Lena liked the quiet forest behind her grandmother's house.
The trees were tall and bent, making the forest seem dark and strange. As a
kid, Lena played there a lot, pretending to explore. But she never went to the
middle of the forest, where the Whispering Grove was. Her grandmother told her
many times.
“Stay away from the Grove, Lena. Strange things live there,”
her grandmother said, her voice shaking a bit. Lena listened to her grandmother
until she was twenty.
That summer, Lena's grandmother got very sick, so Lena moved
in to take care of her. One night, as Lena sat by her grandmother's bed, the
old woman grabbed her hand.
“The Whispering Grove... It’s calling you, Lena. You must
go,” she said, her eyes wide with fear.
Before Lena could ask what she meant, her grandmother fell
asleep. The doctors said she might not wake up. Lena needed answers, so she did
something she was always told not to do.
It was a cold, dark night. With a flashlight and her
bravery, Lena went into the forest. The paths she knew well looked scary in the
dark, but she kept going. As she got closer to the middle of the forest, the
air got colder, and she heard soft whispers from the trees.
Finally, she reached the Whispering Grove. The trees there
were the tallest and thickest she had ever seen. In the middle stood an old oak
tree, its trunk black and twisted like it was burned.
Lena walked to the oak tree, and the whispers got louder.
She almost understood them. When she touched the tree, a freezing shock went
through her arm.
Images filled her mind: her grandmother as a young woman in
the same grove, surrounded by people chanting in a strange language. Her
grandmother looked scared as a dark figure came out of the tree, its eyes
glowing with evil.
Lena stumbled back, gasping. The whispers turned into
screams. She tried to run, but shadows wrapped around her ankles, pulling her
down.
With all her strength, she broke free and ran until she was
back in her grandmother's house. She closed the door and fell down, shaking.
The next morning, Lena woke up to find her grandmother
sitting up in bed, looking better than she had in years. She smiled at Lena,
her eyes calm.
“You went to the Grove, didn’t you?” she asked softly. Lena
nodded, unable to speak.
Her grandmother sighed. “The forest has protected our family
for a long time, but it needs something in return. Now that you’ve been touched
by its darkness, you must guard it, like I did, until the next generation is
ready.”
Lena felt heavy-hearted. She had to take care of the
Whispering Grove and its secrets. As she looked out the window at the dark
forest, she knew her life had changed.
At night, when the whispers started again, she knew the
shadows were always watching, waiting for her to make a mistake so they could
take her.
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