When I was 8, my brother Andrew and I use to always play in the woods. Moma always got mad when we played back there, but that didn't stop us from sneaking out. She told us that a crazy man lives in an old cabin far out in the woods, but we believed she was just trying to scare us.

That was our first mistake.

Every day Andrew and I would dare each other to go into the woods, but never would until one night on my 13th birthday. I found my bravery and set out into the woods with my younger brother in tow. Fog surrounded us, yet we saw in the distance that the fog seemed to avoid a strange cabin. We've heard of this mysterious cabin, and we knew of the rumors. Mama always told us fables, and we used to believe her but I felt I outgrew these lies. I wanted to prove my maturity, so I set out to check out the cabin.

I'm sure at some point it was a beautiful cabin, but now it was decayed and looked as if at any minute it could crumble to the ground.

I made my way up to the house careful not to damage any of the lawn, although it really didn't matter since his whole "lawn" was the woods. The cabin had old, rickety steps so when I made my way up them they creaked and whined as if they were in pain. The door almost seemed to have a face, with two ominous windows on the top of the cabin, a door knocker in a mangled shape in the middle of the door, followed by a mail slot at the bottom.

Andrew stood watch about 20 feet away looking more frightened than I, although I didn't know if that was possible. He gave me an expectant look, so I gathered up my courage and grabbed the knocker. I pulled the heavy knocker back and...

That was our last mistake.

I woke up in an emergency room with broken bones and severe pain in my right eye. I saw the doctor and Mama talking off to my left, but I could sense that my brother wasn't nearby. As if reading my mind, the doctor came up to me and explained. "You made it out barely alive, while your brother wasn't so lucky..." My heart broke, and I didn't hear another word from the doctor. He was gone... I, his big sister, had failed to save him. At that moment the heartache dulled any physical pain I had, and I lost myself. The fables... the so-called lies told to us... all of it was true.

And now here I am at 18 years old reliving my story of horror. It has taken me years to be able to even think of the event without feeling my heart tear.

Despite the loss of my right eye, the worst part is the nightmares I've grown accustomed to. Nightmares of the rickety steps breaking open to reveal jagged teeth within, of my brother getting dragged by tree roots, of ear-splitting screams from what seemed like a thousand sources, a hoarse voice laughing, and the scariest of them all, me staring straight into the crazy man's dark, deranged eyes.