The Wild Hunt

The Forest

The leaves crack under Dominick's shoes. They are red and orange, brown. It's autumn in the forest, and you can see it not only in the myriad of colors that little by little begin to cover the ground, but in the smell that travels through the air, in the animals running and hurrying, with less and less time before the winter arrives.

Today, Dominick has left behind the cold houses in town to venture into the dirt paths and the fallen leaves of the woods that surround them all.

This is how he has spent every day since he was 12 years old. When he stopped to look into the endless trees just across the street, with the anxiety of going back to that empty house, to that neighborhood that whispered behind him, that chewed and spit him out without fear, eating him from the inside.

When he gathered his courage and decided that anything, anywhere was better than there, and took his first step into the known.

And as natural as it was to escape from his parent's gaze, -From the disappointment, from the regret, the guilt. From the eyes that tell him they wish he didn't exist. - was to escape from the cold, gray and rainy town where they lived. -From the whispers of the neighbors, the laughter of his classmates, the pity in the eyes of the vendors, the scolding that, even when it was not directed at him, he still got from the teachers. –

In the forest, Dominick didn't have to feel bad about being alive, he didn't have to endure tense silences, he didn't have to pretend to not hear the murmurs and the mocking.

In the forest, he didn't have to make sure to walk without a sound, he didn't have to watch people jump when he passed by, because they forgot about him, because they only ever remembered him as an annoyance.

In the forest, no one could look at him the way they look at a street dog.

With pity, with discomfort.

With disgust.

In the forest, he could run and scream without anyone to judge him. He could cry and no one would ask him any questions.

In the forest, he was free from everything that came with being Dominick, the son of that irresponsible couple, the weird kid, the loner, the mistake.

His parents and him still ignored each other, the adults still felt pity for him, the old ladies berated his parents for having him, but berated him even more for not being better, his classmates still saw him as a big and wonderful joke.

But all of that was in the streets.

It was trapped in the stores and the classrooms. In the town that hated him and the house that was a home, but not His home.

Here, among the trees and the animals, in between the earth and the flowers, under the branches and the roots, Dominick was part of the forest. He was one link more in the eternal chain that connected everything and everyone.

And like that, running away day after day to the trees and the earth, Dominick found himself a clearing to wait for the time to pass, he found animals that ran and sang, that hid and fought.

That lived.

He found a new and interesting hobby to occupy his time.

One that, were his parents to found out about, would turn him from just a mistake and an annoyance in their eyes to a complete monster.

But it was what it was.

One good day, when he was 14, he sat in his clearing and saw.

He saw the clouds and the sun move slowly through the sky.

Saw the leaves wave at the world, shaken by the soft winds of the forest.

He saw the squirrels run through the trees, jumping from branch to branch.