I was lost in a deep forest. It was getting cold and dark and I didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly I reached an old, crumbling house. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. The door was not locked and I opened it. I could see an oil heater. I wanted to make a fire in it. But there was no lamp oil. So I could not light it. Also there was some emergency food on the table. But they were almost eaten. I searched the house and there were many tools such as radio, watch, and knapsack. The radio and watch did not work, and the knapsack was terribly torn.

　After a while, my friends Yuji and Mikio came to help me. I asked them about this terribly torn knapsack. All of us watched and said, “Oh! It’s so terrible!” and Mikio said, “But it’s strange isn’t it? Why did the owner of this knapsack do that?” And I said “So who did such a thing? Whose is that.” I looked at it carefully and noticed there was a key-holder of a rabbit. I thought the owner was a girl. Yuji said to us, “It’s really strange isn’t it?” We nodded. Mikio said “Let’s arrange it. I don’t know when the owner comes back.” Then I suspected someone at the window. “What!?” said Yuji. Suddenly, someone knocked the door and opened. A stranger came in and said, “Hello. Can I come in?” We were surprised but Yuji answered “sure”. Then the stranger said, “Well, he said OK. Come in”. Then two other people came into the house. Their names were Shuichi, Yoshikazu and Kenji. They were reporters of a TV program. They came here to report the nature of the forest. We decided to sleep together.

  Yuji went out from the house to go to gents. Suddenly something stood in front of him. He didn’t know what it was. He heard a roar. He was surprised and ran away. But it followed him.

  Other people were sleeping. But we were woken by a roar. Everyone was also surprised and saw the outside of the house. There was a … bear behind Yuji! And Yuji was coming to the house. But on his way, he tumbled down! No one could do anything. All they could do was watch the bear eat him…

  Morning came. But we could not go or see outside. Because they thought there was a dead body on the ground…

  But there were few foods. So we had to go out from this forest. This forest was in the mountains. A river runs through the forest. And we only can come into the forest by crossing the hanging bridge.

  We decided to escape from the forest. We were ready to go away soon and started to walk. We walked over 2 hours. At last we reached the bridge. But it was… terribly broken…

   We were really disappointed. And we started to think what we should do next. Mikio said to us, “OK everyone. We can see the river on the map. If we go along the river, we may reach the town!” “Oh! That’s a great idea!!” said Yoshikazu. But it was already 3 o’clock. We didn’t know if we could reach the town safely or not. I strongly said, “I think we have to escape from here as soon as possible. Shall we go along this river right now?”

“Yes, let’s!” said Shuichi. We went down to the river and began to walk again. The way was so long for us that we were so tired and getting slower.

  We had walked for over an hour. Mikio and Yoshikazu and I were too tired to follow others. Suddenly, we could see the light of the town! “Yeah! We can see the goal now!” said Yoshikazu. We dashed. We didn’t feel fatigue then. And we could see reporters waiting for us. “They are waiting. Let’s go faster!” said Mikio. At last, we caught up with them.

  Suddenly, we could hear the roaring sound. It was like a sound of heavy rain. But it was fine then. “What’s that sound?” Mikio asked me in a tearful voice. We were in the depth of despair. There was… a big waterfall just before us…

  It was already 6:30. We could not move from there because of hunger, sleepiness, and… fear of the bear. We decided to sleep there by using sleeping bags. We started to make a fire. Because we know that animals fear the fire. But there is an exception. Bears have a curiosity rather than a fear about fire…

  I have started to think that why the bear attacked us. Just then, Toshikazu said to us, “Hey boys! Do you know the bear which was given food by human being could come eat human being?” We were really surprised. Four years ago, we came here and found one cute bear. We named him Kuro. And we gave a sweet to it. I could not say that to anyone, Mikio also. Just then, the bear came to us. We fell into a doze. We could not do anything. The bear began to eat reporters. Kenji, Yoshikazu, Shuichi… We were hopeless. But it began to stop eating and bring them to its house. Bears have a habit that they bring their food to their house. Three people were enough to have eaten for it. I woke my friends. We had to decide what to do then. But a pool of blood made our consideration confused. At last, we were beaten. We jumped into the waterfall…

  …… Now we are writing this story in the next world. This story is a message for you.

 

THE END