The Forest.

0.2 The Night Before

_Present day

On the front porch of the lonely cottage in the middle of the forest, it was clear to see the mesmerising moon which silhouetted the vast forest trees. A young boy sat thinking about earlier events and what his mother had revealed to him. The boy found the gentle sway of the trees alluring, as if persuading him to venture down the weathered path snaking though the towering trees but he was acutely  aware of his mother's warnings of not to ever fall under the trap of the night. Especially not a night of the full moon. Yet her earlier words rang clear in his mind as it contradicted earlier warnings.

"Tomorrow morning, you will be going to the village. No ifs and or buts I've had to think long about my decision and I know it's the right one. You will be going to school. I have put everything you need in your room" There was very little the young boy could do to disagree and instead stuck to a slight sulk not talking to his mother much and staying in his own thoughts. It was all too well for his mother as she was also drifting in her own thoughts.

His mother knew all to well what the night could do. As her husband, the child's father, had succumbed to the power of the night; he disappeared. Not a sudden disappearance. No, that would have been easier to get over. But a disappearance of his soul. His body was always there but he seemed to drift off into space with the seeming want of the outside world. He used to be a handsome man with a dark rugged look to him, which was one of the reasons the mother fell in love with him once upon a time.

But after that fateful night of him walking into the forest, he became almost like a malnourished child. Not a grain of food nor a drop of water touched his lips for months. His sunken face started becoming the reason of the boy's nightmares. The boy avoided his own father for years after. He was very different to the person she had fallen in love with, different to the person who the child had grown up calling his father.

The nightmares has still not stopped though. Even five years after the death of the father he still slept in the same room as his mother - for her to sing the boy to sleep and to calm him down on the worst nights. The mother was forever to be worried of her only child to live the same terrible destiny of his father.

Forcing her son to get inside and into his own bed, (for the first time in years) she reminded her son that tomorrow will be different than normal. He would have to go to a place called "school" as his mother would go to work to finally move the mother and son duo from the "cursed" cottage.      

 ~a few hours later~

"Ma- I'm fine. You go to sleep as well you need to go to work  tomorrow." sounding slightly uneasy as he tried to assure his mother. He had, not so long ago, dreamt of something that seemed like a conspiracy or murderous plot of his mother's to lead him into the forest. It was absurd and led to his screams threatening to pull the lonely cottage to the ground. His mother was quick to appear and comfort her son.

"Son, the second you have any more of those 'dreams' come and wake me up and I'll stay with you. Forget work, I need you to be safe before I think about anything else." she stood up and kissed her son's forehead and turned around to walk to the other room glancing back to her surviving lifeline, she mouthed an "I love you" as he turned away from the door, she unwillingly left the room and the door ajar. "Just in case" she mouthed to herself. Just in case.