ABSTRACT
As the night drew a grey cloak across the sky, Scarlett found herself in the middle of the forest. Dark and tangled, a maze of narrow paths and jagged, thorny barriers spread, stretched and arched above her. The deeper she went, the darker it became. It was an endless labyrinth of towering trees – an unending green blanket steeped in shadow. As the forest closed in around her, Scarlett’s unease grew. She knew that its recesses could conceal any number of dangers. Up until then, the forest had been full of noise: birds fluttering in the trees, squirrels scampering from branch to branch. But, as dusk fell, an eerie silence descended on the forest. Scarlett couldn’t shake off the sensation that she was being followed. Every few steps, she kept glancing nervously over her shoulder, probing the forest for any flicker of movement, expecting to see something hideous behind every tree. Every shadow had grown eyes; every branch looked like bony fingers. At every creak and rustle, her heart jumped. A sudden, tingling sixth sense made her glance to her left, and out of the corner of her eye, Scarlett glimpsed a flickering movement. She stopped dead in her tracks, and scanned the gap between the trees.
