Runner-Up
Teagan Oliva
Dark rain clouds lurked overhead as Phil Ponds and his entourage paraded through the pines of Goldwood’s forest. The four boys hoisted large hiking backpacks that were filled to the brim with a surplus of gear that they may or may not need—better to be safe than sorry, Phil supposed.
Morale was exceptionally high for Phil as he led the way through the thicket of dried grass and snapping twigs in search of anything that resembled a new find. The rumors of Goldwood’s forest were widely known, and many claimed that the site’s secrets and mysteries were visible during a storm. Phil’s skin itched with anticipation as a rumble of thunder rolled overhead and they trudged deeper into the woods.
He was supposed to be home by dinner. His grandma had been chirping about her chicken casserole all day, and Phil knew that she would never forgive him if he missed out. After she had made the transition into Goldwood as Phil’s guardian, her recipes became famous. She was the first to be invited to every potluck and community dinner. For the last eight years, Phil’s grandma had lived in his house to step in for his parents. Nobody knew what had caused their disappearance, but speculation about running away to Vegas or catching a last-minute flight to Europe was tossed around. The worst was the theory that they vanished in the forest.
Phil gazed at the scenery before him with squinted eyes, scanning for anything that could be considered “mysterious.” The twins, Riley and Nolan, followed closely behind, bickering incessantly over who should carry the lunch box. Mitchell lagged behind them a few paces as he cautiously stepped around the tangled tree roots and messy strands of dried grass.
“Mitchell, the grass won’t bite you.” Phil said to his friend. “Try and keep up before it gets dark.”
“I’m trying not to break my ankle, Phil. Remember last time when I tripped over that log? My foot swelled up to the size of Mrs. Lowell’s wiener dog,” Mitchell replied. His pace quickened only slightly, but enough that he was soon back in stride with the twins.
“Your foot was barely bruised, Mitch.” Riley laughed. “Mrs. Lowell’s wiener dog could have eaten it for dinner.”
“It hurt a lot, okay?”
“Shh!” Phil whipped around to face his friends. “What part of ‘we need to be quiet’ do you guys not understand?”
The three boys muttered apologies as Phil returned to face the forest ahead of them. A breeze nudged the large trees overhead, creating a whisper of leaves and branches that echoed throughout the woods and sent a collection of goosebumps down Phil’s spine. He gulped and proceeded to step forward.
His friendships with the three boys had lasted forever. Mitchell and Phil became friends on the fifteenth day of kindergarten, when they became pod partners in Mrs. Lemming’s class. Phil, shy and uneasy, longed for a friend to race across the monkey bars with. Everyone else in the class seemed to have their friends picked out. Mitchell entered the class, and Phil immediately decided that they would become best friends. Conversely, the introduction to the friendship between Phil and the twins was definitely not as poetic, mainly because they started out as enemies: Riley and Phil were sent to the principal’s office for hitting one another with the tether ball. Little did Phil know that Riley had backup; Nolan was behind the scenes waiting for the next recess to avenge his brother. Phil quickly learned that the duo were the kings of the playground, making them untouchable. It took three recesses of Phil hiding behind the swirly slide for him to gain the confidence to approach them. The twins had all but forgotten the visit to the principal’s office and met Phil with mischievous gleams in their eyes and warm-hearted grins. Phil couldn’t help but befriend them. The next day, they had planned their very first sleepover.
As the quartet of friends navigated elementary school, they quickly took a liking to exploring the woods behind Phil’s house. Weekly adventures were planned and soon, they knew the first mile of the tree line like the back of their hands. But so many rumors had flooded the town that there were secret places within the forest that were only accessible during storms. That was why the four boys chose today, of all days, to further explore what the forest had to offer.
Unfortunately for Phil, the silence of his friends did not last long as the twins began to swat at each other and mutter insults back and forth. Phil did his best to suppress his annoyance in the hope that the bickering would stop any second. Instead he tried to scope out the area that was covered by waving tree branches and leaves. Before long, the bickering had escalated to a fight, with Mitchell doing his best to avoid the slapping and prodding as well as the ground beneath his feet.
“If you guys don’t want to be here, just leave,” Phil spat at his friends. “I can’t concentrate with you guys fighting all the time and trying to get Mitchell to keep up before he gets lost. So, just leave and let me do this.”
His friends exchanged pitiful glances; before any of them could decide, Phil turned quickly on his heel and stormed off in the opposite direction. The forest seemed to blur together as tears poked at his eyes as he trudged. In a matter of seconds, his friends had disappeared and he was alone.
“Serves them right.” Phil let out a self-satisfying huff, quickly wiping away the tears that had begun to form. “I can do this by myself.”
Phil inhaled deeply and let his eyelids slide shut as he took in the forest around him. A slight hint of rain snuck into his nose, along with the strong, deep aroma of the soil beneath his boots. In this moment, it was him and the forest. There were no distractions or interruptions from his friends. This was his time to explore the forest all on his own.
For a long period of his life, Phil had grown up as an orphan with only his grandma there to support him. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt such a harsh sense of loss at the absence of his parents. He knew that deep down in his mind, the longing to adventure into the woods during the storm was to see if there was any trace of his parents or what had happened to them. The last eight years had been spent sheltering his grief deep in his body, never letting anyone think that he was actually a tormented orphan. He thought that if anyone knew, it would be his grandma. None of his friends were aware of how isolated Phil felt, but then again, he never let them know. How could he allow his friends to think that he wasn’t the fearless leader they imagined? They looked to him for guidance, for information, for everything. If he were to crack, what would they think?
Phil’s meander through the woods was becoming a struggle as the thunder clouds rolled over the sunshine. A shadow swallowed the forest whole, taking Phil with it. Thunder grumbles began to sneak closer, and soon the scent of rain filled the air. The mere breeze from before was now a crisp wind that made the tree trunks hum in a low growl, causing Phil to shudder. It suddenly became apparent to him that he was alone. Mitchell’s familiar stride was long gone, and he found himself longing for Riley’s sarcastic banter or Nolan’s flustered retaliation after getting made fun of. Phil gulped back the lump forming in his throat as he glanced around at the forest that surrounded him.
The dreaded feeling of isolation stung at Phil, and it took everything in his body to not shout for his friends to find him. This is what he’d always feared—being alone. First it was his parents, and now it would be his friends, then his grandma, and the whole world. He was completely and hopelessly alone.
Darkness was closing in quickly, and in the distance, Phil could make out the sound of rain falling against the woods. He quickly whirled around to return the way he came, but as he did, he realized that he couldn’t make out where he’d come from. Alarm stirred in his chest as he attempted to find a familiar landmark—a tree, a rock, a plant, one of his friends—but there was nothing. The darkness, moving in rapidly, taunted him, closing in as he stood helplessly in the middle of Goldwood’s forest.
In a blind panic, Phil began running in a direction that he deemed correct. Whether it was or not, he had no idea, but it was better than simply standing there and waiting to be devoured by the storm. His backpack jostled against his spine as he ran, and he only hoped that the tree roots wouldn’t spring to life and snatch his ankles to tow him to the ground.
Raindrops began to spit on his arms, and the air was almost completely dark. Phil felt no emotion other than extreme fright as he ran. For all he knew, he was running farther into the forest and would never return. Visions of his parents engulfed by the trees showered his thoughts as he realized that he may soon join them.
Phil felt the ground beneath him disappear and he tumbled down a hill until he reached the bottom. His body refused to move, and the raindrops from above felt heavier and fatter with each plop onto his skin. Phil’s chest was tight with dread as he begged his limbs to pick him up and carry him home, but the panic overpowered him and forced him to stay down. Tears stung his eyes and he sobbed loudly into the howling wind that carried his cries into the forest, most likely to never be heard again. He wondered if the echo would make its way to his house, where his grandma sat at the kitchen table. She would be waiting for Phil’s return to dish up the chicken casserole because he loved seeing the first scoop come out. When he didn’t show up, she would throw the meal into a plastic container and leave it in the microwave for when he came home. Then she would sit in her chair that faced the window where she could see the edge of the forest. She would wait for hours to see Phil emerge from the treeline, but then those hours would turn into days, and the days would turn into weeks, and then she’d realize that Phil was never coming home.
He hoped that his friends had found their way out of the woods before the storm had caught them. Riley would be pestering Nolan for being so afraid of the rain and the wind as they biked back home. Then Nolan would shove him off for trying to ridicule him. Mitchell, exhausted from the trek, would open the door to his house and immediately collapse on the couch to sleep for the night. In the morning, they would arrive at school and wait for Phil by his locker to ask how his adventure went. When he never showed up, they would all know that he was lost in the forest because Phil never missed school.
As he began to accept his fate of never returning home, Phil heard a familiar voice in the distance and what sounded like his name. He opened his eyes and squinted through the heavy raindrops to see light beams flickering through the trees. His friends had come back for him.
With a newfound strength, Phil hoisted himself to his feet and began to tread through the storm toward the shouts. He picked out Mitchell’s slightly higher call, along with Riley and Nolan’s synchronized chirps competing for who could be louder.
“I’m over here!” Phil’s sobs cracked his voice as he stumbled forward.
The lights and shouts slowly grew closer and louder, until they were right in front of him. Phil had never been so overjoyed to see the goofy grins of his friends as he approached the group.
“You’re covered in mud, Phil.” Mitchell made a sickly face as he flicked a lump of soil from Phil’s backpack.
“I thought you guys left?” Phil said in confusion. “I told you guys to leave; why didn’t you leave?”
“If you think we were actually going to leave you out here by yourself, you’re crazy.” Riley jostled Phil’s shoulder.
“All for one, Phil.” Nolan grinned at his friend. “That’s what you always say.”
“We know you’re our leader and all, but what kind of crew abandons their leader in the middle of the forest, huh, Phil?” Mitchell put his hands on his hips with a playful expression crossing his face.
Phil let out a loud laugh mixed with a deep sob that he didn’t know he had been holding in. The four friends embraced in a cheesy hug as raindrops showered over them. Phil felt that hard lump disappear in his throat as he released his friends, and Nolan lifted a hand to point behind Phil.
“That’s the old wagon wheel rock!” Nolan exclaimed, and the four friends followed his finger to the large boulder with the outline of a wheel etched into it. It was the landmark that showcased they were almost out of the forest. Phil’s face broke out into a reassured smile as the four boys began to march through the rain back toward Phil’s house.
Teagan Oliva is a sophomore at RMC currently majoring in English education. She loves her ENG 122: Creative Writing class and her entire women’s golf team with all her heart, and she can’t survive a day without a cup of coffee.
The Rocky Mountain Review 