Chapter 18: 18 – Forest

Light passed through the crown of leaves embracing this thick forest. An autumn wind picked up dead leaves and swirled them over the land in a beautiful display to be left alone carpeting the ground, only to be picked up again in an endless dance. A hidden stream flowed downhill, passing near a man-made clearing deep in these woods. Chatter rose from the clearing, human voices crossed the forest, for her to hear, to wait, to stalk, for the inevitable moment brewing under their murderous steps. In it, two figures talked.

“Bryan, where’s your brother and sister?”

“Gathering firewood.”

“Good, we all have responsibilities.”

“What else could they do here, father?”

“It was an opportunity and we took it.”

The young adult looked around. Her forest remained silent.

“I can see the opportunities popping all over...”

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

“By we, you mean you, right?”

“You’ll see. We’ll build something here.” The young man’s father turned his head. “Look at the house we built last years’ summer. In two years, we built a home. Ours. And this land... you’ll see.”

Bryan stood unconvinced.

Father and son continued toiling at their land until dusk. Both worked hard on their fields preparing them for this seasons’ rotation.

“Lit a torch. These fields are ready to burn.”

Bryan brought a burning torch near a batch of dried foliage, it caught fire and flames soon engulfed their entire fields. A pyre formed, rising high while fading into a crimson background, an unnerving and unnoticed calm befell the forest.

Father and son gazed into the fire, one saw his dreams slowly burn away while the other yearned for past farmer glories. But both ignored her forest’s eyes watched their patch of land, observing their every offense.

The burning organic matter’s chemical trace signaled her duty to begin.

“Marian, you won’t catch me!” yelled a boy running through the forest.

“Joseph, not so fast, I’m the one carrying the firewood!” his elder sister shouted.

“Drop it Marian, let’s play for a little longer!”

“We already played a lot, I’m tired and it’s getting dark.”

They smelled smoke coming from their farm.

“Ah! They’re already burning it! I told them to wait...,” Joseph cried out, rushing off in its direction.

“Wait Joseph! Watch your step!”

Her younger brother disappeared amongst the vegetation. With the sun almost gone, she made haste trying to keep up with him when a shout reached her ears through the silence, coming several steps before her.

“Marian!”

She heard her little brother yell her name and ran towards him, firewood in hand.

“I told you to be careful!”

She saw her brother sitting on the ground but failed to notice the shocked look on his face.

“Joseph, did you-”

At that moment Marian saw her standing several steps near her brother. The figure before them barely registered against the foliage. Two bright eyes glowing through the darkness betrayed her existence. Vines crept from her, extending their reach in slow advances, imperceptible to the inexperienced. Tall, with a humanoid face and bleak eyes, she stared down at them.

Marian jumped back, dread crept in through her eyes, and dropped the firewood she had gathered. Nature eye’s fixated on Joseph. The young boy had cut himself after tripping against an old tree’s root and mashed together a healing paste his mother had taught him days ago, from nearby flowers, and applied it to his wound.

The imposing being didn’t speak nor move, a simple hiss, coming from behind her, broke her silent gaze. The kids knew about her otherworldly presence, but had never seen one in the flesh, only illustrations, whispers among farmers, stories devoid of merriment, legends and myths.

Marian slowly approached her brother and put a hand on his shoulder. The sylvan creature remained still, her unwavering sight crashed against them bordering disinterest. Was she there? Or was it a mere carcass? An empty reflection of existence, voiceless nature.

The time to return home arrived for Marian and Joseph.

“Let’s go back... Joseph.”

“Y-yes.”

“Everyone is waiting for us. Come now...”

At the utterance of those words a scream teared across the forest. It echoed the trees’ solitude and reverberated in the absence of conscious thought until it reached human ears.

“The kids!” shouted their father before running off into a forest that embraced him. Slower to react, the oldest son hurried behind him.

From their modest farmhouse a desperate figure stepped out. Their mother was cooking when she heard several high-pitched screams cross their burning fields, her blood pressure shot up, her thoughts stopped and her vision blurred for a moment. Her serious semblance vanished in anguish after she recognized those screams, but also the pain, fear, and desperation carried within.

*

A handful of days had passed since X’s masterful escape from Saint Jaulea. He tasted freedom, lost to demented beings but regained by will and cunning alone. And his stars aligning, of course. From that celebrated day until his present situation there had been nothing but trees, hunger and thirst. He slept over dried grass, chaotic thoughts circled him like ravens waiting to pluck out the little life he got left from his eyes, but instead, landed on his shoulders, whispering the curses he could not, towards the demon gods.

It wasn’t all hate, he professed them mockery and disdain too.

His scattered thoughts kept his mind working while he made sure to shade himself from the blistering sun for his heat intolerance transformed a mild autumn sun into a heat-stroke-inducing fiery ball of death. X’s situation could be tolerable if it wasn’t exacerbated by a lack of food and water. After getting tired of spitting non-swears, but fairly close to swearing’s theoretical limits, he got creative at testing the demon-gods imposed bounds, he pulled himself together. He and all his tattered self.

X foraged strange edible-looking plants along his path, similar to earth’s yet different. The objects of his hunger, he swallowed them in one bite, hoping not to die poisoned. He found a treasure next, narrow streams flowing from deep inside the forest, where he drank until he couldn’t walk straight. With an improved complexion X observed nature, making mental annotations. He saw birds and small animals, some of them looked familiar, others didn't and some looked outright bizarre and unappealing. Without being an expert nature scholar he tried to piece together the story of what his sights told him. Anything that could make sense, and thus, perhaps, the story that brought him here.

Now and then it appeared, from every shadow, after cool winds had danced with dried leaves, under every rock, from any weakness, awake or half asleep.

[Missing your cushy slavery?]

“You wish.”

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[You got what you wanted, look at all this freedom.]

“Are you jealous?”

[Have you lost your remaining marbles?]

Maybe he never had them to begin with.

Not a soul crossed his path for several days, or weeks. His emaciated mind had trouble keeping time or grasping any sense of direction where every turn of his head landed on the same sights. But his current isolation came with a blessing, he rested as much as he saw fit. Though he now understood the reach of the demon-gods’ curses; it didn’t matter if he rested for days or weeks, nothing would help him in any situation let alone a dangerous one. A simple yet effective solution the demon-gods came with where, without any positives or sense of progression, they knew many would lose their minds.

In practical terms it meant he had to tread carefully and thus, use more energy. A vicious cycle his current body couldn’t withstand, a situation crazed beings made so in their appetite for balance and a semblance of late morality. A simulation of godliness, he concluded.

X entertained these thoughts when strident noises reached his hidden, long and pointy ears. Men and women’s screams, laments, moans, conquering shouts and conquered cries mixed together in a cacophony of grand scale. He immediately recognized the symphony being played and ran as fast as his dilapidated condition allowed. After a short while he found a road, footsteps and carriage tracks on muddy grounds. The signs of violence emerged in droves.

Two distinct groups of men, some armored and others still holding their weapons, laid dead as he approached the carnage. Guards and bandits. X found normal folks alongside all kinds of beastly creatures’ bodies and body parts scattered along the road; adult males, females, teenagers and children. Women and girls, as well as their monstrous counterparts, laid wounded and half naked while others had their clothes completely teared off. The ones that fought back didn’t move, their lifeless eyes wide open watching the clear skies.

These bandits took captives.

Blood dripped from the carriages as he strolled between them. Mournful cries from mutilated bodies escaped bloodied lips. While crawling, shocked souls asked for help. X turned around the other way, he saw no one else.

“Oh! They want me to help.” He chuckled. “They’re out of luck. I can barely help myself.”

[Not that you’d help them... in any condition.]

Walking amongst the dead, it appeared again.

“What do you take me for?”

[One of the bandits if you had the chance.]

“You know me real well...”

Tearing cries interrupted his delusional dissertation.

“Noooo! My hand!”

“Clara! Claraaaaa!”

And didn’t stop.

“Why...? Oh my Gods, why!?”

“Please, someone!”

Sorrowful cries pierced flesh and bone.

“Papa! Mama! Wake up! They took Laria!”

The forest couldn’t contain the chants of the broken and threatened to spill their desperate pleas to the Gods along the prayers of those wishing for swift deliverance. X would’ve help with their last prayer, but not any longer, those same Gods saw to it.

“Oh... they think they are so clever...,” X said about those demon-gods as he popped into one of the broken carriages.

[Maybe they were right... if you’re still alive means someone fucked up somewhere.]

X ransacked their belongings and took everything he could use, putting food, clothes and utensils in a bag he saw near. He filled it to the brim but later desisted of this horrid idea and only took the bare minimum, lest it be too heavy for him to carry. With no time to lose X looted what he needed wary that bandits could still be nearby, guards could be on their way and the sorry peasants not completely chopped up were regaining their bearings.

[Stealing from the death? Back to business I see.]

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

He hopped off the bloodied carriage and walked away.

[You didn't stay to butcher and maim? What a surprise!]

He walked besides him.

“Contrary to what you believe, I never enjoyed killing. Not like the others.”

[Hah. Let’s say I believe you. You still did it.]

“It’s like an acquired taste.”

[Excuses.]

Back in the forest, he stopped to rest besides a stream. He strained himself running beneath searing and unrelenting solar rays, and his overcooked head did a number on his thoughts bringing wonders to mind. Unwanted wonders. From his recently acquired bag he took out a piece of bread, laced with fresh blood, a common spice wherever he went.

“Finally! Real food!”

He chewed down big bites of bread, drank copious amounts of fresh water, filled a flask he took from the caravan and continued his aimless journey.

X witnessed with glee this world sun’s final moments and as all nights preceding this one he gathered dried leaves under a brazenly tall tree and laid to rest. A rock under his bed of leaves hammered his back, too tired to fix it he turned sideways. His gaze fell on the bushes ahead. And it would've been like any other night, but he saw a pair of green eyes staring back at him. He peered down into an endless abyss.

A restless soul came out from those bushes flailing his remaining arm at X.

“Ahh! Help! Please help me!” The man’s distraught spirit had left and would never return. He crashed over X, like a madman, yelling, sobbing and looking back every chance he got. “She’s going to kill us all!”

“Get off! You son of a-!”

A mountain had fallen over X, unmovable, he was barely able to breath while the crazed vagabond had his full weight over him. Blood drops fell over his face, the man panted trying to recover his lost sanity, exhausted, he dropped besides our elf. The pale apparition began sobbing and covered his eyes with his only available hand while his body trembled. Under layers of mud and blood X saw a young man, probably in his early twenties, frightened to his core.

Silence gnawed at them.

X had accepted his unbecoming frailness but everything seemed like an uphill battle. Defenseless, he had to treat with care each and every step, word or strange creature. Specially with tensions running high amongst the beasts. He kept his long ears hidden since escaping, he thought of cutting them, but he lacked the tools let alone the strength.

“It all happened too fast, I couldn’t do anything! I couldn't save anyone but myself! She... that thing... Why?!” between cries the young man asked the stranger before him. “Why us? We were supposed to be starting over... Simple farmers working our land, a new opportunity, even if I hated moving into the middle of nowhere, we were... were...” His voice cracked and vanished at random intervals. “She... No! That monster came out of nowhere...”

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