Stay On the Path

Chapter 5

We are nothing but children wearing the clothes of our dead parents. We look into the mirror and see faces we no longer recognize.

-Juniper Ito

Judas had left The Forest for a reason. It was greedy, evil, and above all else an unnatural thing. As a child he remembered the blue blue colors of the sky, and the green, green grasses of the valleys. Not the choking canopy and sickly bramble. That had come after.

After...

He broke through a heavy thicket of ivy, gasping as sunlight washed over him in a warm, gentle wave. He blinked back tears, staring up at the small patch of sky, tiny clouds drifting lazily overhead. So he'd made it after all. The center of The Forest.

Judas wiped the dirt and debris he'd collected off of his scraggly beard, fingers brushing over the scar Esther had left him on his cheek. He cinched up his bag, feeling the heavy lump dig into his shoulders, and knew the time had finally come.

Steeling himself, Judas pressed on towards the Tower. It stood in the very epicenter of the clearing, a rod of dark, cursed earth shaped by the hands of the Old Gods long ago and left forgotten. It sank into the earth on four mighty claws, rising up as one twisted obelisk, its dark, unblemished surface practically drinking in the light.

Judas winced. It hurt to stare at the Tower. Eventually he forced himself to look away towards the ground, strange visions swirling in his eyes, making ghostly patterns in the grass.

Off in the distance, a figure emerged from one of several yawning portals at the base of the Tower. They were dressed all in white, a wild mass of horns growing out of their head, one coiling in on itself and puncturing an eye socket. Judas would have been disgusted by this, but he had grown used to such horror. He'd known it all his life.

"Brother," The Hornsent spread its hands out, its voice a grinding bleat.

"Paul," Judas said coldly. "Where are the children?"

"Really? Even now, even after all these years, you still wish to deny your true heritage? Do you truly deny me, littler brother?"

"I'm tired, Paul. I lost a lot of good people trying to get here. Just tell me where they are and I'll leave."

Paul clasped his hands together, lips split wide in a terrifying grin. Instead of molars, a multitude of razor sharp canines, flat bottom grinders, and crooked incisors greeted him instead.

"I can assure you the children are unharmed."

"That's fine. Now give them back."

"As you wish, but I doubt they'll want to leave. They've been having so much fun since our flock brought them here."

Judas felt a cold knife slither down his spine. "What are you talking about? What did you do?"

"Oh, I did nothing." Paul gazed up towards the Tower, the air around it seething and writhing like heat from a mirage. "It was the Old Gods who finally uplifted them. Giving them the means to truly live as equals in this world."

Footsteps echoed from the yawning portal in the Tower Paul had emerged from. A multitude of them, tiny feet scraping along the stones, tiny figures emerging from the darkness.

Judas took a step back, the cold shiver along his back becoming an icy fist in his guts. It was the Woodlin children, or at the very least what little remained of them. They marched and clambered towards him in a mass of ugly bruises, puckered scar tissue, and bent limbs, empty mouths babbling and sputtering incoherent nonsense. They tripped and fell over on themselves, wobbling on stilted legs, sausage like fingers grasping and gripping for any solid purchase.