When we reached the cursed forest, the whole atmosphere changed. Where plants and animals had seemed strange, but familiar in the forbidden forest, they were totally alien in the cursed forest. It was like a completely different world. The trees were twisted and misshapen. The branches were like grasping fingers, reaching out for us. Their leaves were dark and sinister, like the wings of a raven. The animals were all wrong. The deer were skeletal, their eyes glowing red. The rabbits were enormous, almost like small bears. It felt as if the clouds in the sky grew even darker. My senses went on high alert. This was not a safe place. I almost felt as if something was watching me, but I couldn’t see anything or sense where it was coming from. I looked around, trying to find what was wrong.

