The forest and the trees

Lost.

It happens before I know it… The forest is deep, the trails narrow and twisted, like unspooled tape. Careless, too wrapped up in the peace and comfort of the moment, I’ve let my attention slip. In the overgrown clearings, the paths snake off like strands of spiderweb. A lingering look. A half smile. And just like that, I’m lost. I turn in a small circle, taking in the trees ringing the clearing, but it’s like the woods have spun around as well… In the quiet, I stiffen. A thread of fear heating up… I hitch forward, my feet crunching through undergrowth like startled animals as I stumbled aimless from one trail to the next. I try to think back but it’s pointless. In a single heartbeat, everything has changed. It’s like the trees are curving overhead, fixing me with peeling bark scowls my mind refuses to erase. Like a shattered illusion. A slip of the mask. Indecision has me rooted to the spot, until a distant rumble of thunder stutters across the swaying treetops like a disgruntled mutter. That’s all it takes. Again I lurch around the clearing, desperate now, but it’s like the tall grass conspires to warp the trails into an intricate design. All that’s left is a puzzle to be solved. Lightning washes over the splintered expressions of the trees, makes the jagged mouths move, like they’re trying to speak… I shy away from the effort. Crumpling into myself. Backing up on the trail that slips between the trees feels like being swallowed…The dirt track is steep, leading down between the rocks, roots spilling over them like greased tangles. Deeper and deeper… At the bottom, the trees march away in a crooked double row, the hollow curving between them like a bottomless throat. I’m lost. I hurry down the path, jumping as thunder shakes the ground, and lightning makes shadows dance like flames… Noise. Furtive at first, like animals scampering through the undergrowth. But as I speed up, it mirrors my pace, becoming feet chewing through leaves like apple slices. I almost break into a dead run until I notice the path is gone, like it was never there in the first place, and I pull up short. Silence floats down like a blanket. A soft crack snaps the quiet in half, and my eyes go wide. It’s dark. A black so solid it’s like thick velvet curtains have been stretched between the trunks. My heartbeat makes the silence shiver. Trees creak like dried tendons. Like a haunted house. Groaning floorboards and whining hinges… My eyes lock… There, trembling between the trunks like the world weakest flame. A face. A pulse nails me to the spot like a bolt of lightning… I settle when I see it’s just a branch, the heavy gloom creating the illusion it’s floating on deep waters. Suspended in dark glass. I jump as it falls to the forest floor with a heavy thud, and this time fear creeps up slow when I see it doesn’t topple like it should. Instead it keeps upright in the dark like some unsettling magic trick, because it's not a branch, but a thin, emaciated leg. It feels like it takes too long to wheel away. Like I’m moving underwater and bubbles should be floating up beneath my scream. Until another sharp snap sounds and the world comes roaring back like a train up a tunnel, and I’m pelting headlong into the undergrowth while the beast gives pursuit… A field of saplings leads up a rise, thin branches clutching at my clothes and hair, lashing my face like whips. My lunging feet hit the springy soil twice before I snag on a root and hit the ground like a ton of bricks. Clawing to free me, I recoil, not from a root, but a hand, clutching my ankle like a hot, loose-skinned manacle. Everything I am becomes an icy vapour, sucked into the marrow, weighing down my bones as I roll over. I’m backpedaling, jostling the saplings, and the way they shiver isn’t right, not like wood at all. I can feel the slight tremble; the taut-string strain of muscle. What covers the low hill isn’t trees, but stick-thin arms sprouting from the ground like nightmare growths. Heat radiates. My eyes screwed tight, I struggle against the restraint like a fish caught in a net. Trembling fingers brush my cheeks before they clamp down. I don’t want to look but I can’t help myself. In the murk above me, numberless fingers writhe like worms, hinting at the rudiments of a huge and bloodless face. What I can make out of its features is in flux, dribbling like candle wax beneath the long-boned pistons. An eye like a sinkhole that won’t stop collapsing and a knuckle-knotted mouth that won’t stop twisting. What I’m staring at is mindless hunger. The scream feels like it rips my throat apart as the moon above me comes crashing down. A whimper is stuffed down wet and wriggling. I’m choking. My teeth spring close like a trap and somehow, the moon face finds a voice with which to howl… My jaws ache when my mouth empties. What trickles down my throat tastes like pennies, makes me want to gag, but there’s no time. The single breath is a small reprieve. Already the thing is closing in again, hands whispering through the leaves like spiders. A rush. The face has unravelled like a moth-eaten rag, swinging up through the darkness, blind, the ruin of its mouth hanging from a single hinge. My hands clutch handfuls of leaves and dirt like handholds as I struggle up the hill and send myself down the other side. A low fog hangs between the trees like stagnant water. The cold makes me shiver, sends gooseflesh crawling over my skin. A sour breath wafts over my face. Seconds later, the thing comes floating from the dark, its maw like the entrance of a carnival spook house and I plunge blindly into the trees again. A red-white starburst as I’m opened. Nails like chipped knives rip through my shirt, dig deep trenches into my back. A pain deeper than flesh and bone. I don’t know how I keep the scream inside. Stumbling, I manage to keep my feet while hands burst from the ground all around, churning the earth like water frothing up from a well. Fog curls from sinuous fingers like pennants of smoke… Up ahead, a rock formation looms from the dark like the prow of a ghost ship. I’m torn. The ridge to the left is too steep to climb, what I can see of the path skirting the drop on the left isn’t a path at all, more like a ledge. Behind me, the hands are closing in, crunching through the leaves like a universe of gnashing teeth. I duck left and it’s four steps before the ground crumbles beneath my feet like I knew it would, and I’m going head over heels down the hill. Over and over. The world becomes a sickening blur, until the bottom drives the last of the air from my lungs, and my head hits the forest floor like a ball that’s lost its bounce. The scrabbling gets my heart beating like a jackhammer, but these questing fingers are mine. I’m safe, I think, until my head lolls to the side and a sharp pulse throbs through me like a knife… At first it’s like I’m looking in a mirror, but the body lying on the ground to my right is naked, and I know it’s wrong even before I shoot up on quivering legs. The face looks normal, but the skin below the neck is grey and flaking, like paper mache. What’s left is a husk. A broken shell stuffed with shredded paper… My eyes are unable to leave the sight until the hands spill down the hill, chewing through the leaves like a devouring plague…Panting. My breath tears in and out like liquid fire. Hands clutch and dig. The forest is pressing close, like it’s working against me. Like the trees themselves have turned hateful. They were a refuge once. The sun sifting through the canopy like dappled gold. Holding me tight against the world. Lifting me up on makeshift swings. The sounds of rain pattering on leaves, whispering like soft voices. Spilling warm water from their cup unto my upturned face. Like a balm. Now the trunks from crooked corridors, like a nightmare maze littered with spooned-out corpses. They sit slumped, dangle from speared skulls like puppets with severed strings, their bellies ripped and emptied of their contents. A whisper scratches in my ear… Show me. My head snaps to the right, where a red light throbs between the trees like a heart. Show me you love me. The whispers stir the air like dried leaves, beckoning…. And then I see it. An image that threatens to tear my heart from its place with searing fingers. The statue in the clearing glistens, like it was carved in blood that refuses to clot. Naked, mangled bodies are heaped at it base, clinging to it like they died looking for salvation. A red so deep it’s almost like oil gushes over clinging hands and bloodless arms. I can feel myself going, held in place by fraying threads. The world tilts like a ship’s deck on a raging sea and I stagger into one of the trees. My arms reach out and slip around, hand locking wrist. The woman’s head is bowed, her hands held out at her sides like she’s lamenting the scene before her. But the expression is nothing like her posture. Her silence. Buried in perpetual gloom her gaze is unfathomable. I burn in it. Like being peeled and salted by slow, deliberate fingers. Like rusted knives paring flesh from bone. My fingers twitch, nails aching to dig into soft skin, tear myself open like a Christmas present. My lips part. I’m struck to silence by the scorching sight. Her face flows like a mortal wound. Arms tight, refusing to let go. I find myself looking up at the figure, her downturned mouth aimed at me like a question. Did I kneel or was I made to? I can’t move, I’m stuck like glue to the arterial visage. I want to scream until I burst. The statue breaks before I can, its stern features splintering like a broken mirror. What spills forth isn’t blood, but a long-fingered hand, slamming through the liquid face like a shredded, dark-spattered blade. The rent worshippers topple to the blood-soaked ground as the fingers begin to break down the shell like squirming maggots. Erase the festering wound. Torn hands flop like gutted fish, claw at naked, shattered flesh before I’m up and running again. But my feet feel like they weigh a thousand pounds… I snap a glance over my shoulder and catch glimpses of the monstrous face flitting through the trees like a swarm of bugs, hands grasping the trunks by the hundreds, nails scrabbling away bark as it propels itself forward.… The edge of the forest comes sudden, like the trees form a palisade. Beyond, the open field beckons, the wind stirring the sumptuous green like fingers combing through waving locks. So tempting. But all around hollowed bodies litter the tree line, and more are strung between the branches like gruesome garlands. Like a line drawn in death. In the light I see the cracked glaze expressions with bits and pieces missing, like the faces aren’t skin and bone but thin porcelain. And it’s not like I’m surprised to find they’re all the same. But what holds me is these eyes, filled with fragile lies. Behind me trees snap and splinter and crash, and bodies fall and explode like bombs in the gathering shadows. Shattering with me reaching up out in the dark. And I know if I look back I’ll see a seething mass of dead-white limbs rearing up in a tidal wave, before crashing down on me like grief. Like acceptance. I blink and smile. And wait. To see if it’s another me that doesn’t make it.