I had been living in the woods for nearly ten years when it all happened. It was a personal choice, I had nowhere to go but knew that I needed to get away from the city. That I needed to get away from it all. I was labeled crazy there for awhile, even a lawbreaker. They sent a few patrolmen after me a few times but I lost them in the woods. I wasn’t entirely sure what law I had broken. Something about not paying my taxes or something. But when the wood provided all that I needed, what tax was there to be given?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. There had been a disturbance from the city, I’m not entirely sure what but the energy coming from that place had changed. It was always restless and negative place, but it became fiercer, more pronounced in that time. Maybe it was war or rumors of war. Maybe it was some new sickness or disease. Or maybe it was the natural outcome of living in such a place. Once I felt it I, and most the creatures I share the woods with, went away from the city.
I journeyed for a week or so when I felt something calling me back, though I didn’t know what. I made my way back towards the city, scrounging what little I could. It seemed as if the very ground itself was fleeing from whatever was coming from the city. I was nearing it when I heard a scream unlike any I had ever heard before. I raced towards the sound. When I saw what was happening I froze. There lined up outside the woods were three people.
They looked wretched and listless, as humans living in the city do, weak of body, mind, and spirit. They would be pitiful if they weren’t filled with such nastiness. There was two men and a woman. They were staring at the trees and screaming at the top of their lungs. Their faces distorted and twisted. The veins bulged in their necks as spit flew from their lips. They would scream and pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and then scream again. I sat with a mix of horror and fascination at what was taking place before me.
This continued this for ten minutes then they turned to each with laughter and smiles. Maybe the city had gone mad I thought, or at least madder than it had been. They hugged and then went back towards their homes. I looked around me, trying to find the object of their hate, but all I saw was the trees and the rocks. What had they been screaming at? I was confused and curious so I went back towards the city. Closer then I had been in years, ever since I left. It was close to nightfall so I waited and went in when the city was starting to sleep.
I crept in through the main road and looked at the city that I hadn’t seen in years. Not much about it had changed. The buildings were all smashed up and close together, the people listless or filled with anger and hatred. The roads strewn with debris and vagrants. It shocked me to remember that I had once lived here, that I had once called this place home. That I had once thought that what I was seeing was good, was normal.
I saw one of the men who had been screaming, he was entering a large chapel like building with the word PSYCHOLOS inscribed at the front. I didn’t have the faintest idea what the word meant so I crept up to one of the windows and looked in. There I saw two men standing on a small raised platform, rows of pews in front of them. One of the men was short and sickly looking, even for a city dweller. He had grayed hair that was woolly and a bushy white mustache. He had on spectacles that he kept pushing up on his face.
The other man had on an expensive suit and black slicked shoes. He had short black hair. He was tall and square jawed and smiled saying something to the people assembled. I turned my gaze to them. Never in all my life had I seen such a rabble of more ill looking humans. They looked barely alive, like their humanity had been snuffed out of them. I shook my head, they must be sick I thought. There must be some new pestilence that has come upon the land. My next thought was that I needed to get out of there.
So I left. On my way back the streets were filled with people. People walking around, yelling at each other, yet they all seemed like the people in the pews. Sickly looking, yet none of them coughed or sneezed or wheezed or showed any signs of sickness. I was becoming overwhelmed and raced to the forest. All the while I was pursued by some youths that had taken an interest in me. Once I went into the trees they stopped their chase, the rocks they were pelting me with smacking against the branches of the sheltering wood instead of my flesh.
After that I swore not to go into the city again. That night I stayed near a small stream and washed, then slept. The next morning I woke and for reasons I can’t remember stuck around. I knew where berries were and I was a good shot with a sling for any game that I came across. It was near sundown when I heard the screams again. This time they were louder and more intense. I went towards them and found people standing where they had been before, screaming at the forest. This time there was ten of them lined up.
All screaming with all their might. Standing to the side of the ten was the man with the spectacles from the night before. He seemed to be monitoring them, smiling and nodding. I sat against a tree and watched.
“Good, good.” said the spectacled man during a break “Project it in out there. Project it into the nothingness.”
The people resumed their screaming with renewed force. They looked like the things carved onto the religious buildings, all twisted and demented. This time the screams lasted a good half hour. Once exhausted they all hugged and smiled at one another then retreated back towards the city. I shook my head and watched them go. What madness had grasped them now? I walked to the edge of the forest and placed my hand against a tree, recoiling it as soon as I did.
The tree felt different then the ones in the forest. Now, those of the city may say that I am crazy, a loon, or any other thing but when one spends their time in nature, the senses sharpen almost to that of an animal. I could feel a difference in the tree. The bark was still there and the leaves still on the branch but the energy of the tree was different. Something has blasted and battered it inside. Maybe it was the proximity to the city or maybe it was the screams. I didn’t know so I left.
I was more shook up then I had thought, though I couldn’t say why. I’m no coward, nature makes quick work of cowards, and I have been here some time. But something was disturbed inside of me, something deep. Beyond just the visceral fear of loss of life or limb. I knew where I wanted to go, a glade next to a small peculiar pond I had found years before. I sped there feeling sick to my stomach, though again not knowing why.
I arrived and lay down next to the water. I was soon asleep and having pleasant and peaceful dreams. I awoke refreshed and for a moment thought the screams had been some distant nightmare. I went about my day, staying closer to the city than usual, though I couldn’t explain why. I hunted during the morning and found some eggs that made a small meal. I was walking through the forest when I noticed the sun starting to go down and thought of retreating deeper into the woods.
I didn’t want to get caught up in the screamings. For whatever reason I figured they were going to increase in intensity and I didn’t want to be around when they did. I figured a retreat into the woods was what was needed, yet for some reason I couldn’t fathom, I was going to stick around a short time more. I started for my glade wanting to get there before even hearing echoes of the screams. I was nearing it when a sound like the depths of hell opening up blasted out from in front of me.
I found a vantage point and peeked down into the glade. There in a circle of twenty of so were the city dwellers, all holding hands and facing the forest around them, screaming at the top of their lungs. In the middle of them was the spectacled man nodding and smiling. Giving encouragement and direction in the brief moments between screams.
“You have been put through much. You need release, put it out there. You deserve this.”
I have heard many screams in my life. Battle screams, screams of anguish, screams of giving life, and more, these were different. They didn’t seem human yet I thought little from the city seemed human to me. I hunkered down watching the procession. Fascinated and sickened as always, I watched. This time the screams went into the night as the sun went down. The spectacled man struck a match and lit lanterns. Then he starting leading them away. I watched them go then slunk down myself. In the distance I heard screams echoing through the night air. Had they started again or was there more going on?
I shut the thought from my mind and hunkered down next to the pond. The screams soon faded and I fell into a deep sleep. That night I had horrible nightmares of twisted figures and landscapes. I awoke twice in the night, sweat drenching me. I woke up the next morning tired and bleary eyed. I got up to take a walk when I saw the pond and shouted. The once greenish water had turned red and grey. The few fish in it were at the top, dead and far from being edible.
I left and scrounged around for food, deciding that I would flee deeper into the woods that night. I would run and never come back to the city again. I sat there as I ate my meager meal, lost in thought. I don’t know what came over me but when I noticed my surroundings again it was already starting to get dark. In the distance I heard a scream and knew that I had to answer it. A fire welled up in me, I was sick and tired of this and I was going to fight it.
I marched through the forest as the screams grew louder and louder. They had started later then usual. It was dark by the time I reached the edge of the forest. I looked out and as far as I could see stretched a line of men and women, or what passes for such in the city, screaming with everything they had. Every five or so people had a lantern illuminating the procession. Down the line I saw the spectacled man walking, smiling as always.
My courage failed me, I looked out at hundreds upon hundreds of them. I could do nothing but sit there. The screams seemed to shake the very fabric of the world around me. I heard the trees groan and felt the grass wilt underneath me. I sank to my knees, confused and horrified. The screaming grew until I felt it would shatter my eardrum. I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was watch with horror. The screams continued until the middle of the night.
Finally when the moon was high overhead the screams stopped. The people had exhausted themselves. They talked to one another in hoarse voices. Some cried, some laughed, they all hugged and smiled that weird smile at one another. The spectacled man talked with groups smiling and laughing, he seemed overjoyed with himself, as if he had just won some great victory. I went to press against a tree next to me, to get up, when the bark broke in. I recoiled, I had never seen bark do such a thing.
It was as if the tree had been hollowed. The spectacled man continued down the line as the people began to disperse, heading back to the city. Suddenly he became animated and began calling to them. The line stopped and gathered back towards the forest, a bit further away then they were before. The spectacled man walked down close to me and I could hear him shout.
“One last scream. One last time, before we go. Give it all you got!” he shouted with glee.
The people gathered up and prepared themselves. I braced as they let out one final scream that reverberated through the forest. I shook my head, the scream echoing in my ears. The people turned around and started to walk away when a roar echoed out from deep in the forest. It was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life. It was no bear or creature of the woods that I had seen. It was deeper and had an otherworldly quality to it. The people froze and stared back at the trees.
The spectacled man set to work down the line, yelling “It was an echo, magnified by the hills! Back to the city. Nothing to worry about.”
The people nodded and murmuered to one another. Soon they were laughing and smiling again and headed back towards the city. Only the spectacled man stayed behind. He stared into the forest holding his latern aloft. He face was twisted and puzzled. He rubbed a hand through his mustache and shook his head.
“Just an echo.” he mumbled as he headed back towards the city.
I retreated into the woods that night. Fearful of what I had heard, I went to the glade, it was the only comfort I could think of. As I laid down I felt sick to my stomach and I threw up, something I had never done since entering the wood. I rolled away from it and went by the pond that stank. I sat there watching the rotting fish in the moonlight. Somehow I fell asleep and was assaulted all night by nightmarish horrors.
When I woke in the morning I didn’t feel like doing much. I didn’t eat but instead headed towards a cave I would sometimes take refuge in. It was away from the city and the direction I was now headed in. I got there towards night, I didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, just tired. I crawled up towards the cave and looked in, making sure it wasn’t inhabited. I went further into it, deeper than usual. For some reason I feared the outside of the cave more than ever before.
I went towards the back and felt a flat stone that was up against the rear wall of the cave. I couldn’t see a thing but could hear the drip of water somewhere close. I curled up on the stone and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. I woke up and knew it wasn’t yet morning, one develops these senses in the wild. I also knew that I wasn’t alone, something was in the cave with me. At first I rolled my eyes. I’d have to sneak past some slumbering animal, hopefully not a big one.
But something was off, the presence felt different. I rose from the stone and placed my feet on the floor of the cave. Lights began to shine out from the cave wall around me. The small chamber I was in was illuminated with a faint blue light that shone from gemstone like rocks in the wall. I stood up and turned around. Then I froze. On the wall of the cave above me was the skull of some great stag. Mounted there like a hunter mounts one on his wall.
I took a few steps back from the skull studying it. There was something different about it, it seemed almost alive. I noticed a black substance spreading out from underneath the skull and starting to take form. Then the skull startled rattling and I knew it was the thing in the cave with me, the thing that was alive. I fell back and stared up as the skull came out from the wall, the black substance taking a smoke like form and forming a sort of cloak draping down from the skull itself. The smoke drifted up inside the skull and it looked down at me.
I stared at it, it seemed to be almost hypnotizing me, lulling me to sleep. I shut my eyes and suddenly I was rushing through the forest. But it wasn’t me, I was something else. I was following the skulled smoke at a rapid rate as it tore through the forest. Like a detached eye following its master. The creature paused at the line of the forest and inspected the trees and foliage there. The sun was on its descent down, the creature turned towards the city. The creature let out a long loud roar that didn’t fit the deer skull at all.
Then the smoke shrunk down and sped towards the city. It sunk in through a open grate and up into the city. I was pulled along with it by someone unknown magnetic like force. The smoke shrunk down until it was just a small ball in the skull and went through the streets. It went to the building marked PSYCHOLOS and went up to the window. There it watched the square jawed man in the suit and the slight spectacled man talk.
The square jawed man spoke first “You’ll get whatever funding you need to complete your research. Your family is ultimately my boss.” said the square jawed man.
“Your contributions will not go unnoticed. You have our thanks. I have something special planned for tonight.” replied the spectacled man.
“Oh, and what is that?”
“Every member of the town will participate in the therapy.”
“Good, they need to release a little steam with everything that’s been going on.”
“It’ll relieve the pressure and we can continue our work.”
“Good, you know I wasn’t sure how well all of this would work but I have to say I’ve been impressed.”
“You’ve seen nothing yet.”
The skull faded away from the window and sunk down into an ally. There time sped by as the sun began to set and the people of the city started walking towards the gate. The square jawed and the spectacled man left the building. The spectacled man heading towards the forest and the square jawed man away from it. The smoke in the skull began to stir. It expanded and the skull was moving again, draped by a cloak eight or so feet high. It went out of the alleyway and towards the square jawed man.
I knew what was happening before I saw it with my own eyes, or whoever’s eyes I was looking through. Two long bones, with scythe like appendages at the end of them, snuck out from the creature’s cloak of smoke. The creature cornered the square jawed man and attacked. He was beheaded and thrown into a corner within a few seconds. Then the creature went back to the street and charged forward, towards the mass moving to the forest.
What happened next was horrible to watch, even with my detestation of those from the city. None were spared and only one man was singled out, the spectacled man. After the city dwellers had all been butchered the creature raced to the spectacled man. He had been hiding under a pile of dead bodies. He was pulled out, painfully, and then impaled through the gut. I thought the deed done but the creature lifted the man up and sped him towards the forest.
I don’t know by what mechanism the man was kept alive but he was. He was sped deeper and deeper into the forest. Past the cave where I had last known my body. Into a part of the wood I had never seen and wasn’t sure existed in the normal world. The creature settled into a glade with a large pool in the middle. The creature set the man in the pool and removed the scythe. Miraculously the wound had been healed. The man paused waist deep in the water unsure what to do. He looked around, then up at the creature.
From the waters edge I saw movement. Small worm like creatures that swam towards the man and swarmed over him. The man gasped and seemed horrified but not in pain. The worm creatures snapped down onto the man like leeches but the man didn’t say a word, still it seemed there was no pain. The man looked around again and up at the creature. He went to speak but the creature silenced him. The worms continued their appraisal of the man. Then the man let out a scream that was cut off a second later. The worms tore into him and he melted into the pool.
The creature, satisfied, sped back to the cave where I had found it. It went over my body into the gemstone lit cave and then settled itself back on the wall. I felt myself slipping away from whatever’s vision I had been using and back into anther form of consciousness. I awoke and spread out my hands. I was still on the smooth flat stone in the cave.
It was dark and I couldn’t see a thing. There were no gemstones or anything else that I could make out. I slipped down from the stone and made my way out of the cave, not daring the look back. I made it to the cave exit and saw that the sun was starting to rise. I climbed down and ran, fearful of what might be in that cavern. I made my way away from the city and deeper into the forest, taking care to avoid the path that lead anywhere close that where the pool had been.
I never did see the city again nor did I want to. I fled deeper into the woods with the creatures. I’ll never know what truly happened, what was dream and what was real. Nor do I care to find out. I live a simple existence now, by the woods and far from any city. This is the life I hope to live and I hope never again to see the horrors that I witnessed in the city or the wood that night.
