the fire is kindling (5)

People who’ve come here and never left.” I rolled my eyes, but the words stuck with me. Even now, I can hear his voice in my head, daring me to listen. I never saw Eric after that summer.

He vanished without a trace, swallowed by the forest on a night much like this one. Search parties combed these woods for days, their flashlights slicing through the darkness, but they found nothing—no footprints, no torn fabric, not even a hint of where he’d gone.

I told myself he’d run away, that he’d grown tired of small-town life and slipped away to somewhere better. But deep down, I knew better. The woods took him.