What does a 12-year-old kid do when they have a terrifying dream of being chased by a giant, growling, razor-toothed silver wolf in the woods of her dream realm? Go to the woods in real life, of course, because that’s definitely the way to make all that terrifying imagery go away.

At least that was my logic that early fall day.

I had probably forgotten about it at that point, or didn’t consider that it was probably a sign that some bad things were going to happen. But in my dream realm, anything could happen, considering that it contained all the places where my repeated dreams took place, and I would try to fix what happened last time the events happened but still not registering it as a dream. I guess I thought going to the woods was a good idea because my dreams are in no way realistic nor do they tell the future.

Well, that day it ironically did, but not in the way I expected it to.

“And you were there, too, for a little bit. We were being chased and we climbed up on this giant log on the edge of this clearing, and that thing happened where you are trying to run really fast but your legs don’t move and you’re terrified of being caught but you never do somehow?!” I was ranting, and my friend Ella, who was with me that day in the little forest right next to my neighborhood, nodded furiously.

“That’s so weird,” she had said while hopping onto the rocks littering the ground on the hill. She had her eyes trained on the rocks, her feet never touching the ground as if the floor was lava and she’d die if she touched even the browning leaves that had just fallen onto the hard earth. “You’re saying that that dream is actually one of your few realistic ones?”

“I know, and that one’s still weird.” We always went on the same path every time we went into the woods: Ride our bike and scooter down the hill onto the sidewalk of the park which to our complaints was a park but didn’t have a playground. Run through the grassy clearing, dubbed with the not-so-creative “grassylands” nickname and head diagonally southwest to the hidden path/not path on the edge of the clearing.

We’d run along that side path into the forest and attempt to do a cool jump over the humongous, fallen log that was propped up by the hill to the right that seemed to encompass about half of this part of the woods and making the terrain we were in seem like a shallow bowl. Continue past our ‘island’ carved out by the winding creek that we used to play in, and continue following the water to the small patch of land where the creek curved and took a swift turn in the other direction. It was our special spot.

We used two long sticks to hold, one for each hand to keep ourselves propped up and balanced, when we crossed the creek. We’d dig the ends of the sticks into the earth under the fast, flowing water and use them like stilts as we crossed over a log that had fallen down in the most convenient place right at our spot. The other side of the creek and up the hill was where we were that day, near a seemingly ancient tree which was about how far we were willing to go.

It was calm and quiet, like it usually was by that tree, the birds almost gone and the only sounds besides us talking were the light crunch of brown leaves falling on the ground and the skitter scatter of chipmunks and squirrels scavenging for the winter.

It was a really nice five minutes before all went to chaos.

When we heard it, Ella and I both knew what it was. We had experience with it hands on ourselves to prepare for when we went hunting with our dads.

B o o m.

The loud sound that seemed to come from behind the two of us echoed through the forest, vibrating through our ears.

A shiver went up my spine and before I knew it I had swerved my head towards my friend. She’d fallen down the rock in shock and was already staring back at me.

Her usually fearless and passionate deep brown eyes bore into mine, widened.

Cold, grey eyes stared back, and it took about 0.23 seconds for us to stare into each other’s souls and telepathically reach each other’s thoughts like the psychics we thought we were to make a decision.

We booked it.

I don’t think I’ll ever run as fast in my life like I did that day.

Suddenly she was a blur of brown and I a blur of blonde as we sprinted like if we went any slower, we’d die.

Those steep, small hills we’d complained every time about climbing? Oh, that was child’s play now, not even considered. The creek we had so carefully crossed less than five minutes ago? We jumped it like it wasn’t even there (I think one of us even pole vaulted across). The giant log we’d failed at parkouring over? Screw that, we were leaping like gazelles over that thing without batting an eye.

We crashed through the edge of the forest, ditching the path that was there and not caring about the thin branches scratching our face and in our way. We were bulldozers now, trying to leave as fast as our little legs could let us run.

When we reached the clearing we finally spoke to each other, not stopping even though we were completely exhausted. And anything we did say wasn’t even coherently logical either, it was more or less a mixture of “OH MY GOD” ‘s, “SOMEONE WAS IN THE WOODS”, “WE ALMOST DIED”, “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”,  and an assortment of other phrases.

We didn’t even stop at the bench at the sidewalk that lead back into the neighborhood. I jumped on my old and almost falling apart scooter and Ella leapt onto my brand new bike and we just rode, my right foot pushing against the concrete to move as fast as the scooter could possibly go in an uncontained rhythm that could only be described as panic. Pro tip, kids: Never flee for your life on a scooter, it’s not good at going very fast.

After we rode up the hill and turned onto my street, we slowed down a little. Ella was ahead of me with no intention of slowing down for an almost broken-down scooter, and I desperately tried to keep up with my aching foot still pounding on the hard cement.

My house was the third house down from the intersection after we rode up the hill and turned, and as soon as we rode up my driveway, both of us practically flew off our designated vehicles and threw them onto the empty, freshly-mowed lawn.

Not stopping, we kept going right into the open garage and out through the door that lead right from the garage into our large, open fenced in backyard. As we slammed the door open and ran onto our wooden deck, my mother, who had been reading in a chair underneath our sun umbrella, looked up, startled by the sudden interruption.

The two of us finally stopped moving, panting but resisting the urge to just collapse on the ground and passing out in exhaustion. As my mom got out of her chair, confusion stretched across her face, the two of us started to explain to her what had happened:

“We were by the creek-”

“And then we heard a gunshot!”

“So we just looked at each other-”

“And we booked it as fast as we could!”

“There was someone in the forest-

“With a gun! We could’ve died!”

As we were yelling out more and more nonsense, my mom just stood there with a confused look on her face, taking it all in.

When we finally finished, the two of us scared out of our minds, grabbing onto each other and now even more tired from talking so much…. My mom laughed.

And the only thought I had was Hello?!

Excuse me?

Ella and I shared a glance before I cried out, “What’s so funny?” My own mother was laughing at this after we had heard a gunshot in the woods!

“Girls, it’s Sunday.” She said, her face softening.

“What does that have to do with anything?!” I asked.

My mom looked at us scared out of our minds. Eyes identical to mine met hers, and I breathed in a little deeper, calming down a bit.

Seeing this, she continued. “You know our neighbour two streets down that sets off a firework every time we win a game?”

Holy @#*%.

My face paled as I looked at my friend, who had the same look on her face. My lack of being able to remember things like this failed me once again because our brains short-circuited to gunshot.

“Are you kidding me.” I said, quietly, staring at my mom blankly, who started to laugh a little again.

“We ran for our lives,” Ella yelled, “for a FIREWORK?!”

We looked at each other again, this stare was different as I could see her eyes soften a little. I could see my reflection in them as we read each other’s minds again.

We finally collapsed on the rough, wooden boards and laughed.

We laughed on the floor until we ran out of breath, and then laughed some more. We laughed because we weren’t going to get shot by a psycho in the woods because the psycho didn’t exist and we had run from one measly firework because our neighbour had to be extra every time our football team won. We laughed because it was over, that now we could tell a dramatic story to our friends about how we almost died and then yell PSYCHE!!!

I think we both recognized that someone in the woods with a gun, the scenario we thought we were in, was still a possibility that was realistic enough for us to react so strongly to something that sounded like a gunshot. We’d explored pretty far in those woods and seen a blue tarp that had looked like it was a makeshift home in the distance before, which is probably also why we ran so fast because a person actually could have been living there or could have had a gun and could have shot at us. We didn’t say it out loud, but we knew. I still remember the dream I had the night before, us being chased by the wolf in my dream world, because of this event and I wonder if it’s a coincidence or not. I found it strange that my one realistic dream came true the next day, aside from not being able to run faster or the actual wolf. In this case, the wolf was the bullet we thought was there.

I don’t really go to that forest anymore, despite there not actually being a psycho killer in the woods. I’d like to think it’s because of the massive amounts of bugs there in the summer and the emptiness it suddenly becomes in the fall, the coldness in the winter, and the flooding and threat of those mosquitoes coming back in the spring. But I think I’m actually just paranoid of seeing someone in the woods, ready to fire an actual bullet through my chest.

It makes me sad.

But, paranoia aside, I still like to laugh about it nonetheless and hope I won’t have to be that terrified over something again.