Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. This wasn’t normal—at least not for James and Rebecca Stallworth, they were used to tufts of sordid black fog casting shadows down on their sleepy city as stars hid behind blankets of darkness. Of course how could they have known the skies would be different, they’d never walked this late in the woods before—and seeing as to how they couldn’t sleep they decided a midnight walk would do the trick.
“Midnight should be dark, the moon white and the stars bright. Even the rain isn’t itself…” Rebecca whispered, a hint of confusion seeping out of her curious, tired eyes as she watched the patch of sky overhead grow crimson and the moon swell in size, inching closer and closer with each breath as drops of icy rain pelted slowly against their skin.
“That’s not the only thing…” her husband James shrieked, pointing to a strange pointy bush that seemed to come alive as it sprouted legs and began to hobble across the trail nearby and they watched it disappear into the trees.
“Woah, watch out,” a hissing hoot came from somewhere nearby.
“The bush is talking to me? I must be dreaming…” James yelped, grabbing hold of Rebecca as they neared the middle of the path yards from their otherwise quaint stone cottage.
“The woods look like speckled strawberries,” Rebecca gasped, shaking her head deliriously as she crept closer for a better look. She’d never seen such things in all her years of living in the woods.
“Careful, those are eyes,” a voice said from behind. Sure enough, upon further inspection the forest was alight with glowing red eyes—but from what?
“Brindleberries,” the chipper voice replied as though answering a question that had yet to be asked.
“Brindleberries?” James and Rebecca Stallworth repeated, both sounding incredulous at the mere thought of the forest coming alive with fruit.
“Yes, harmless prickly little buggers—each the size of a pea, they’re red and filled with goo. Careful not to squash them or get too close,” the voice continued.
“No…don’t do that, you don’t want to scare them off, besides, how’d you two get here?” another voice questioned, this one was far less chipper.
“How’d we get here?” Rebecca answered nervously, looking back at her husband James—unsure of what to say next.
“We live here,” James added, pointing off towards the end of the trail as though this was somehow obvious or apparent—they were after-all talking to a shrub—a very animated one at that.
“You can’t that’s not possible, no one lives here,” the second voice sniveled—“you must be lost, go see for yourself; here—we’ll help you.”
Without warning, swarms of Brindleberries scuttled across the tops of the prickly bushes as though to wake them from a tired sleep; dozens more popped out onto the dusty path, bouncing around and lighting the way. In the chaos hordes of other prickly bushes stretched in the shadows, sending errant leaves from their branches as they shook loose and joined the fray; their roots climbing like the arms of an octopus as they crawled by.
James and Rebecca Stallworth rounded where they last saw their house—sure enough the patch of land was empty and overgrown, basking in the haze of a settling purple fog.
“I don’t get it, where’d the cottage go, where are my blooming mushrooms and pitted roses, or your fire pit?” Rebecca cried out as she carefully stepped over fallen logs and traveling lily nests.
“Maybe we got turned around, maybe this isn’t our part of the forest, after-all everything looks the same, but it’s just different here,” James began.
“But it’s not, it’s not the same.”
“Did you take a wrong turn?” the chipper voice asked. It was clear the voice was coming from a familiar looking bobbling tree bush—one of nearly fifty that had surrounded the Stallworth’s on their journey to get back home. Some had small course, coined shaped leaves and others were made up of shiny, waxy, prickly ends but none of them had ever spoken to them before.
“No, I don’t think so, we were so busy looking up at the sky that we didn’t even realize how far we had come, clearly this is a different place than we left; we’re still in Amwrith, aren’t we?” Rebecca asked; her eyes still glued to the moon. Something about it was unfamiliar.
About the Creator
K.H. Obergfoll
Writing my escape, my future…if you like what you read—leave a comment, an encouraging tip, or a heart—I’m always looking to improve, let me know if there is anything I can do better.
& above all—thank you for your time
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