Of course, they had never intended to let others know about it, but Lina one day found the hideout after following Jake there in secret.
Lina was Jake's girlfriend at the time. He was deeply in love with her, as they say, love makes blind.
"Are you in here?" He muttered, "I apologize, please be okay. I can't live without you." He lied to make her potentially feel better and lure her out if she was hiding in their hideout. He started to rip out different parts of the walls, revealing different hidden rooms he and Jake had made. But Lina was nowhere to be found.
But what if… no, she could not have found it. Tim practically turned to stone at the thought she found the secret room he had made the day Jake vanished. "Oh god." He slowly crept towards one of the chairs before revealing a small tunnel a fox had made. It was barely big enough for him to fit, no way in hell she could fit through there, but what if she did.
"Are you in there?" He screamed down the tunnel. No reply came towards him, but listening closely, he could hear movements at the bottom. "Shit, shit, shit!" Tim started to crawl through the tunnel.
The dead roots embedded into the walls scraped along his skin, scratching it open. He followed the sounds he had heard, continuing down the tunnel which was( in his estimates) at least a 100 metres deep.
With every movement the air grew thicker and more unbreathable. And the smell of dead flesh penetrated his nose. It made him sick, he had to puke but did not.
Finally, after almost half an hour he reached the end of the tunnel and could finally sit again. Before him sat a person… or… the remains of a person. Behind them was hiding the source of the noise he followed, a small fox. It was shivering.
Seeing that Lina had not found the tunnel he was relieved but also even more worried. "Where could she be?" He silently asked the fox. It, of course, ignored him and made itself smaller, not worth hunting and eating.
"I lost your girlfriend…" He said as tears filled his eyes and he started to cry.