I think it was a rustling outside the tent that woke me. I can’t be sure, my head feels as though it’s been replaced with cotton wool as I heave myself onto my elbows in an attempt to wake myself properly. It had been pretty windy when we’d turned in, the sound of the wind blowing through the trees acting as our lullaby as we attempted to find sleep. But now… There’s no wind.

It’s dark. So dark. The kind of dark where your eyes begin to play tricks on you, shadows and shapes dancing across my periphery.

My first thought upon waking is how quiet it is.

My second thought is how wrong that feels.

Something woke me up, but now it’s a type of deafening silence where I can’t help but hold my breath.

I reach across for my sister who’s sleeping next to me, wanting to be sure that whatever woke me didn’t freak her out as well.

“Mia?” I whisper.

My hand reaches blindly, my fingers touching the cold fabric of her sleeping bag. I reach a little further, not quite feeling brave enough to get out of my own sleeping bag to locate her.

I try once more, making my voice slightly louder this time, but still no response.

Worry begins to gnaw away at my stomach, and something urges me to get out of my sleeping bag. I know that the torch was somewhere near my head when we went to sleep, so I fumble around for it, momentarily sighing in relief when I find it.

I pause. Why does it feel like I shouldn’t be turning it on?

But… I need to check that Mia’s okay.

After a moment’s hesitation, my thumb finds the button and the tent is soon engulfed in a small beam of warm light that blinds me for a second.

I point the torch towards Mia, and my stomach drops immediately.

She’s not there.

Her empty sleeping bag is strewn haphazardly across the floor of the tent, and she’s nowhere to be seen.

Panic then engulfs me.

Where has she gone? Why has she left? She’s scared of the dark, there’s no way she’d leave without me. Without the light.

My breathing becomes ragged as I wriggle out of my sleeping bag fully, rising up on to my knees just to make sure she’s not hiding in the corner somewhere. But realistically, how many places are there to hide in a 2-man tent?

A noise outside, something like twigs snapping under foot, catches my attention.

I hold my breath once more, my hands shaking as I aim the torch light down towards the ground.

Slow, heavy, deliberate footsteps.

Pausing, then walking once more, before pausing.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that those footsteps certainly do not belong to my sister.

And there was nobody else around when we’d pitched our tent.

The footsteps resume once more, except this time, they’re not slow. More twigs snapping, the sound of heavy boots on the forest floor edges closer and closer.

My entire body runs cold and I quickly shut off the torch, still holding my breath as the footsteps come to a stop outside the tent.

Silence. For what feels like an eternity.

Then, the voice that calls out to me makes me scream. And that’s the last thing that I remember.