UCSD Gothic: Take a stroll through the Woods.
You turn left, heading down the path into the Woods. Pleased by your choice, the fog grows, swirling around you and caressing your body in a thick embrace. You feel it grasp your hand and pull you further, deeper into the line of trees. Before you go more than ten feet, the Woods have swallowed you whole. Already you can no longer see the towering figure of Sun God, the mists having left Him for you.
You walk and you walk and you walk, no direction in mind but forward. You walk until you can’t anymore. In the thick mists, you hadn’t seen the blue netting, lowered from its giraffe catching height to more human sensibilities, but now you’re caught. You try pulling away but the netting clings to your jacket, like glue or a spider’s web. There is a shuffle somewhere deep in the woods, leaves rustling. There is a long moment of nothing but the sounds of your struggling against the net to break the silence of the night, but then you hear it again. Leaves crunching, the sound of a twig snapping underfoot. The hairs on the back of your neck rise as you are filled with the certainty that you are no longer alone.
From behind you, a sudden noise appears out of the quiet and low sounds of your struggling. A high-pitched chittering, like mocking laughter, floats among and between the trees. When you turn to look, all you can see in the fog is a pair of glowing eyes, gleaming white in the dark. The laughter grows in number and, as you watch, the number of eyes grow with it.
You try pulling away from the netting again, but like every time before, your hoodie can’t escape the grip of the net. The eyes come nearer, closing in on you, and with a striking moment of clarity, you pull your arms in and duck, escaping the confines of your jacket and freeing you at last. Immediately, your arms prickle with goosebumps under the caressing arms of the cool mist but you don’t pay it any mind. You run. But where to?
As your feet pound beneath you, you look up and see the lights from the windows of Geisel Library visible above mists and the treetops. It seems so far away, impossibly far, as if the Woods had become twice as large in the darkness of night, but at least it’s a recognizable landmark.
Your foot slips on the slick leaves which litter the floor and you slide down the slope of the woods before catching yourself. Huh. That’s another option.
