Sniff, sniff
The further she rode into the woods, the worse the stench got.
It was Saturday afternoon, and Jenny felt the summer breeze rustling her clothes as she rode the roads leading away from the city and into the nearby forest. It had been a while since she'd spotted another vehicle this far out, and it was peaceful and quiet out here, save for the whining of the belt of her motorcycle.
Sniff, sniff
Jenny wondered what it was. The stench had only been getting worse the deeper she rode into the woods. Whatever it was, it was somewhere out there, and it smelled like death.
On one hand, being this far removed from civilization made the camping trip more exciting. On the other hand, the smell of rotten corpses made her worried for the safety of her mortal friends.
Sniff, sniff
It was going away, now. Whatever it was, she was leaving it behind.
Before long, Jenny reached a point where she had to leave the asphalt and continue her journey on an unpaved road leading to the eventual campsite. She reduced her pace to stop her bike from bottoming out and cruised along the bumpy road in peace. There were two fresh tire tracks, suggesting her friends would already be waiting for her at her destination.
To Jenny's relief, by the time she reached the campsite—consisting of an old station wagon parked next to two tents—that weird stench was long gone. When she rolled up next to the car, her two friends appeared from behind the rear hatch and excitedly waved at her.
Plural's eyes started sparkling at the sight of what Jenny was riding.
"I didn't know you were this cool! You don't need riding gear?"
Jenny wasn't sure what to say, and Saturn spoke up instead.
"She's bulletproof, y'know?"
Plural curiously scanned Jenny's luggage.
"Is that really everything you need?"
Jenny was shutting off her bike and opening the luggage cases on the back. From one, she took out a single backpack containing her essentials: a change of clothes in case she got dirty, and a first-aid kit. From the other: a tent and inflatable mattress.
"I've never been camping before," Jenny answered, analyzing her own luggage, "I thought this was a lot…"
"Whatever floats your butt!" Plural said with her mouth half occupied, inflating her mattress.
Jenny took hers out, put the rubber valve on her mouth and inflated the whole thing in one continuous breath, taking less than five seconds. Her two companions had never seen anything like that before and stared at her wide-eyed. Saturn looked more excited than confused, like he was finally able to witness what he'd only ever seen footage of online. If Plural ever had any doubts about Jenny, they'd be dispelled now for sure.
Then, Jenny started setting up her tent. Maybe it was because she didn't like being the center of attention, but she took her sweet time with it and put it together by hand. Still, she finished well before the other two and spent the rest of the time sitting at the opening, watching them work and wiggling her feet. On any other Saturday, she'd be wasting the day alone, bored, the same as always. Even just sitting here with them was much more fun.
When the other two finished, Saturn grabbed three fishing rods from the car and handed one to Jenny.
"Know how to use this?"
"We're going fishing???" Jenny excitedly asked.
"There's a river nearby, Saturn and I need to catch our food," Plural replied.
"I wouldn't want you to feel left out," Saturn added.
♦
Saturn was the first to make a catch and was reeling it in when he noticed Jenny's face next to him, and the way she looked at the poor fish. Her eyes looked like they were cheering for the fish to jump off the hook and free itself. It was like she was begging him to let the poor creature go, but she never looked at him, just at the fish.
Saturn stopped reeling it in and looked at Jenny with a confused expression, hoping she'd say what was on her mind, but she didn't. After a couple of seconds, he looked at Plural, who looked away from him, blissfully ignoring the scene. He looked back at Jenny. Then, after some hesitation, he continued reeling the fish in, prompting a small reaction from her. She was still looking at the fish the whole time. Saturn stopped again and looked at the sky, hoping some deity out there would tell him what to do.
When the gods didn't respond, he looked back at Jenny.
"Look, I gotta eat…"
Jenny perked up, like she was pulled out of a daydream caused by the fish.
"Ah, no… It's okay…" she said with her hands up.
Plural moved her head forward to look at Jenny.
"Are you vegan or something?"
Jenny looked like she had to think about what the answer was.
"No… Maybe…"
She looked at the sky with her index finger on her lower lip.
"I just like animals. They're cute," she added.
Saturn looked at the fish on his hook.
"You think he's cute?"
"I do!" Jenny responded with a serious face.
Saturn looked at the fish and moved his head sideways a little.
"I could see it…" he mumbled.
"I guess you're vegan if you don't eat or drink," Plural said.
Saturn rocked his rod around.
"Look, it's…" he wiggled his rod around and demonstrated that the fish wasn't moving anymore, "… already…"
He looked at Jenny again to find her looking at the fish with a cold stare.
"Hey! Don't you, like, kill aliens?" he asked her.
Jenny looked down at her lap and touched her two index fingers together.
"That's different…"
Saturn grinned and started reeling the fish the rest of the way in when suddenly it started thrashing around as if it had come back to life, startling him and causing him to drop the live fish on Jenny's head.
"S-Sorry!" Saturn quickly finished reeling it in and dropped it into a basket between himself and Plural.
But to his surprise, Jenny giggled.
"What's the matter?" he asked her.
"You guys are kinda like animals."
♦
Back at camp, Jenny watched Plural rummaging through her backpack.
"So, what else do you do during camping?" she asked curiously.
They'd returned to camp with a decent haul of fish.
"We…" Plural retrieved a plastic bag from her bag, "roast marshmallows."
Jenny looked at her aloof. Plural reached into her backpack again.
"And we get wasted!" she held a six pack of beers.
Jenny had the same look.
"Ah, I guess you can't…" she noted.
"Idiot…" Saturn called her out, then took some cardboard boxes from his backpack. "We brought some games we can play."
"And we try not to get eaten alive when we're surrounded by darkness!" Plural followed up.
She held up her hands like claws and looked teasingly at Jenny. Surprisingly, she really did get spooked at the idea, and Jenny started anxiously looking around the woods in fear.
"Wait, you can still get scared of stuff like that?" Plural asked, "I was only joking."
"I've seen a lot of scary movies," Jenny replied, "what kinds of animals live here anyway?"
"I've heard bears live here," Saturn weighed in.
"What do you do to protect yourself, then? Without me?" Jenny asked.
Plural and Saturn looked at each other like they didn't have a good answer for her.
"There are bears here???" Plural asked him in surprise.
"I uh… usually just light the campfire and consider it safe," Saturn said.
Jenny giggled. "I guess you shouldn't wait too long, then."
Her two friends suddenly stared at her in horror and latched onto each other in fear, spooking Jenny.
"I-Is he part of your joke???" Plural asked, shaking.
Jenny looked behind her and saw a large bear taking his time sniffing her head. He probably had no idea how special the creature was that he was sniffing.
"Cute!" Jenny exclaimed with hearts in her eyes.
The bear took a couple of steps back in response. Jenny stood up and started making the kinds of sounds you would make to get a cat to come over. She didn't need to crouch to make herself smaller, considering she was already shorter than the average woman.
Jenny rubbed the top of her head, then turned her attention to the basket of freshly caught fish.
"You want?" she excitedly asked the bear and hopped over to the basket, returning to the bear with the largest one they caught.
For a moment, the bear's gaze went to the two meat bags behind her, but Jenny wasn't ignorant about the danger this bear posed to her vulnerable friends. So, she made sure to position herself well in between, making sure to get the bear's complete attention.
"Here, boy," she said as she rolled up her sleeve and waved the fish above her head.
And in one violent move, the bear bit into the fish, Jenny's hand included.
"Jen! He's got your hand!" Plural yelled in a panic behind her.
"That's okay!" Jenny stepped closer and tried to take the opportunity to pet the bear. But before she had a chance, the bear gave up on Jenny's arm and took just the fish, then stepped back to eat it. The two mortals watched how Jenny inspected her unharmed hand and rolled her sleeve back up.
"You do this often?" Saturn quipped.
"Me?" Jenny responded.
"Uhm, no. Mr. Cuddles, sir?" he replied, tilting his head to the side and looking straight at the bear. Jenny gave a bit of a laugh and took another step towards the bear, who had finished his snack.
"C'mere Mr. Cuddles!"
"W-What are you gonna do?" Plural asked.
"I wanna try to pet him," Jenny replied.
The bear approached Jenny again and stood on its hind legs. In response, she held out her hands in front of her as if to double high-five it. The bear gave her a growl and brought his weight down onto his front paws, accepting her challenge. Jenny's body did not submit to the bear's weight when her paws met his, she simply smiled and started moving her hands back and forth, like some sort of dance.
"This is kinda cool, you gotta admit," Saturn said to Plural from the safety of Jenny's flank.
The bear, probably realizing he couldn't win, backed away from Jenny, turned around and strolled off. It was not in her nature to try and force it to submit to her, so she let it go and waved it goodbye.
When the bear disappeared behind the trees, she turned around and happily sat back down, greeting her friends with a satisfied smile.
"Pretty sweet," Saturn commented with a grin and let go of Plural.
"So, how 'bout that fire?" a shaky Plural reminded him.
"Oh, right," Saturn stood up and walked over to the open hatch of his car to retrieve some logs of wood.
Together, they formed the logs into a campfire, and Saturn started fiddling with his lighter, trying to start the fire. On the side, Jenny sat with her arms around her knees and watched him work. It would've been easy to use her laser eyes to start the fire, but she decided instead to leave him to it unless he asked.
And be it pride or something else, he did eventually manage to get the fire started with his lighter, just in time for the sun to set and coat the forest in total darkness.
From where they sat, you would only be able to see silhouettes of the surrounding trees, and of any larger animals like bears if any showed up. The three were sitting with their backs facing the car, where Jenny and the fire were plenty of protection against anything that could come visit. Saturn and Plural were frying their fish above the flames with an opened beer can in their hand.
"Let's get back on topic," Plural turned to Jenny. "You like scary movies? Do you scare easily?"
Jenny looked away and didn't answer verbally.
"Do they scare you so much you're afraid to go to bed? But then you watch more anyway?"
Jenny pinched her eyes shut and aimed her head away from Plural.
"Go easy on her, Plu. We need her in case the Shadow Snatcher comes for us," Saturn said.
Jenny opened her eyes again and looked at him with great interest.
"You know the story," he said unconvincingly.
Jenny was eager to hear and vigorously shook her head. Plural interrupted them with a cough, making it clear she wanted to tell the story. Saturn raised his hands in surrender.
"It's a local legend, Jen. Surprised you don't know it."
"Aha… Maybe I already fought it and won!" Jenny said with a smug face.
"It's said to roam around these very parts," Plural pointed her index finger down at the ground, "the dark woods and the region surrounding the city. I'm sure you've noticed, but these woods aren't lit. It must be five kilometers to the nearest lamp post. We're in the heart of its hunting grounds."
She paused to gauge Jenny's reaction, but whatever Jenny was showing on her face right now, Plural wanted more.
"The Shadow Snatcher hides in the shadows and snatches people with its disgusting tentacles!", she imitated a grabber with her hand. "It only appears at night because the sun burns it. People disappear here all the time! It's known!"
"Yeah, Plu and I've been dying to meet it," Saturn butted in.
Plural looked at him like he was ruining the tension she'd set up. And maybe he did.
"I-Is it a true story or not?" an uncomfortable Jenny asked.
Plural looked away with an awkward smile.
Sniff, sniff
And there it was again. The same stench she encountered on her way here, the one that was supposed to be far away. Jenny jolted her head around, scanning the tree silhouettes around the camp for anything strange.
"Are you guys smelling that?" Plural asked.
"You too?" Jenny asked fearfully, covering her mouth with her fist.
"Smells like rotting corpses," Saturn noted.
The smell was getting worse by the second, suggesting it came from something that moved, and it was now coming here. Jenny turned her head away from her friends and scanned the trees again but noticed that she couldn't see their silhouettes anymore. She closed her eyes, then opened them back up with night vision enabled. But her heart sank when it made no difference, and she couldn't see a thing past the point where the campfire's light stopped.
"Is this normal? I can't see shit out there," Saturn said.
"This smell is just getting worse. This isn't one of your pranks, is it?" Plural was pinching her nose by now.
"I like to think I'm a little more tasteful than this!" he replied.
Jenny didn't say a thing. She just sat there, frozen, panicking about what was clearly something supernatural going on outside their dome of safety.
Eventually, Saturn touched her shoulder.
"Hey uh, Jen? Are you still with us?"
She turned and looked him in the eye but still didn't speak a word. Then, her hair-antenna popped up and started beeping and emitting a red light. Jenny let out a shriek, and her two friends shrieked with her.
"It's my alarm! Something's really here!" she exclaimed while looking up at the red light above her head.
"W-What's here!?" the two replied in unison.
"R-Red means it's here with us," Jenny frantically looked in all directions.
"Wait, you're saying there's like, an alien nearby!?"
"Has to be, but…" she muttered while her antenna spun in all directions, "it's all around us…"
The beeping, which started slow, was just getting faster and faster. Jenny could make an estimate of the distance based on how fast it beeped. She wouldn't need to, however, as the source of the alarm made itself known to them via a horrifying screech in the distance.
"You're really freaking me out here, guys…", Plural said.
The screech sounded more like a victim than a predator, like someone was getting murdered out there.
"We're gonna be alright, Plu," Saturn turned to Jenny. "Jenny's gonna park this fool and we'll be right back to—"
But all he found was a frightened Jenny tightly hugging his arm.
"Don't tell me you're scared of the dark…"
He had no idea her greatest fear was unfolding right in front of her.
"N-No…" Jenny bluffed while shivering.
Another sound came from the darkness. Uncanny, like a man and a woman with broken vocal cords moaning together. And it was much closer than the last one, maybe twenty meters away.
"It's a little more than just dark! Something's clearly wrong…" Plural argued, still pinching her nose.
Then, another sound came from their left. It sounded like it came from Jenny's bike, which was sitting near the edge of the darkness and was only partially illuminated by the fire. It seemed as if it slightly crawled towards the darkness on its own. The three simply stared at it wide-eyed.
At this point, Jenny's sensor was beeping as fast as it could, and Jenny knew that this meant the threat was close enough to be standing just beyond the edge of the light. And in a single violent move, the bike was yanked into the darkness. The three squeezed each other tightly and let out a scream in unison.
Jenny had just lost her external power bank. Not that she was going to get a chance to use it with the way things were going.
"I-If we survive this, p-please take my body back home and plug me in…" Jenny pleaded, parting some hair above her ear to reveal a small socket.
The two stared at her in disbelief. Saturn looked at where the bike used to be, then back at her.
"Don't tell me you're about to run dry."
"No, but I don't know what'll happen."
Then, another sound caught their attention. A twig that hit the campfire, slightly disturbing the flame, like it was thrown from the darkness. They looked spooked and realized what was going on. Next, a larger branch hit the flame in much the same way, disturbing it even more.
"S-Something wants to kill the fire," Saturn said with a hopeless tone.
They looked at the source and were able to spot two light dots at the edge of the darkness, like two eyes. They sat at the height of someone who was crouching, until the two dots started moving up in an inhuman manner, not at all like someone getting up. In fact, they kept going up until they settled at about three meters in height, looking down on them.
"M-M-Monster…" Plural shivered in fear.
"What am I doing!?" Jenny reprimanded herself with her eyes pressed shut.
She shook her head, then stood up and faced the creature like she was finally able to gather some courage.
"Leave us alone or you'll regret it!"
She wasn't just bluffing. With the two eyes appearing at the edge of the darkness, Jenny had a target to hit. However, she preferred to avoid combat with an enemy that could drag her into the darkness and separate her from her friends.
Seconds passed in silence as they stared each other down. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't listening. Jenny's face angered up, and for a split-second duration, she unleashed her laser eyes on a point in between the two dots, where the head should be. For a moment, the balance between light and dark was slightly upset and the two dots were no longer clearly visible, although her laser eyes weren't nearly enough of a light source to make the veil of darkness go away completely.
"Woah…" Plural and Saturn gasped. Even that short burst was enough to heat up the air around them.
But in time, the dots became visible again. This time, they moved to the left, then down, then up, then left again. It was like its "face" pivoted around a central point while the rest of its body moved sideways, but it was clearly organic and not a machine. Whatever it looked like underneath all that darkness, its body was nothing like any human or animal Jenny had ever heard of.
"It's not working," Saturn whispered from behind.
Jenny's sensor was still spinning in all directions, even though the enemy was right in front of her. Was the darkness itself the enemy? And not just the entity with the two eyes? Had she finally encountered an enemy stronger than herself?
It moved again, downwards, back to the crouching position from before.
Jenny stepped back.
"I… I…" she stuttered.
Until she felt Saturn's hand on her shoulder, and she turned her head to look her friend in the eyes.
"Would you be able to fight freely if we weren't here? Can't you teleport us out of the woods?" he asked.
"I… can't go that far in one jump, especially with you both in tow," she said, looking frustrated.
A long silence followed where nobody really said anything or moved at all. Plural was the first to break the silence.
"What if we just wait until the sun comes back up? It'll go away, right?"
"I'd say so…" Saturn replied.
"I can't just sit around all night and stare it in the eyes!" Jenny replied, irritated.
Then, as if to taunt her, a larger object hit her head, throwing her to the ground.
"Jen!" her friends called out and came to her side.
Jenny raised her head and looked at the object in question. A severed bear head.
"Mr. Cuddles…"
As Jenny lay there on the ground with the head in front of her, she recalled the way she felt its paws and fed it fish just an hour ago, and the way she left it to die out there. She turned her head and made eye contact with her worried friends. Were they about to suffer the same fate?
Slowly, Jenny got to her feet and turned to the two eyes in the darkness, still there at the exact same spot. Had it been watching this whole evening? Why didn't it use the head to try to kill the flame while she wasn't looking?
Then, the remainder of the bear entered her peripheral vision, catapulted from the darkness and headed straight for the campfire this time. Jenny looked up and got into position to kick it away and stop it from extinguishing the flame, however tasteless it would be.
She didn't get the chance, though, when she felt one of her friends pulling her out of the way. When she looked, she saw that it was Saturn, panicking. A confused Jenny didn't have it in her to resist him and submitted herself to his pull.
And so, the larger part of the late Mr. Cuddles landed on the campfire and extinguished the last bit of light in the surrounding woods, resulting in a pitch-black world without even a single speck of color in it.
"W-Why'd you do that!?" Plural snarked at Saturn.
"Uh… I, uh…" Saturn made it clear he'd just made a huge mistake.
Her friends lay on Jenny's either side, but she could only tell by the sound of their voices. No blue or red hair, no tree silhouettes, not even the stars, which should've been otherwise perfectly visible on a night like this.
The only thing she did see, was a pair of resentful dots staring at her, floating at three meters tall again. Jenny could feel the heavy darkness reaching her body and filling up the remainder of the campsite, and it was unexpectedly thick and strong, pressing against her body like she was deep underwater. Her friends, too, sounded like they had trouble breathing from the pressure against their chests. For what felt like an eternity, everybody froze, including the two hostile dots.
But that eternity couldn't have been more than a second long, after which the two dots moved closer. Immediately, Jenny got to her feet, powering through the heavy resistance of the darkness and taking her friends' hands.
Now there was no choice. Jenny closed her eyes, and the ground beneath them started rumbling, making a charging sound that ramped up for about half a second and culminated in a violent bang, accompanied by...
♦
…blue sparkles, lighting up her field of view against the backdrop of darkness.
Plural felt her body falling a couple of centimeters down to the ground. Jenny was still holding her hand, and she could hear Saturn struggling to breathe on the other side. As the sparkles faded away, Plural failed to spot the two dots, like they weren't there anymore and Jenny had taken them to safety.
But Jenny wasn't done yet, and the process started all over again: ramp up, bang, hit the ground, blue sparkles. The rumbling felt like something was charging up inside of Jenny's body. The bang sound could be described as a muted gunshot, but it clearly wasn't a gun, it was coming from Jenny and herself.
The interval between each repeat was about three seconds and went on for a number of times, she didn't keep count. The only thing she did notice was that with each repeat of the thing Jenny was doing, the stench got significantly weaker.
Then, from one instant to the next, Plural could finally see light again. They landed on an asphalt road with a street light, and the world had never smelled this good before. It was here where the artificial lights ended and the unpaved road into dark woods began.
She looked over to see Jenny lying collapsed beside her, weakly holding both her own and Saturn's hands, and she was unresponsive.