When I entered the forest, I was a small child, dwarfed by the trees
and cowed by their silence. The forest was a grove of trees out behind
the elementary school. The trees were tall, their leaves so high and
I so small that all I saw were bare brown trunks with a dusty ground
below them. Nothing green grew in the grove, and the pine needles
on the ground had been there a very long time.

I had not come into the forest alone, but now I found myself alone, and
suddenly I was frightened. Where had my brother and sister gone?
They led me in here with the stipulation that they would not leave me
and they have broken another promise. I see no one; I hear nothing
in the emptiness other than the sound of an occasional bird high
in the trees above. The feeling of solitude is overwhelming.

Then I hear a dog barking in the distance and I am terrified. I stifle a cry.
I feel the urge to run, to find safety in the trees but I cannot climb
these trees, they are too tall. The dog is coming closer yet I still
have nowhere to go. I begin to move blindly away from the sound,
not caring that I may be lost in the grove of trees, not caring that I may
be moving even further away from the comfort and safety of home.

I continue to move away from the barking but I am confused. Is he still
behind me or is he off to the side? Is that an echo or is there more than one dog?
Now I fear he is in front of me and I run blindly in any direction
that does not sound of dog or loneliness. I run blindly until suddenly
I burst out of the grove to find my brother and sister and the other children
standing before me, staring at something in the trees. Their faces are
expressionless, their eyes are slack. Their minds seem empty of thought,
hypnotized. I dare not turn around. I hear the scream coming from
somewhere in the grove behind me, or is it beside me? I can no longer tell
until slowly I realize the scream is coming from me.