The Thing in The Forest

Chapter Five- 1921

The wood floors of the house creaked under my weight. I was in the long hallway of a home and could see the front door to my left and the backdoor to my right. The hallway was cramped with me taking up so much room.

There was a small room in front of me, opening from the hallway with a large entryway. A sitting room of some kind. Music played from within, but the music didn't come from an orchestra or band, but instead came from a little box with a metal tube that was shaped like a trumpet vine.
I was so mesmerized by the music box that I nearly stepped on the man that lay in front of me. Or, what was left of him. His torso was so torn open that his entrails spilled out. I think I must have dragged him at some point, looking at where the intestines had left a bloody trail and my hands were drenched and dripping with his blood. There were streaks here and there as well, indicating a scuffle.

I didn't feel guilty of his death in any way. He had, at some point recently, done something so horrendous to a woman that she called out to me. Or more, she called out to anything or anyone and I answered that call.

I found her, lying next to the small couch, unconscious and on the floor. She was breathing. Not all women make it through these sorts of things.

She wore a dress, straight and sequined, coming to end just above her knees, which were scraped and bloody. Her dress was bright red, but so was her neck, clearly she had been strangled. I hoped I had made it in time that she wouldn't have any lasting effects.

I went back over to the man and scooped up his insides, which were now outside of his body, and dragged him out of the house, down through the entryway and porch, and to the edge of the forest. I looked back at the house, lights gently illuminating the grass outside while the music poured out through the open door.

I would have liked to spend more time in this spot, listening and observing the newness of this era. It held such wonders, despite the atrocity that happened here tonight. Light, not by candles, but by glass and wires. Music, not by person, but by a large music-box, not needing winding. Clothes, bright and colorful, complimented makeup and accessories.

This woman that I saved tonight, she showed more skin than I had ever seen a person show intentionally as a formal outerwear, but even so, she did not deserve what that man did to her. The violence and the innocence lost. He deserves a fate worse than what I gave him, but I had very little control of myself while it was happening.

Flashbacks of me pulling him off of her, slamming him to the floor, slashing and slashing and slashing through his stomach. I remember her gasping, but not waking up around the same time that he gasped his last.

I wish I could be there for these women before this happens. But this is all I can do. I come when I am needed. Just like I had done for my sister all those years ago. Just like I wish someone had done for me, when I had once been human.