In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Creepy
“This week, share an image of something creepy. Unsettling. Eerie. Disgusting.”

Okay, I’ll try.

It all started late one afternoon. I had gone out for a walk, hoping to get a little fresh air before the sun went down. I headed for the nearby woods, my favorite place to go when I wanted peace and solitude. As I neared the forest, I noticed something strange.

Some of the trees appeared to have been bent sideways. Not broken or blown over, just contorted, as if some unseen force were pulling the tree tops back toward the ground.

Several of the trees were oozing a thick substance from their trunks. I moved closer to inspect it.

The bark on the trees appeared to be bubbling, turning to a dark sludge that clung to the trunks,…

…writhing beneath some kind of acid that ate away at the bark. It smelled horrible.

Suddenly the sky darkened and a powerful wind thrashed the treetops.

I felt something tugging at my feet, and looked down just in time to see a black vortex opening in the ground beneath me. I was sucked violently downward, right through the forest floor.

I found myself in a dark cave. There were stunted stalactites protruding from the ceiling of the cave, emitting an eerie light that cast a strange hue about the cavern.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw something glowing at my feet. Was that a skull?

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my arm, as a shadow flitted past me and away into the darkness. Something or someone had slashed a hole in my denim jacket sleeve. I could feel warm liquid trickling down my arm.

A green eye gleamed from the shadows, …

…and other strange creatures shifted in and out of view. I screamed.

The ceiling of the cave cracked open, and I was suddenly sucked upwards in a shaft of bright light.

I must have fainted, but when I came to, I was relieved to see that I was back on the lawn just outside my home. It was just beginning to get dark. Had this all been a dream?

A voice shouted from behind me.

“There she is!” Two men, dressed all in white approached me, and grabbed my arms as they began dragging me toward a nearby building.

“How’d she get out?” one of the men asked.
“I don’t know,” replied the other. “But it won’t happen again!”
I felt a sharp poke in my upper arm, and everything faded to black.

When I awoke, I was back in my room, lying on the bed, with the bare light bulb overhead glaring into my eyes. I sat up. I must have dreamt all those strange experiences.

Everything was just the way it had been when I had gone to bed last night. My denim jacket was lying across the foot of the bed. I remembered that it had been torn in my dream.

I picked up the jacket and began examining the sleeves. Nothing. So it had been a dream after all. I sighed with relief.

Then I felt something in one of the pockets. I wasn’t allowed to carry any personal possessions, so I couldn’t imagine what it might be. I reached in and touched it, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I pulled it out of my pocket.

A vacant eye stared at me from a still warm skull. Was that a shred of denim in its beak?

I dropped the skull and turned to run from the room, but the door was locked from the outside. Pounding on the door, I shouted for someone to come let me out. The door opened suddenly, and a white-clad orderly stepped in.

“Good evening, Maggie. It’s time for your medication. We wouldn’t want you having any more of those nightmares, now would we?”