The place where the world stopped was not so strange, but the vertigo was overwhelming. The girl could not decide whether or not it would be wise to jump. As strange as the world seemed at that moment, the girl, Maya, still felt familiar with this forest, like she's been here before. Maybe not recently, but she's definitely been here before in the last thirty-five years of herself.
Maya starts to wander into the dark forest, lit only by the moonlight, although Maya isn't certain how that light is even managing to break through the high trees arching their dry branches and leaves to form a cage preventing any bird from escaping.
That sound, the loud angry screaming, heard up in a distance, unintelligible to the ear, also felt familiar to Maya. Perhaps it's a sound from the past, Maya thought to herself as she was cautiously walking toward the source of it despite the freezing chill every angry scream sent down her spine, stopping her in place every three steps or so. Still, Maya's urge to find the source of it carries her through as every now and then, the sounds of the angry screaming get drowned out by a comforting whisper.
Off in a distance, Maya sees a shimmer of sunlight, coming out of nowhere, but focused in a certain area behind all the trees. The sound of screaming gets louder and louder, but, suddenly, as Maya is only a few steps away from the spotlit by the sun, all the screaming turns into silence.
Maya gets closer to seeing herself as a child, comforted by her mother in the middle of the forest.
"It's okay, baby", the mother says in a comforting voice "Daddy is just angry now. But, I promise you, it will all be okay"
As Maya and her younger self listen to her mother's words, the forest starts making space for all the stuff from Maya's room as a child. The teddy bear she holds, the bed she sits on, and many things start to flow from Maya's old room into the forest in a mixture of imagination and memory.
"Everything is going to be okay", her mother continuous "Just remember what I told you to do"
"It's just you and I here and no one else", the child responds as the loud screams return even stronger than before "No one else is here with us in my happy forest"
"We're in my happy forest", Maya says in unison with her younger self "Just me and you. There's no one here with us. Just the two of us"
The loud screams once again wear off as the sunlight starts stretching across the forest, giving life once again to everything that was dead in the dark. Maya looks around as she sees all the grass turn green in the forest and the colours come back into the forest, inviting the birds back into the forest to fly around and sing. For a few moments, it felt peaceful as Maya felt a kind touch on her shoulders, but only for a few moments...
Maya watches in horror as she sees a large wolf, with screams matching the ones she's been hearing all along, screams matching a sound she was never able to unrecognize, the screams of her father.
The wolf walks angrily toward Maya's younger self and the mother. No sounds are heard but the wolf grunting and Maya's younger self whispering, "No one else is with us", as her mother holds her close.
"Leave them alone", Maya yells at the wolf as the forest gets darker than ever before no one is left except for Maya and the wolf.
"YOU!", the wolf yells at Maya as he charges toward her.
Maya freezes in her track and watches in fear as the wolf runs toward her in anger. The wolf gets almost close enough to devour Maya before he gets rebelled by Maya's mother. The wolf falls to the floor and slowly starts to get back up. The mother turns to Maya and says, "Come on, Sweetie. Let's run away", as the pair turn around and start running.
After some distance, Maya and her mother slow down.
"Mom", Maya says with fear "How do we escape from here?"
"We've already escaped, baby", the mother responds "Years ago. I don't know why you decided to come back here in the first place"
It was at that moment that Maya realized that this forest is of her own creation. Although she created it as a forest filled with loving colours and sounds, this was still her own creation.
"But...", Maya asks with fearful and sad hesitation "Why are you here, mom?"
"You know why", the mother responds "Come on, sweetie, let's keep walking"
Maya stands for a sad second, pondering everything, then follows her mother.
This story is part 1 of the contest organized by 
