We come to the edge of the forest, it seems unmenacing and eerily quiet, except for the sporadic and distant rustle of leaves and a chirp of a small woodland creature. The woods seems infinite and widens the gap between my faith and finding the parents.
"I know where to go," Echo announces. We stand, overlooking the loomy beginning.
I turn toward him, "You do? How?"
"Just a feeling," he says and begins to walk, I follow behind him, a bit shaken up by his sudden leadership skills.
I trail behind Echo, he leads the way to the unfamiliar and untracked woods. My breath is held, so is the world around us. The scenery is eerily quiet and I can't figure out why the silence is so violent. It spooks me and hurts my head. The sun settles through the top of the trees, the golden rays peek out terribly and burn us, instead of warming us. My white hair catches in the light and sizzles against my milky flesh. Echo's hair is my opposite, dark and straight. Mine is light and unruly. Why are we so different? Why am I his opposite? Why can't I fight the urge to grab his hand as he leads us into the forest? My fingertips even reach out, in this breath of frozen time, they glide into the air and light circles catch on them. My hands were not quick enough. Earth releases her breath and decides to move before I have a chance to reach him.
Seconds turn into minutes, minutes add up and become an hour. The ground has become different. Throughout our walk, the ground was plush and covered with dead leaves that have fallen off due the likeliness of the seasons passing. The sun was covered and weaved in between the intertwined branches of the trees. Now, the ground is bare. The dirt has been walked over, it is trampled, overwalked by the heavy footsteps of various people. I sense four footprints, the first notice is a thin stiletto heel, the second a small sole of a child, the third heavy boot prints, and the last the imprint of stars that were on a sole are marked into the soil. Next to all the footprints, is a long line, a deep groove pushed into the dirt. Echo and I acquiesce that we will follow the footsteps. As we follow the trail, the midday sun decides to burn brighter. Hot beams of light bounce and retract to the oddly open wooded area. There is a difference in everything, nothing is safe and caked, shaded over by the tall branches full of leafy greens. The pathway is steered clear of the greenery and I can feel the hot streams of sunlight follow us and we continue to walk. The path becomes more likened to walking, we end up in a clearing.
My face pours white, the blood rushes from my cheeks, and my feelings are shocked from everything around me. My body trembles in fear as I gaze up at the branches, the sunlight glistens on the ropes hanging form the sporadic branches that intercross each other. My eyes trace down the ropes, the ropes connect to the ankles of human. The rope has rubbed itself raw to make the flesh around the ankle swollen, red, and bloody. My eyes shoot farther down the bodies, I focus my attention to one in particular.
Christian.
His face is now grey, drained of any color or life that once touched it. His eyes are two hollow, black discs circling into endless madness and despair. His countenance is frozen over with an expression of shock and betrayal.
Echo stands next to me, staring his mismatched eyes to a woman. A woman who used to bake cookies, a had a family, worked for her meals, cleaned her home, cooked meals. The woman has a chubby face, no longer happy, but brushed over with grimness and sadness. Both Mariam and Christian's wrists, don't portray their power anymore. A deep wound etches into their wrists. It's flaked over with red blood and crusted into a scab. Hardened red glops that once trickled to the dirt further, have stopped, frozen in themselves.
I'm sorry, I found your parents.
At least forty more ropes hang from the trees, each littered with a body. Dangling, breathless, and their magic cut from their veins. I can't even search for the words to say, I don't know how to feel, beside the fact that I'm scared. I can't cope, I can't deal, all this pain and suffering. I stare at the corpses, I want to cry, the world is a broken place. The bodies swing in the wind a bit. Their ankles, moving down to their torsos are outstretched, and their arms dangle, most of their fingertips linger on top of the ground. Their faces are stuck with an unattractive expression.
