Elves' King - The Call

The call

I've always thought that something was hiding in the woods. I never really knew what or who, but something was there, and i could feel my heart heavy while watching the trees.

My parents bought this house, not so far from a village. We moved there so that my dad could work in the nearby wood factor. The house was next to a pinewood, which turned after a short climb into a deep dark forest, so forgotten that there was not even a track to follow; the grass was high, and mostly made up by brambles an thorns. It was very difficult to get through it, but I never cared about it though: i've always loved walking through the wild nature, so i got used to climb up the pinewood to explore the wild woods.

During my long walks i've learned to listen to the sounds of that abandoned land. The cracks of the leaves in autumn was now quite familiar to me, the gentle roaring of the nearby river which divided the woods perfectly in two, the breathe of the wind moving through the foliage: it was all part of my soul.

It was a very interesting and peaceful place, but there was something that couldn't make me breathe: the moss covered all the trees and it was always cold among them, a cold that infiltrated my body and my bones.

It was October when i eard it for the first time: i was approaching a centenary oak in a little plain, when a whistled note made my heart stop. It was soft, but terribly penetrating the thick air, cracking into the silence and creeping in my mind. That sounf froze my blood. A whistle that wans't surely animal: i knew every bird species in that zone, and that whistle wasn't in their cords. I turned quickly, but there was no one, there was nothing. And suddenly came down an absolute silence, i could even hear my heart thumping in my chest frenetically. A part of me wanted to run away. My mind broke in two: while the ranger inside of me wanted to discover the origins of that sound, the survival instinct told me it wasn't even human.

I was thinking to just look around me, in order to convince myself there was a reason, that the sound was physically explainable, but there was absolutely nothing, not even a cane or a hole in the trunk of the oak. Nothing but trees, moss and ivy. Even the grass seemed cut, which was odd because i knew for sure no one ever cut it in years. In few minutes i lost control of my eyes and turned into a state of dreaming; my muscles were totally frozen, and i found myself staring through the oaks in the distances. Why was I even looking that way, deep down in the woods? But then when i interrupted the look, i saw it, with the tail of the eye: A white figure in the long distance. I think my heart missed a beat.

My survival instinct told me it was time to run, so i turned my foot and a leaf cracked under my shoe making what in that silence seemed a fucking din, so i started running downhill, trying not to look behind me, right towards home. And then i started feeling my breathe becoming restless for the run, and then in the distance i heard my dad honking. And when I finally saw the windows of my house lighten up in the of the plumbeous evening. That's when i finally looked at my back, just to find out that a thick fog had risen: when did that fog come out? Where did it came out?! It was pale and it glistened in the little light that was penetrating from the clouds. And in few seconds i saw all of them. Like twenty or more human figures where in the same line, few meters above in the climb. I couldn't see them distinctly, but i heard that sound again. But now it had something different. It was seductive, it was gentle: a meloy which was inviting me to enter the fog. I felt my chest heavy, and the humidity of that mist making its way through my lungs. I was starting to move into the haze, but then i heard my mom calling me: dinner was ready. So I magically woke up from what seemed a dream. Or better a nightmare, and i jumped through the pinewood, this time not looking back.

That day something changed in me. I couldn't help but thinking of that odd music: it was in my everyday life, even in my dreams. I wanted to hear it again, no matter what.