Full

The first month at home was characterized by a dense sheet of dust, which sat atop the dark hardwood floors like a grey, fuzzy carpet. Her parent’s home had been vacant for two years, and only moth-eaten sheets covered up the furniture with the most value: Layla’s bed, the kitchen table, and the antique desk sitting off in the corner of the family room. The shutters were closed, and the dormant lights barely sputtered back to life after her distant relatives, some odd cousins she met at her parents’ funeral, had flipped their switches before heading back from wherever they came.

Packing up the house was a job Layla didn’t have time for as she instead ran off to finish a ten-page analysis on the modernization of gothic topics in speculative fiction. She had spent the remainder of her parent’s money finishing out her English degree. A mistake perhaps, but she couldn’t afford a redo.

When Layla finally returned to the house, she carried a taper candle from room to room, setting down her books and bags and boxes, and hijacking the neighbors Wi-Fi, so she didn’t have to pay for her own to send endless job applications and cold emails to employers who contributed very much so to the agony of silence that filled the house.

She could’ve passed away too, turning into stone at her desk waiting for a job offer, instead of a freak car accident like her parents. Though, perhaps, she was stone already with how herself and the world around her was stagnant and mute, save for the miscellaneous notification from job boards offering discounts on premium.

There was no wind to rattle the curtains, and no buzz of the ceiling fan either— heaven knows she didn’t have money for that kind of luxury. She wrote cover letters lamp-side and kept a taper candle at her bed. She had gone to the grocery store only twice, but at the end of the first month, with no job offer, or even an interview on the horizon, she had only a few hundred dollars remaining in her bank account. Her life was a stone now crumbling, falling apart piece by piece into nothing.

To feel like she belonged in this world, she began running in the local forest preserve near her house. She crossed paths with townies or small animals going about their wonderfully simple life. Squirrels and chipmunks gathered acorns and rustled in between prairie grasses. The townies, who were typically retired, held hands as they walked along the trail, the accomplishment of their lives completed and packed with a pretty bow on top. And every now and then there were groups of small children on field trips. They squealed with laughter and stumbled down the hilly terrain eager to complete their scavenger hunt.

With money dwindling by the week, Layla began running longer distances in the forest. With no job, no friends nearby or who kept in touch, and no close family or significant other, she thought that maybe she could at least belong to the forest. She wished to burrow into the ground like the squirrels and the chipmunks or anchor her roots into the ground and grow like the trees. Her house was empty, but the forest was full of life.

Robins and sparrows called to her as she made her way down the gravel. They swooped from tree to tree, shaking off black walnuts that pinged off loose branches and hit the ground around her with soft thumps. The yellow-green orbs littered the path beneath her and the sun glared into her eyes through the trees. Worried about the status of her ankles, Layla decided to veer off the main trail to a smaller, narrower path that took her through the center of the forest. She had traversed it many times before and aways enjoyed how much more involvement she was able to have with the forest going through its heart.

Bushes grew out onto the trail and the trees didn’t hold themselves back as they formed a rusty orange canopy above her head. Grasshoppers and locusts sprang from the greenery as well, and common butterflies and the occasional monarch fluttered around the goldenrod, milkweed, and white goosefoot as she ran. Her pace was measured but comfortable as she soaked in her much-needed break from job applications.

She made her way around a bend where overhanging ferns tickled her calves and came upon a strange fog a few feet in front of her. There were visible sparkles in the air, an opaque white shimmering contained in a cloud exactly in between a group of four to five trees. To the left and right of the trail it was clear, for the fog only floated right where she was headed.

Layla ran through it, despite its strange appearance, although it didn’t feel like much of anything. The humidity didn’t increase, and she was out of the cloud as quickly as she went in. It was likely that it was an illusion of the sun; however, she briefly entertained the idea that it was some sort of gateway into a world that was not her own.

As she made her way past the fog, further into the center of the forest, she began to notice trees bent to the ground with their branches browning into the dirt. Sharp protrusions stuck out from where the trees had collapsed, leaving ruler-sized splinters reaching into the still air. There hadn’t been any wind recently to cause such damage and there hadn’t been any storms. Just a couple of days ago, when she made her way down the center trail, the trees were normal, upright, and alive. She continued along, regardless of the oddities, not wanting her own imagination to cause her to turn back early.

But she scanned the area as she ran, darting her eyes between the fallen trees and dead bushes. Each stump and knot of branches began to look like menacing shadows out of the corner of her eyes. Any dark spot could’ve been an evil waiting to prey upon her. There was a knot of branches there. And there. And there. Another shadow passed her view. And another. And another. Small or large, its size didn’t matter; its general presence was enough to irk her.

And that’s when she saw a creature—Yes! A creature! She was mostly sure of it, indeed—perched atop a thick log with its knees drawn to its chest and its arms tucked at its side. It was the size of a small ferret, but humanoid with skin that was raw, like a torn away blister. It had a large network of veins so thick they twisted around the bones beneath the skin’s surface. The creature looked fragile, but she suspected it was agile and fast from the way it tracked her progress with its hairless head. She couldn’t quite make out the creature’s eyes, but the sockets were deep set and shadowed. She had no clue what it was, or if it was real. All she could think about was it coming after her.

She picked up her pace, glimpsing it only through the trees as she scampered down the trail kicking up leaves behind her. Her head twitched back and forth between the creature and the walnuts resting in pockets of dirt in front of her, careful not to fall, but careful not to lose track of it either.

Until she did.

She looked behind her and it was nowhere to be seen. Did it move? Did it jump from its log and run off into the trees after her? Was it right behind her? Or in front?

Eventually, she had to stop looking behind her and into the trees because she had made her way to a large downhill where walnuts gathered at the bottom and a fissure eroded a jagged line down its middle. It went to the river’s edge. It deadened at the river’s edge, to be exact. She sprinted down it anyway, hoping to increase the gap between the creature and herself, though she knew she would have to backtrack the way she came to get home. Soft high-pitched laughter made its way towards her then, echoing from the bottom of the hill. Did the creature make its way in front of her without her knowing? Or was the sound echoing through the forest from another location? She continued surging ahead despite it, arms widening to help her maintain balance as she made her way to the bottom.

Leveling out a couple of seconds later, a group of children hovered around the lookout point in a disordered clump, sitting in mud and throwing rocks into the water, squealing at each splash. Suddenly calm, she slowed, and her breathing evened. Everything was as it should be.

She smiled at the children as she turned around to climb back up the hill, realizing how ridiculous she was for thinking a creature, a creature that was probably imaginary, came after her.

Navigating around the walnuts and the fissure, she trekked back up. As Layla pushed over the last arc, a solitary deer stood on the trail a bit of distance in front of her, staring with deep set dark eyes. She slowed to a walk, careful, to see what it would do next. She didn’t want to startle it, for it was the first deer she had seen since she had been home. The deer’s ear twitched as it watched her approach. Its antlers grew from its head like a pitchfork with only one point extending from the main beam on one side and two points on the other. Its tan fur sparkled in the sunlight that streamed through the trees.

She was about ten feet away when it broke eye contact to hop into the brush on the left-hand side of the trail, where none of the trees were down. She started running again to see if she could find it, but the deer didn’t leave a trace as it left, not even a branch broken or out of place in the direction it went.

The next day, she had the urge to begin her run right away. Typically, she’d force herself to do one or two applications before she headed out, but the possibility of seeing the deer, or maybe even the creature again, if imagination could conjure it, excited her too much to wait.

Layla galloped through the trees quicker than normal, but she had run through the center and back this time without having seen anything like the day before. The deer didn’t leave any evidence of its existence either. There was no fur snagged on branches nor footprints in the cakey dirt. There were only chipmunks again, running to and from rotting walnuts, trying to savor any lasting food.

The fog too, did not show itself, and she wouldn’t see the it again for quite some time. Days passed, and she wouldn’t eat a full meal either, with her rations dwindling rapidly. Crumbling and molding white bread with a sliver of hard cheese was her only meal of the day, which she ate at dinnertime, shortly before heading to bed. She needed to get to the store soon, to borrow a few groceries, but was too tired to complete her necessary responsibilities. She had even given up on job applications for the time being. Instead, she went on more runs, sometimes heading out into the forest three or four times a day, hoping to see the deer, and the fog, and the creature too, if possible.

One night, after Layla had eaten the ends of her loaf of bread for dinner and the last cube of cheddar cheese, she laid in bed, eyes open, seeing nothing and hearing nothing for hours.

Then, suddenly, an airy whisper called her. The noise drifted around the room like an internal wind, a sound without a source.

“Who’s there?” she called out to the staticky darkness. Nothing materialized. Nothing moved. There was like always, stillness.

The voice called again, wispy, hollow; “Come forth. Join me. Join me. Join me.” Layla raised herself from bed and stood. Who would be calling to her at such an hour? Or what? She was certain nobody had broken in, though her bedroom window was open and beyond was the forest, with its dark trees blending into the night.

She decided then, that it was the voice of the chipmunks, of the squirrels, of the birds, and the trees, dead and alive. It was the sound of the river rushing and the walnuts dropping to the ground. Or, perhaps, it was the deer. The beautiful stag, staring into her soul with its pitchfork antlers and pitch-black eyes. She imagined it positioned at the forest’s edge, with tree branches arching above it and wild prairie grasses grazing its legs as it called out to her with yearning.

It wanted her, and she wanted it. This whole time, she had searched for it tirelessly, and now to her good fortune, it wanted her. Only the window was in the way. She yanked the window all the way open and pulled herself through. In her sweat stained pajamas, damp at her back, she rushed down the street to the forest barefoot. Her feet slapped against the pavement and dug into rocks scattered across the road. In her wake, bloody footprints were left behind, swallowed by the shadow of the moon.

When she reached the preserve half a mile later, a brown metal gate blocked her path. Open from sunrise to sunset, a rusted sign hanging from the top rung said. It was half past midnight, but the forest was never closed, at least not now, not for her. She climbed over the gate, pulling her thin body over with ease. Her pajamas clung to her skin like a wet rag. She took a few steps forward in the dark, feeling dirt creep in between her toes and stick to the bottom of her bloody feet, waiting for directions from the voice. She was certain it would materialize again.

The air was thicker in the forest than it had been moments before in her bedroom, like the area was covered in a cloud she couldn’t quite see, a suffocation of humidity.

She left the entrance and stumbled to the center trail.

“You know the way. Yes. Yes. Come now,” the forest finally sang. She was at the mouth of the trailhead.

Shrouded in darkness, she headed down the path. Ferns and grasses reached out to her, tickling her skin, caressing her with their touch. She leaned into them, wanting to feel more, wanting to feel the way each notch of stem and leaf briefly wrapped itself around her fingertips and arms, before bouncing back into place; their touch so delicate, so patient, so real, so far from the blue lit job descriptions glaring across her laptop.

She plucked one of their stems and brushed it across her arm.

And then the life she felt moments before was snuffed out like a candle. The leaves stopped rustling, crickets stopped chirping, and the forest stopped whispering.

She halted, and dropped the fern she had plucked and watched it float to the ground in a slow pendulum before coming to rest near her bare feet.

A chill came over her suddenly.

All at once, Layla felt like she was being watched instead of called or monitored instead of beckoned. Was it the creature lurking? The deer certainly wouldn’t make her feel this way.

She fled, retracing her steps quickly all the way home.

When she woke the next morning, the ground was damp and small beads of dew clung to the grass. After all these weeks, it had finally rained.

She brushed off last night’s adventure as a cheese-induced dream. She did not find any bloody footprints leading to her bed, nor feel any pain at the bottom of her feet when she stood and eyed her running shoes near her door.

The air was fresh, ready to be used.

Layla entered the center trail quickly, for there was no other way she wished to go. The greenery was fluorescent, as if the entire forest was covered in a filter that made the world appear bright and saturated with color. Yellow, orange, and pink coneflowers stood out from the long green prairie grass. The chicory was a deeper periwinkle than she had ever seen it. It was a snapshot of spring.

When the sun streamed through the canopy above her, a sparkling fog began to lift from the ground. A giddiness filled her. She knew it was finally back again, the gateway, the magic, and hopefully the deer. She scampered down the trail, avoiding the slick, clay-like mud, and the rotting walnuts, blackened with holes.

“You’re here. You’re here. Yes. Yes. Come find me,” the forest called out to her from beyond the trail.

She veered off, into the brush, following it. Her stomach grumbled and she brushed her lips against one of the dewy ferns, capturing its liquid with her tongue.

“You need me. Yes. Yes. I’m here for you,” the forest called again from an indistinguishable close distance. The sound did not echo, yet the source was still unknown. She hoped it was the deer. She knew that whatever it was, it absorbed the entirety of the sounds of the forest, a representative of some sort. Of course, it could have also been the creature, if it was in fact real, but she couldn’t imagine a being so decrepit representing something so alive.

She rushed between the trees, trying to locate the origin of the voice. Branches scraped her skin and filled her bare arms with narrow stinging cuts from which blood seeped out, beading together like dew before trickling down her arms.

The deer appeared in front of her briefly, wavering between the trees like a mirage. She began sprinting towards it. Her bloodied arms jutted out from her sides as she pumped them. It moved again, appearing a little farther off, and she tried running faster, sprinting towards its last location. If it would just stay still.

But then she tripped over a fallen tree and lost sight of it as her body hit the ground, caking her palms and knees with mud. She stood up again anyway, determined to reach it.

“You’re nearly there. Yes. Yes. Just a little more now,” the forest chimed, materializing from different points all around her, seeping out from every shadow. She whipped her head around, frantically trying to find it.

The trees blurred. It was everywhere, all around her. She’d seen the deer come and go. And she couldn’t catch it. She’d never ever reach it. Tears seeped from her eyes as she ran from tree to tree, hearing everything, catching nothing.

“Come forth. Come forth.”

Come to where? She tried. She tried so, so hard. Sweat dripped from her forehead into her already stinging eyes. Where did the forest want her? She stopped running and crumpled to her knees. Uneven breaths and gasps for air escaped her.

And then, from a concrete point behind her, she heard, “I’ve been waiting for you.” The voice this time was airy like the wind, less full of the voices of the forest.

She looked over her shoulder to find the deer staring back at her with its bottomless eyes fixed on her center. It was the one who had been calling for her, the voice of the forest, the representative for all things living. A smile spread across her face; she was right all along. The creature was imaginary, but the deer’s voice rang true.

 “You’ve come to save me,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

The deer took a couple of measured steps forward, silently, stepping over fallen branches and dried leaves without a sound. And then, staring at her all the while, its body began to morph and shrink and shrivel up into the form of the small creature that came with the fog. Its veins were smaller, less plump, and its skin was calloused, instead of blistered.

Before she could stand up and run, it came for her, knocking her back to the ground. It jumped onto her chest, and as she tried, but failed to throw it off, it grabbed her mouth with its spindly fingers and ripped it open, leaving her jaw unhinged. Then it stuffed its head in and crawled down, down, down, making itself at home in her stomach. She was finally full.

 

You must be logged in to rate this post.