The phone’s screen lit up Rebecca’s face as she lay in bed texting. She should have been asleep hours ago, but she was busy with texting her best friend Samantha. She had just sent off another text about their plans tomorrow when Rebecca’s mother wandered into the room.

“Rebecca, you’re still up?” she asked, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“Uh…” Rebecca was no Cicero.

Her mother sighed, “Rebecca I know you love your phone-“

“This phone is my life!” Rebecca cried melodramatically. She received a tired smile from her mom.

“Yes, well, maybe you could put it down and get a few hours of sleep- you have a big day tomorrow…” she paused. “ You know how to get to Samantha’s cabin?”

“Yes, mom, I printed out a map,”

“Alright,” said her mom, lingering in the doorway. “Try and get some sleep.”

“Leave the-“

“Hallway light on. Yes I know you dislike the dark.” Rebecca thought ‘dislike’ wasn’t a strong enough word. ‘Hate’ or ‘loathe’ seemed right, however.

They said their goodnights, and Rebecca lay back in her bed, eager for tomorrow.

The next day, Rebecca found herself in an idling car, packed and ready to go. As she was pulling out of the driveway, she said goodbye to her parents.

“Remember to put your phone down while you’re driving,” her mother warned her.

“Sure, sure” Rebecca said, avoiding the commitment of a real answer. With a wave of her hand and a tap of her toe she was off- before her mom could say anything else on the matter.

Rebecca drove over highways and through towns for a couple hours when she finally made it to the forest Samantha’s cabin was in. This was the tricky part; the narrow and winding roads would make it difficult to find her way around.

She was consulting her map when she got a text from Samantha. Rebecca knew she shouldn’t be texting while driving, but maybe Samantha had something that could help her. Rebecca picked up her phone and read the text: Where r u?

Rebecca started to type a reply, when something caught her eye. She glanced up, just in time to see a deer standing in the middle of the road in front of her car. She screamed and, going too fast, swerved sharply to the left. As the deer jumped away, Rebecca lost control of the car as it tipped… and went rolling down the hill. The last thing Rebecca remembered was a whirlwind of movement and the taste of blood before everything went black.



When Rebecca woke up, everything was dark and she was hanging upside down in her car by her seatbelt.

“Am I blind?!” she said aloud, panicking. She calmed down once she saw the light of her cell phone right above her head. She wasn’t blind, it was just really dark. Rebecca didn’t like the dark. She quickly snatched up her phone and used it as a light to look around. She was still strapped to her seat in the flipped car. Rebecca carefully unbuckled herself, falling awkwardly on her shoulders to the roof of the car. She crawled out and stood up, using the light of her phone to check herself for injuries. Besides a few scratches and bruises, she was fine. Rebecca was about to sigh in relief when she felt something trickle down the side of her face. She felt it with her fingers, and was surprised when they came back red.

“I’m okay,” she said to herself, “I have a light, and I couldn’t have gone that far. I’ll just find my way back to the road and go from there. Samantha is probably looking for me, so I’m bound to be found eventually.” She smiled at her plan and looked around. Everything was dark, and the moon’s light cast ominous shadows from everything it touched. She whimpered and shined her phone’s light on herself, trying to keep herself in the light where it was safe.

She slowly took a few steps up the hill, hyper-aware of every noise in the forest. Every snap of a twig made her jump and every hoot of an owl made her shake in fear. Who knew what dangerous things could be in this mysterious forest?

As she was making her way up the hill in trepidation, Rebecca heard a beep from her phone. She looked down at it. It read ‘battery exhausted, shutting down.’

“No,” Rebecca whispered, “No no no NO NO NO!” She stared wide eyed at the screen as it turned black and left her in darkness.