The Truth

"Excuse me? Is anyone home?" a muffled voice yells from behind the wooden door "Hello?" A loud thud from inside the apartment room alerting the small woman outside that there indeed is someone home. The door opens to reveal a skinny woman standing behind it, glaring at their visitor. "Are you Victoria Knight?", a timid voice asks, glancing uncertainly up at the taller woman standing in the doorway. "Yes, but what's it to you?", the woman now know as Victoria says, leaning against the door frame seemingly disinterested in the conversation and the lady opposite her. "Well you see Ms. Knight, my name is Nicole York and I am here to speak to you about the Careless Camping case-", Nicole is cut off by the slam of a door and an angry grunt from the other side.

"I'm not going to waste my time talking about those damn bears again! I don't know what you were expecting, coming here, but I won't tell you anything other than what was already televised", Victoria says furiously, wanting very much for Nicole to leave her alone. To her surprise, instead of hearing frustrated footsteps receding from her front door, she hears a light chuckle from the interviewer and a few clicks of a pen. "Unlike all those other idiots at the news station who care only about getting paid than finding out the truth, I actually looked deeper and realised", Nicole pauses for a second, recollecting all the information she had obtained before continuing "That it wasn't bears at all that killed your friends, was it? There's more to this story and I'm here to get it all!" Victoria was silent for a moment making Nicole worry she had accidentally scared away her only chance at finding out the truth.

To her great relief, the door swung open and without a word, Victoria motioned for her to come in. Victoria went into the kitchen and Nicole took this as an invitation to sit down on a couch in the living room. Nicole looked around Victoria's small, but homely apartment. Though it was cramped, the pillows and variously colourful photos gave the tiny living area a cozy feeling which Nicole settled into almost immediately. A few minutes after she sat down, Victoria sloped back into the room holding two cups off coffee. She tensed slightly when she saw where Nicole was sitting and just stood staring at her.

"Are you alright Victoria?", Nicole asked uncertainly seeing as Victoria hadn't moved for a while. Victoria shook her head and shakily set the cups down on the coffee table, barely able to contain herself, but suddenly collapsed into a chair sobbing uncontrollably. Nicole, being quite alarmed, rushed ovr to her host and started patting her back, trying to comfort her "Victoria! What's wrong?" "I-I'm..... I'm sorry", Victoria says quietly recovering from her sudden breakdown "I just.... That was Dan's chair." Nicole looked at her questioningly while Victoria stared at the couch that Nicole had been sitting on earlier "Dan was my.... He was my boyfriend." "Was?", Nicole asks "What happened to him?" Victoria looks right ahead glaring at seemingly nothing "He was one of the campers who were killed by that- that thing! I... I could have saved him, but I just.... I hate those monsters!"

Nicole saw anger and hatred in her eyes, but also recognised a brocken woman inside. "Whatever you saw, whatever killed your friends.... Just know I will believe it all. The world needs to know what really happened in that forest.", Nicole whispered solemly and waited for Victoria to answer. "I'm ready", Victoria says, taking a deep breath and trying to calm her beating heart "Where do I start?" Nicole grinned slightly at her willingness and sat down on another chair beside Victoria. She took out a voice recorder and a notebook out of a bag slung over her shoulder and sat comfortably in the silence for a moment, then finally spoke "At the beginning. I would very much like to hear everything."

Victoria leans down in her own chair snd thinks to herself. "Are you sure you will believe me?", she says, still hesitating due to her nerves. "Please, trust me Ms. Knight and I shall, in return trust you.", says Nicole giddily, ready for any important information she might hear. Victoria sips her coffee and finally starts "No need for the formalities Ms. York, you may call me Vicky. And if I were to start at the beginning, then.... I should tell you how we even got stuck in that forest in the first place and no, we weren't being risky. We didn't even mean to go in there. You see...."