After several minutes of steady walking, the road abruptly ends, and the wilderness starts creating a very clear border between the city and the encompassing forest. As the trees start to replace the buildings surrounding US, WE recall being surprised by the sheer length of the trees. The trunks stretch almost infinitely upwards with only a select few of the treetops being visible to the unassisted eye, only just piercing the thick fog hovering above the canopy.
The high and dense canopy results in the forest being darker than the grass fields and city, yet unperturbed WE continue on OUR path to being freed...
...Being freed?
What could I mean by that? I thought WE were already together, one and the same, the same entities? Who else is in my head that wants to get out?
WE exist and WE want out, how could YOU so easily make that mistake again? WE were always the same and one together and one more slip up could cause the end for US, understand?
Silly me, of course we agree.
Proceeding on further through the woods, the absence of wildlife becomes noticeable. No crickets chirping nor bugs buzzing nor birds tweeting nor even the still footfalls of deer through the thick underbrush. The only audible sound being that of the twigs and leaves being crushed under my shoes and crunching loudly. Sometimes pebbles tumble and rustle the leaves as they fall down a ridge into denser bushes below. The rejuvenating scent of the trees and forest air brings peace to the mind where the quietness instills dread, almost as if the tress and fog and bushes are claiming you as family and you have returned to your home after a long absence to their embrace.
Another amount of time passes, another scenery change. The dusty footpath becomes clearer of debris and more open, easier to follow and walk along. The footpath the spreads wide and opens into a clearing in the forest. The brush stays clear of the open circle of grass and trees dare not grow in the circle either.
Dead center in the circle is a television, a big flatscreen to be specific, which is turned off.
While walking to the TV I experience an intense headache, eyes bulging, veins throbbing pain in my mind dazing me and making me hold my head and crouch. As though my head is bulging from the inside.
and then all at once, it dissipates leaving me cold and clammy on the grassy floor of the clearing.
Head swimming and vision blurry i look up and astonishingly find an old man in all white flowing clothing, tainted green by the mist, standing before the TV. He smiles and confronts me :
"Follow me"
My muscles move on their own, forcing me to stand and meekly ambulate behind the figure along the path he leads me. Through the circle, out the other side onto a secluded and old dirt path covered by bushes and grass.
YOU ARE READING
The green city
Mystery / ThrillerA short story about an abandoned and alien city being explored by a mentally unstable man, the people in his head,the cities vacuous denizens and a strange green haze.
