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'I have never been in such a dark forest.'

She could hear her own thought echoing through the darkness. The further the words travelled back and forth, the more distorted their sound became, until she was scared of each echo that returned to her.

'Where am I?'

The new echo mixed with the old one, each sentence journeyed back and forth in its own rhythm.

'Stop it!'

Now all three phrases travelled back and forth over the nightly forest, travelled in and out of her ears, the words met and disentangled, formed one staccato rhythm with each other that matched the accelerated beat of her heart. 'Forest. Where? It! Never. Am? Stop!'

The echo didn't diminish, on the contrary, it grew louder and louder until it filled the night, until her ears were in danger of breaking, until she wanted to fall on the ground, her face hidden in her arms, to escape the loudness of the echo of her own thoughts.

Then, suddenly, it was quiet.

She was surrounded by a completely quiet forest. No wind was shaking the tops of the tall, leafless trees, no birds or other animals made a sound. It was, as if the world around her had been turned to stone. A dead forest bathed in darkness.

She didn't know which way to turn; she didn't want to be here. She didn't dare to even breathe, to not wake whatever was sleeping out there, to not wake the forest. But she wanted to get out of here, she had to go away, maybe she would find a way out. Hesitatingly she took a step. And as soon as her foot touched the ground again, everything changed once more.

The wind filled the forest with a howling sound now. The trees screamed their hundred-year-old pain of being in a world without light as their branches reached out for her like skinless arms and skeleton fingers. Owls opened the big moons of their eyes, and rat-like animals scurried over the ground.

But the worst of all was the presence - the presence of whom? She didn't know. There was someone there, she could feel it at every moment