Short story

       My brother and I were walking through the woods one Halloween day when we saw what appeared to be a short cut. "Let's go that way", my brother said. He grabbed my hand and we ran towards the hidden path. The leaves were extremely dry that day, so walking through the woods was a lot of fun. We were taking huge steps, trying to make as much noise as we could as we ran through the short cut. This short cut however, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.
       "How come we've never seen this before? We go this way all the time and I've never seen this path", I said, slowing our run to a walk. I didn't feel safe at that moment. Everything looked different; the trees were hunched over, almost as if they were trying to grab us with their branches. It seemed to be darker now, almost like the sun wasn't strong enough to shine through these haunting trees. What scared me the most however, was how quiet it was. Completely silent. No birds. No wind. nothing. Ryan of course, didn't seem to notice.
       "We just never looked hard enough I guess. Come on, I'm sure we're almost there", he said, trying to reassure me. Ryan was always trying to make me feel better, even while bringing me places he knew I didn't want to go. Then all of a sudden, we took another step and before I knew it, we were falling. It seemed like we fell forever, but I'm sure it was only a few minutes.
       Ryan hit the ground first. The only reason I know this is because I landed on top of him. We were in shock, laying there among the leaves. Still, nothing made a sound. We were too scared to move, to speak. Eventually, I rolled off of Ryan, but our eyes never left each other. Too afraid to look at our surroundings, we kept stairing at each other's faces. Where did my brave brother go? He must still be up there, because the Ryan that I found at the bottom of that hole was just as afraid as I was; I was just better at hiding it.
       "What do we do? Meg, we need to get out of here. I want to go home. We need to get home", he whispered with great worry. His eyes were wide, and he was grabbing my shoulders, slighty shaking me with everything he said. What was I supposed to do? I was just his little sister.
       "Calm down, Ryan. You've got to calm down. We're smart, we can figure this out", I said outloud. "This path isn't that far away from the one we take home from school. Maybe if we yell, someone will hear us. Kids have to still be walking home, right?" And with that, we screamed for help. We screamed until our throats were hoarse, and then we screamed some more. Nothing. Not  a single soul heard us.