The Outside

Section VII

 I am assaulted by the cold air rushing against my face. Pushing me back into the cabin. Trying to restrain me to the sullen, gruffly constructed doorway.

I push back and out into the dark, cloudless night. The stars shine against the blackness with a sort of ferocious resistance. Behind me, a whisper drags its claws across the back of my skull; Edgar.

I spin around. Nothing meets my eyes but the darkness. The darkness and Marion standing on the porch illuminated by the cabin's light streaming through the doorway behind her.

Edgar

The whisper claws its way in again. It's a child's voice saying my name. I turn slowly back around. I'm greeted by the woods. I look back at the cabin, I'm suddenly a lot further from the door than before. Marion is no longer in the light of the doorway. I turn back again. I'm inside the woods now. The moonlight flickers through the thick canopy of leaves over my head. I take a step forward, landing on the edge of the horizon I was looking at before. I turn around and around. I am enveloped by the darkness. No way is North, no way is South, or East or West. No way is out and no way is in. There is only woods. And at the center, in circular clearing, me. The canopy opens up over my head so that the moon casts its beam down on my head and on the leaf-covered ground under my feet.

The roots of the trees pulsate through the ground like the creeping tendrils of an eldritch beast. They shift like the beating of a heart. Constantly moving. Constantly shifting. Yet, somehow, rhythmic in their movement. The tendrils snake up around my legs. They creep around, twisting up the trunk of my torso, and then snaking around my arms. The roots slip into the corners of my mouth. They pull my arms out like a "T". They splay my fingers out. The roots shoot up under my nails and up my nose. Soon, they cover me completely except for my eyes. My glasses fall away to the ground. A pair of tendrils rise up and point at my eyes. They crane in slowly until they seep into my pupils. I am engulfed in resolute darkness. The roots pull me down. The crumbling soil gives way, opening up to swallow me whole.

It's warm and moist, the earthen coffin around me. The black, crumbling tree bark and soil bleed away to something even darker, somehow.

Edgar

The voice whispers my name to me again. I look behind me. The black fades away to form the soil and the sky. The earth is barren, the stars and moon are absent from the dark red sky. A leaf sprouts up from the dirt. I crouch down and run my finger of the leaf. It's cold like death and covered in tiny, hair-thin spindles. It pulls out of the dirt a little bit, revealing its stem. It pushes further out, becoming a twig. I stand up and back away from the leaflet. It pushes further out. It surges up out of the ground, becoming a small tree. It grows more and more. It towers over me in the darkness.

A bright circular light floods against me to my right. I reel away and cover my eyes. The milky white circle is too bright. I look away to protect my eyes, the light clicks on on the other side as well. I collapse to the dirt, covering my eyes. It feels like they're burning. No. Not they. It. My right eye. My dead eye is burning. I hold the palm of my hand against my eye and struggle up to my knees. The pain is searing. Smoke drifts from between my fingers into the air. I shake with pain. The fiery dagger pushes deeper into my head. I collapse in again. I jolt upright. The pain shakes me again. I push to my feet. I brace my trembling body against the cold, hairy, black tree. The pain pushes deeper. I scream. No. Howl. I howl. Like a wounded animal. I slip down the tree, sitting with my back against it. Something oozes from my fingers down the back of my hand. The pain ends abruptly. My eyes adjust to the light and I stand up. I pull my hand away from my eye and examine my palm. There is a dark circular ash mark at its center, as if my eye was on fire. I crane my head back to look up at the black-leafed tree towering over me.