The forest loomed above two young girls, standing silently at its entrance. One had long,dark purple hair and light brown eyes. The other had short black hair and bewitching green eyes. They both carried identical, large black backpacks.

"The forest looks perfectly normal to me. What do you think, ?"said the black-haired girl, to her companion.

"Well, Sarah, maybe that's just how it looks on the outside. Come on, lets go." replied Annie.

With that, the two girls strolled hand in hand into the Hoia Baciu forest, the most haunted forest in the world.

They walked past tall trees and stepped upon patches of golden sunlight. For some time, they laughed and talked together.

"This is a beautiful place, isn't it?"declared Sarah.

But Annie wasn't listening. Her light brown eyes were focused on something in the distance.

"Annie? What is it?" asked her friend."

"Loook, there's a section where the trees' trunks are growing in a spiral!"Annie exclaimed in wonder.

"Let's go climb them!" suggested Sarah, and she grabbed Annie's hand and sprinted off in the direction of the strange trees.

"How queer! Have you ever seen this before!" Sarah loudly inquired, when they got there. Her voice echoed throughout the empty forest.

As she said this, all the abnormal trees began to move. They twisted away from the sky and reached the ground. Then they slowly straightened out their trunks, inching toward the girls as they did so. A dreadful groaning sound could be heard from inside the trees as they moved closer.

"Run!" Annie ordered, and she dragged Sarah and herself under the trees, narrowly missing a heavy blow from

the bark of an oak tree.The two girls ran deeper into the forest, screaming. The other curved pines and oaks swerved through the path and tried to block their way, moving a little faster every time their hiking boots slammed against the forest floor.

"I..think.. I can see.....normal...trees ahead."panted Sarah.

"I don't think..we'll get there...in time.. I need...a respite." At that very moment, without warning, a huge pine smashed into Sarah's back, sending her as well as Annie,who was clutching her hand, flying through the air.

Luckily, they landed on a sturdy bough of a normal oak tree, agitating it. The girls held on to the branch for their dear lives as it shook.

"Ohhh..."moaned Sarah, "I think that tree has done permanent damage to my poor back."

"Um, Sarah? I really don't think this is a good time for whining about your back." said Annie.

"I'm not! I suppose you think being hit in the back by a prickly pine tree doesn't hurt at all, don't you?" Sarah snapped, angrily.

"Sarah, listen. How are we to get off this tree? We can't climb down it because that branch won't hold our weight."

"Oh. Sorry." Sarah apologized.

The two chums began to think of a way to get down.

At last, Annie jumped up with excitement. " Of course! We can place the rope that we packed around this bough, tie ourselves to each end and jump down at the same time! It's about twenty feet long or more which should be more than enough."

"Annie, wait!" cried Sarah. "I'm hungry. Can we have a snack up here in this tree?"

"Oh, alright. Lets eat some sandwiches and these sweet citruses." agreed Annie, digging the food they had packed out of their bags.

After eating an adequate amount of food, Sarah and Annie tied the rope around their waist and then jumped.

But Sarah was not able to jump because her back was injured. So Annie ended up hitting the ground and

banging both her knees, while Sarah fell off the tree, sprawling on top of her friend's aching legs."

"Ow, ow ow! Sarah Kindle, what are you doing? I already hurt my knees so badly, and then you want to jump onto my legs." Annie snapped.

"I feel sick. I think we should have climbed down first." said Sarah, and she flopped down onto the ground. She really did look sick. Her face had turned pale. Without warning, she threw up all over the ground.

"Sarah! Are you okay?" asked Annie, worriedly.

"Yeah.. I think so. I need to rest for a bit, vomiting is strenuous." she answered, weakly.

Sarah fell asleep and the sun began to sink. Annie

began to gather some fallen branches together. She then arranged them in a cone shape, and she tied the tops of the boughs together with the rope, creating a tepee. Finally, she made sure the boughs were stuck firmly in the ground

By that time, the sun was nearly gone, and Annie decide to wake Sarah up.

When Sarah aroused, Annie told her to move a few branches away from the tree and go inside.

"What? We're supposed to sleep in that hovel?" Sarah responded. Although she was reluctant to go inside, she did as she was told.

The two friends were exhausted, so they fell asleep quickly. A few minutes later a bloodcurdling howl woke

the girls up with a start.

"What was that?"they both asked at the same time.

They sat close together, shivering from fear.

"It seems like we're in trouble again." Sarah whispered.

"Shush! I heard foot...ahhhh!" Annie never got to finish her sentence, because at that very moment, a huge dog drifted through the feeble branches of the tepee. It was a ghost.

"Annie, I think we should run." suggested Sarah, in a barely audible whisper.

But Annie was oblivious to her words. She stared into the ghost's eyes, entranced. The ghost dog glided toward her slowly.

"Annie! Let's go!" cried Sarah, waving her hand in front of her face. But it was not enough, Annie remained under the dog's enchantment.

The ghost was so close now, Sarah could almost touch its nose. In vain, Sarah tried to drag Annie away, but she wouldn't budge. Then Sarah made a big mistake. She looked straight into its eyes with hate, and she too was lost in the ghost dog's spell. It stopped moving slowly and lunged toward the girls with an open mouth, ready to freeze them with a bite from a foul, icy-cold mouth...

Just at that very moment, a huge red-eyed wolf toppled over the tepee and jumped in front of the ghost, disrupting its meal.

Immediately, Sarah and Annie came back to their senses, only to meet another horror before their eyes.

The wolf was slinking toward them, with a slightly open mouth from which a single thread of saliva hung from an incredibly sharp canine.

"Let's go!" screamed Sarah, grasping Annie's hand as tightly as possible, as she raced through the forest, unaware of the direction she was going in.

The two chums ran through fogs and mists, past gnarled, old trees, and at last, they slumped down under a big cedar tree to rest. But no sooner had they sat down, they heard the telltale sound of panting and running paws.

"What do we do? I can't run anymore, and it sounds like there's more than one wolf." said Sarah in despair.

"We have to climb this tree."said Annie, just as a pack of huge, intimidating wolves came into view. They made a circle around the tree and started to close in around the flustered girls.

Sarah and Annie climbed as fast as their shaking legs would allow them to, narrowly missing nips from the wild animals.

The wolves growled and tried to jump up the tree, but they only succeeded in breaking the lowest branches by jumping upon them with too much force. In the end, the wolves decide to wait until their prey capitulated and climbed down.

"They will sit here forever if we don't get down, which means that we will also have to stay here too."Sarah

concluded in a whisper.

"We've got to drag their attention away from us."Annie thought out loud.

Then a queer thing occurred. Their predators began to dance around the tree, and they appeared to be singing a strange, haunting song. Then they stared up into the tree. Their ugly, red eyes were replaced by big, cute brown ones. Evidently, this was a blatant way to draw their pray to them, but Annie and Sarah made the mistake of looking at them. When the two friends saw how cute the wolves looked, they simply could not resist the urge to go down and pet at least one of them, and that is exactly what they did.

All at once, the wild dogs' adorable faces vanished, and they sprang at the girls.

Thinking quickly, Annie grabbed Sarah's hand and leaped over a wolf that was in the process of pouncing on top of her.

Annie managed to get over the wolf with impunity, but Sarah, unable to jump due to her injured back, smacked into the wolf's great, grey, fury body, sending them both to the ground, withlanding rather ungracefully on top of it.

The wolf grunted, and Sarah moaned as she got up slowly. "My back, my back!"

"Sarah, we don't have time for this! Don't worry, your injury doesn't seem to be that urgent."said Annie, as she

pulled her companion up and dragged her away from the obnoxious wolves.

"We need to get out of here now." panted Annie, as she ran through the wood, swerving this way and that, trying to throw the wolves who were still following them off track.

"If we stay here for a few more hours, we're probably going to die."said Annie.

"We can't get out if we don't know the way out, so we are probably going to have to stay here for more than a few hours."Sarah retorted candidly.

After running for miles, Annie stopped, believing the dogs to be miles away by now. The sun had already decided to show its face; it was morning.

"Let's eat something. I'm starving!"said Sarah, as she opened her dirty back pack. All that was left were a couple of apples and tangerines in each bag.

Both girls gobbled some tangerines and a single apple before beginning their journey again.

"I'm exhausted. We really need to rest a bit. We slept very little last night. Shall we take a nap on this soft grass?"pleaded Annie.

Sarah, who was feeling tired as well, decided that they couldn't go on if they did not have any energy, so it would be wise to take a nap before continuing.

After about an hour or so, an eerie hissing noise aroused the two pals.