In The Woods

Complete darkness fills everything as though someone has just turned off the light, there was sunshine everywhere just a moment ago, it poured trough the gaps between leaves of the trees painting the forest into warm shades of yellow and orange. Now it’s so dark that he can’t see anything except formless black shapes of oak trees less than a meter ahead, the rest of the forest, the field, the world and the day are consumed by eternal, endless night. He gets confused for a moment, then decides that he must have gotten lost, walked too far into the forest and now thick foliage won’t let through enough sunlight. This is not the best explanation, not the most plausible, but his mind needs to cling to some semblance of common sense and might as well cling to this.

He needs to find the way back to the day and light that are still out there somewhere, must be a few meters away, he simply needs to walk back a few meters, there is a path somewhere there. But it’s impossible to find anything in the complete darkness engulfing him. He feels fear creeping up his spine, blooming inside his stomach like a red, meaty flower, he can’t let it take over, if terror consumes him, if he succumbs to it this will be the end of everything. He remembers stories about people who got lost in the forest, some of them never came back, many didn’t, his father was one of those who didn’t, they never found out what had happened to the old man after all.

«This is not going to happen to me», he says to himself, «Not to me»

Why did he even come to this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere? To look for treasures he remembers and laughs hysterically, so hard that something in his chest starts to ache. Damn treasures. They talked a lot about this in the newspapers lately, people started seen green lights at nighttime all over the bogs in an old village far from the city, close to the mountains, in the depth of the country. Everyone with as much as two braincells has moved out of here, the only people that stayed were too old to leave, former prisoners, alcoholics and drug addicts that had nowhere to go or didn’t want to be found. They came from nowhere and moved into abandoned houses, there ere plenty of those. There was enough wood to keep the house warm during cold endless winters, enough wildlife in the forests and rivers to keep oneself fed. There was no way to find job or make money, but maybe this was even better, he thought, maybe they were freer here, in the middle of nowhere, doing whatever they wanted. He was one of those who’d left, him and his mother, after his father had disappeared in the forest. Father had been looking for thrashers too. Maybe newspapers just started writing about this but locals knew the legends for a very, very long time. Old people said that treasures had been buried in the ground all over the place in the old days, they wanted to be found now and gave away green lights to indicate the location, you had to start digging the moment you saw those azure flashes in the darkness. He tried a few times but never succeeded.

Not that he believed those fairy tales, he was too civilised, lived in the city for too long to believe any of it now. But there was some deeper, older part of him that dreamed about the slightest chance that there was some truth to the legends. Maybe he would find his father then.

When they started writing about the green lights and the treasures in the local newspaper a strange urge raised its head in him, it was almost an itch under his skin, it clouded his mind, his judgement, he couldn’t work. It felt like a distant calling barely a whisper at first and then a loud, urgent demand. «Come home», it said. «Come home»

He had wife and a kid by now, he couldn’t simply leave in search of something this idiotic, this illusory, but he couldn’t fight it as well. At the beginning of April he took three days off at work, got in the car and drove across half of the country in search of god knows what. He drove home.

He saw the damn green lights a few times, in the distance, they seemed to be luring him in, treacherous, lying, unpredictable, they disappeared as soon as he came closer, but this didn’t bother him at all, as long as he could return to them week after week, as long as he could partake in the mystery and magic of it all the rest was ok. Green lights let him focus on work again, let him focus on his family, when problems and difficulties threatened to overwhelm him he got into the car and drove across half of the country into the mountains, to the forest.

He knew all the people in the village by now, some from the old days but the majority were new, come pretty young. He never asked how they ended up here or if they wanted to leave, that was none of his business. He knew them by name, knew most of their stories, whatever they were willing share. He brought cigarettes and vodka, candies and cookies, movies and cakes.

«Be careful with the forest», locals told him, «The forest has teeth, it might swallow you, will chew you like a bone»

He only smiled, these were superstitious people, you do not scare him with stories about sharp toothed forests. He should have been afraid, he should have, especially after the way his father disappeared.

«My god», he whispers. He doesn’t believe in god, hasn’t believed in years, but this simple prayer calms him down, he feels suddenly as though his grandmother stands up next to him, her very touch used to calm him down, he would go to church and pray like for hours just to please her. When she died his faith in god died as well, but at this strange moment, in the complete darkness, in the middle of nowhere he wants to believe in something, anything that might lead him out of this place, bring him solace, reassurance, take him home. He is a little boy again. Prayer calms him down, he seems to remember the way out of here, can’t swear of it, but can’t stay at the same spot forever either so starts walking in the direction of the field that was at the very edge of the forest just a few moments ago.

He keeps walking carefully, slowly, as if the black night around him is solid and he needs to plow through it, cut through it. There must still be light somewhere, but as though to deny this simple truth, out of a sudden, without warning, the darkness in front of him moves, grows, forms into a shape similar to human only larger, stranger, seems the thing was supposed to be a man and then something changed and it became too big, too ugly, too strange to be anything at all and so it was cast away into the pit. The thing walks towards him, it smells of rot and decay, of death and destruction, it breathes and speaks, yes, it speaks but he doesn’t understand the language, he’s too terrified. Ruled by ancient instinct of self preservation, by the old, primordial terror and desire to live, he runs like mad, neither stumbles nor crashes into trees led by some old strange magic, as though his legs and feet know this place somehow. Fear pushes him forward. A thought flashes through his mind «Now I’m lost», he thinks and that very moment runs into a tree, darkness engulfs him.

When he comes to his senses darkness reins everywhere, it’s inside him, above him and below him, everything is darkness. He has been in a few difficult, tricky situations in his life but up until now never felt as though he was loosing his mind. He starts praying again, remembers all the machinations, all the little trickeries and blackmails and bribes that were necessary here and there to make his business run smoothly. He remembers it all and prays for forgiveness. He thinks about his wife and all the women he’s cheated on, about his kid whom he barely ever sees and promises to change it. He he prays and prays but darkness doesn’t go away, it’s everywhere. God will not hear him in this place, god doesn’t look at this way, doesn’t listen to what’s happening here.

He stops mid prayer as something warm and wet, soft as silk touches the back of his neck. The man jumps up in an instinctive attempt to distance himself from that touch and hits his head agains something hard right above him. Everything disappears, what was left of light or reason goes out.

Maybe he looses his mind after that, maybe he has the strangest of dreams and will wake up in his apartment soon, darkness becomes absolute, dull pain is pulsating inside his skull, somebody seems to be trying to hammer a few nails into a wall, thud, thud, thud…He tries to raise his hand, it feels weird, as though it doesn’t belong to him.

«Damn it», he says.

«Damn it», somebody next to him responds in singing, bright voice. The voice is not human. He understands this right away.

«Damn it! Damn it», yells the same voice after a moment of silence, this time closer, right next to his ear. Damn it! Damn it! The thing laughs loudly, happily, darkness itself laughs, it’s everywhere, thousands and thousands of voices pour into his ears like raindrops. He gets to his feet, steps back, one step at first, then one more and one more, he needs to run, needs to hide, but then he’ll get lost hopelessly, helplessly, forever. He yells in blind despair of a cornered animal and voices stop, all at once, right away, darkness remains, but voices become silent and he’s alone in the blackness again, wind whispers gently in the leaves of the trees above his head, he hears an owl and mice, endless crawling in the fallen leaves on the ground beneath the trees. Somebody touches him ever so lightly. The forest is talking to him, the forest is inside him, outside him, beneath him, under him, everything is the forest.

«Stay here», it whispers, «Stay with us»

«You will never be alone again»

«Stay with us», they whisper into his ears, his very blood, bone marrow into his damn spine.

Stay with us

After an eternity, despite all the whispers, a sound appears, it is faint, he can barely hear it but it is a remainder of the real world. Everything stops. He is alone again, he hears a sound, such a simple, familiar sound that it gives him hope - a dog is barking in the distance, somewhere far, far away. The man smiles to himself, it means only one thing - village, dogs don’t walk in the forests, at least he hopes they don’t, they stay close to people, to their houses, to those who would feed them and that means he needs to move in the direction of the sound and consequently - of the village. He isn’t confident this plan would work, but he doesn’t have a better one and feels that he might loose his mind if he doesn’t do something, anything at all. So he starts walking slowly, carefully in the direction of the sound. The dog barks, barks and barks, louder, maybe a little louder, which means only one thing - he is closer now, he must be really close to the village. It seems that all the voices and the beasts were nothing but a product of his imagination. None of it happened, none of it was real, he simply hurt his head and had a bad dream. He’ll be out of the damn forest soon and will never come back.

And then he hears a dog barking next to him, so close, a few meters away, another one barks above him, hight above his head, in the branches of the trees, to the left and to the right, the dogs are barking, howling, growling, they are everywhere. The dogs are the forest, the village is the forest, everything is the forest.

«Damn it», something whispers into his ear.

Damn it.

Damn it.

He will never get out.

He is the forest.