Mr. Misty-Eyed | Josh Dun

dream sequence | forty-five

My fingertips ran up and down the pealing bark, the tree looking a sickly grey up close. There was a small part of me that still felt unsafe as my eyes combed over the massive trunk of the tree. I unable to see around it to the other side as I stood square in front of it.

A gust of wind came and wrapped me in a spring breeze, blowing my hair messily around my forehead. This must have been the place I was always searching for. That unknown destination I had been drawn to every time I woke up in the dark forest. But that place had been a prison and I never wanted to go back.

I took a step away from the tree, walking around the trunk, but allowed my hand to run along the bark as I did so. My eyes began to water as that smoky haze returned and I stopped mid step as the rocks below me started to shift.

Another wind picked up, but it was different this time, harsher. I staggered back away from the edge, but as I did I tripped over an exposed root and fell back onto the ground. My lips parted as a heavy grunt left my lungs while new scrapes on the palms of my hands formed from the abrupt impact.

This was as far as I could go. The tree had grown out over the edge of the cliff, its thick roots trailing down the opposite side. And as I stood to my feet and held tightly onto the truck of the tree I could see clearly what was below.

The wasteland of dead trees, fading out for as far as the eye could see. Fog hovered just below the tops of the trees, allowing their branches to pop out as though they were hands reaching out for help.

The dark forest. The one my mind never let me escape and the one I could now look down upon.

.