the woods

she and it

Shaky palms stretched out, ready to attach themselves to anything, ready to never let go.

She already had an hour ago. They all know how well that went.

In the woods, where a body is buried in river, a brick attached to its ankle, it sinks and all motives along with it.

What were they doing there in the first place? She thinks faintly.

She can't remember, and it's choking her up. It's dirt stained fingers are bruising her throat, they're pressing a name across her neck, leaving no room for breath.

No room for thinking.

So she doesn't. She stumbles instead. Through a narrowing dirt path. Through stone embedded in earth and even farther vine and roots from towering black trees.

Somewhere along the way she's forgotten the rules of the woods, following north stars or rivers are something foreign to her. The taste of the air, direction of the wind she can't tell where it's going.

Above all else she had forgotten the one primary rule; To never venture into these woods when the night falls and the dark awakens.

They were told the stories of faceless creatures made to eat kids who run from home. About the ghosts who seek vengeance for their deaths on the roads and the cries of infants luring men with sense into deaths that are senseless.

What compelled her to forget these things and pass the fence was unreasonable and yet too intriguing to let go of. She stared into the darkness between the trees and past them and found something familiar there.

A sort of tug that reached from the shadows of the trees took hold of her mind and shook her subconscious, pulling her forward until she succumbed.

What had called her will stay hidden until it shows it's own face. And it's own reasoning, but for now she'll run from it.

Well, at least she'll try.

She's fallen again. It's her fourth time now, falling.

And she doesn't get up.

She sinks into the mulch wishing it'll grow arms and pull her into the earth.

Rolls over onto her back, and heaves in the pine infested air. Focuses on her breathing, or what best she can do of it. Her tongue copper, she swallows it down. Closes her eyes. Listens to the call of a crow in the distance.

Waits.

A second. Another.

Then, she hears it. A crunch of leaves under feet with a determination in their step.

The small sound makes her heart feel the cold waters of the lake, it pours into her stomach, ice bathed into rigidity.

Move. Get up, move!

I can't. She thinks. She tells the voice, from a mind unknown to her. But it comes so clear, so vivid she has no choice but to listen.

There are more sounds coming from what she believes is west, moving fast. Sounding heavy footed, more than two-legged, running with purpose, coming for her.