Cursed Forest: Sightless

Can't go back now...

Whatever had approached had backed up just a little. Not very far though as I could hear them breathe. Shifting just before the log I had fallen off of. It shifted closer. I felt two hands on my shoulders.

I tried to yell but my voice was stuck in my throat. Welp I'm dead aren't I? The thing moved back away from me. I couldn't breathe. I tried to take a breath in.I gasped trying to breathe. I couldn't think. Panic filled my senses.

I couldn't smell anything or hear anything but the beat of my heart. My chest hurt, I couldn't stop shaking, I started retching crawling away from the creature. I felt arms go around me. The creature tried to calm me.

I managed to calm down. My chest still hurts and my stomach is still in knots. I pushed them away. My first thought afterward was where was Clarice? Why didn't she come back? Who the heck was this?

"You don't freeze." She muttered.

"Where is she?" I asked quietly.

I met Clarice when I was five. My Father and her Father were friends I suppose. It was mostly only because he was one of the elder's sons. Therefore he was more important. I would have met her sooner if it were not for my blindness.

Maybe introducing a two year old to a blind baby wasn't the best idea. Both Clarice's and my parents had agreed to this. This had to be the only thing the four of them ever came into congruence to.

"I'm sorry. She was running, and all I was trying to do was make sure she'd leave..." The voice mumbled. Her quiet voice still managed to echo. I had noticed a while ago that the animals had quieted down. It was too quiet.. "She looked into my eyes..."

"She's ...?" I couldn't ask the question.

"She attacked me first...and look I can't help it." She mumbled. She moved back away from me again, helping me sit up. "So she's stone now. I'm not sure how she didn't notice the other ones..."

"Dead?" I squeak.

"Maybe?" She answered. "I'm not sure. It's not like any of them has ever reversed back. So I don't really know."

"It's my fault" I muttered under my breath. I was unsure if she heard me, she didn't give anything that showed that she did.

"Well I can't really help you get back home." She muttered to me. I had no idea what she was doing. She pulled me off the log. "My name is Medusa."

I had no idea why her name was particularly important. I scratched the back of my head. My fear had been replaced by a growing sadness and confusion. The name started to ring a couple of bells. Wasn't there a story of a snake haired gorgon with a gaze that turned people to stone?

"You are very far from the closest village." She noted. I had no idea where I was, how far we'd gone. All I knew was that I was here, and I was tired. "I can't get you to the village, Can't leave here. And I can't leave you alone, that would mark your doom in some way.. Anndd I'm not the only cursed thing here. You just so happened to enter the stone forest."

"The what forest?" The name sounded wrong.

"I believe you call the whole thing the cursed forest?" She replied quizzingly. She didn't have the psycho sort of personality. It didn't make sense for someone like her to be here, cursed. We did in fact have a nearby forested area we called the cursed forest, it was surrounded by more forest.

"Well, that's what my part of this forest is called . I didn't name it. He did, and it was before these people started to decide to um.... Visit.....forever..." She explained. She took my hands in hers, a weird gesture. I could feel every smooth scale and her weird claws.

"You want to know what she did? When she finally turned around and looked at me?" Medusa asked me. I thought about it and nodded. What kind of sassy thing did she do? Spit at her? The thought of that moment....did not stir anger or fear. Oddly enough there was a sense that...those weren't her last moments.

"She had this look.....this look of pure...acceptance. To say I was surprised is kind of an understatement. She wasn't afraid. She was insanely serene. Very beautiful, too beautiful..A statue unlike any other.

"Her..Last words?" I asked. It was weird. How Medusa described the foul mouthed sass master Clarice as Serene. Clarice was only ever calm when something had really gone her way, or she was planning something. Surely out came her mouth was something truly horrible?

How many times have I been cursed at for having to be baby sat by her? She came up with many things that were just as bad as the next. She hated that my father thought I needed a look out. She would curse my father under her breath just as much as she did I. She mumbled about me being fine...with some choice words.

"When I was chasing her she called out 'Tracy'. It didn't sound fearful. It was like she wanted to say something. Yet she kept tripping and cursing. When she fell, and finally turned to face me... looked me in the eye...and said "Your eyes are beautiful.'"

I had nothing to say. I couldn't tell what was running through Clarice's head. It was confusing. Clarice leaving me here at the log, her running off away from Medusa, Her calling my name or her 'last words'.

"Is that your name? Tracy?" Medusa asked.

"Yeah." I replied. I was still caught on Clarice's last words. It was a very Clarice thing, I decided, to look death in the eye and complement them.

"Well. You probably can't leave...being blind and all can't really say though..I can't lead you out.. Your friend is stone.. So.....You could come back to live with me? Better than staying out here and dying? I think you'd either break your neck trying to get back..or get eaten by wolves."

"What do you mean break my neck?" I asked

"Well you traveled here by a dirt path that's used well by us, and dear and...wolves...And on one side of that dirt path is a bluff? There's a creek at the bottom and it's pretty steep." She muttered "Um there are quite a few dead people down there, skeletons....they jumped...because...I was trying to make them leave."

"Oh...."

"Are you going to join me?" She asked. She removed her hands.

"Well If it's a choice between death and life..." I replied. "But I have a question. Why? Why don't you just kill me?"

"Well one I don't want to kill people, and for letting you into my home? You are different..."