Return to Molbury

It had been two years since Sam's life had changed forever. He was a typical lad until the day he entered Molbury Forest with his friends and was attacked by... whatever it was. Sam deemed it time to face a small sliver of his past, he put on his Smoke outfit and made his way to the forest under the cover of darkness.

The years had not been kind to the forest, two years ago the trees actually had leaves on them, but despite perfect weather for the trees to grow, they continued to rot and die as if there was something here stopping them from living. Smoke took one long look at the sign in front of the forest "Molbury Forest, the Nation's favourite forest" Sam immediately dismissed the sign with a shake of the head "It certainly isn't my favourite forest..." he thought as he took his first steps back into the forest. The further he walked into the forest, the foggier it became, it soon became tough to see just a few steps in front of him. Sam continued walking straight, he did not know exactly where he was trying to go, and he did not even think about how he would escape this place, his thoughts stopped dead as he stepped on something hard and it crackled, he looked down to see it was a foot bone "Jesus...." he thought, human bones in the same forest as he was in is not a good sight, the reason for killing this person could very well still be here. He moved his eyes further up the body to see the complete skeleton with some shreds of clothing still on them, he reluctantly placed his hands in the skeletons pocket and revealed a wallet, after opening it and studying the personal I.D, Sam found out who this skeleton was, it was one of the friends he ventured into the forest with... "If he is still here, I assume none of them survived... God damn" he thought angrily, why was he allowed to survive and not his friends? He assumed they were all attacked by the same thing, but why was Sam spared? These questions can not be answered now, maybe even never, he threw the wallet back down onto the ground and continued walking.

Sam's heart rate continued to rise with every second he spent going further and further into the forest, it wasn't very long until Sam was met by another crackle under his feet, another one of his friends skeletons? No, it was a large pile of burnt twigs that formed a sort of rectangle shape, this did not look like something that teenagers would have made, it looked like it had a purpose. The surroundings suddenly turned colder as Smoke studied the burnt twigs further, he picked one up and looked at it carefully, suddenly it was smacked out of his hand by a spirit flying by him, the same spirit that he had met two years ago. "Stop! I just want to talk to you!" he shouted, "If you can speak English" he then thought, the ball of smog had dissapeared from his sight until it showed itself, this time flying at a much slower pace, as if it was intrigued by Smoke. The ball of smog began circling him very slowly and closely, like a skittish dog meeting someone for the first time, it seemed to be studying him and it flew away slightly, the ball began to change shape, legs appeared from the bottom, arms from the side and a head with long, black smoggy hair, it seemed to be a woman wearing a long dress, the details on her body were not visible though, she appeared as a smoking entity in front of him, it looked to Smoke that she did not seem afraid of him anymore.

There was a moment of awkward silence, what was Smoke meant to say? He was staring at a spirit! The spirit broke the silence however, "You... You entered this place two years ago" her voice seemed calm and soothing whilst slightly aggressive at the same time, she also had an american accent which was strange for a place like this, the ghost seemed to have a great memory when it came to remembering who came in the forest and when, it seemed to be her domain, her home, and she did not appreciate intruders.

"Yes I did, with a group of my friends... You flew through me and gave me this power... Who are you?" he asked, he did not want to seem too forward, the spirit could easily fly away or worse, attack Smoke again.

"My name is Krystah..." her blank face remained motionless, "You are now standing in the last place I existed in a physical form" Smoke looked down and realized he was still standing on the burnt pile of twigs, he felt extremely disrespectful and he took a quick step to the side to right it. "My husband... he was an amazing man... I loved him dearly... but one day he became mad and thought I was a witch... someone with supernatural powers although I was not." Smoke was interested in hearing who this ghost was before she died, he had to listen out of respect. "He grabbed me and tied me up... he brought me deep inside this forest where you stand today and tied me to a post, he was speaking gibberish, almost as if he was having an argument with himself... He set the post alight and cheered as he watched me slowly burn..." her eyes were fixed on Smoke throughout the entire story, something that he found very disturbing, Smoke felt saddened by this woman's story, it was not her fault and there was nothing she could do about it. "He left after the deed was done and left me to die... when I did finally pass I became what you see now... I found him and killed him slowly and horribly" Krystah sounded both angry and pleased with herself at the same time.

"That does not explain why you are still here." Smoke said, trying to get her story back on track.

"I returned here to stop anyone from entering this horrific place... This place is filled with evil and it should not be faced by humans" she had a valid reason, although it still did not explain why she spared him.

"The friends I entered with... are they all?..." Sam stopped the question, he did not want to go into much detail about it, Krystah nodded however, she understood what he meant. He looked around in silence for a short while before returning to her, he sounded slightly more angry this time when he asked "Then why did you not kill me!? Why did you give me this curse?!... Why did I have to be spared?"

The spirit cocked her head to the side, she must have been confused about why this man in front of her wanted to be killed and not spared. "I did not kill you because people must learn... If I killed everyone who entered my forest, nobody would know about them and intruders would continue to enter, if I leave one, they have the power to tell others of what they saw and tell them to stay away from this place. As for your powers... I knew you was different from everybody else, you had honour and respect, two traits that are hard to come by in this day and age"

Smoke could not believe what he was hearing, she killed his friends and let him live simply so he could tell his tale to others, and she gave him powers that ruined his previous life because she wanted to, an unacceptable reason, but there was nothing he could do about it now. "So now what?... What am I supposed to do?" he asked, his life was going nowhere and he needed to know what to do and if he was meant for greater things.

"You are on this world for a purpose Sam... soon you will find out what that purpose is." With those words, she shimmered into the mist and disappeared, this whole experience had been eye opening for him, he was on this planet for a purpose? He wanted that moment to come fast, but for now he had to continue stopping low life thugs and petty crimes until something else came along.