Prey

The dew on the sparse grass was cold on my skin. My toes digging into the dank, dark earth. It’d been half a day, who knows how many hours, since I’d started running. From what you might ask, from who, from where? From everyone and anything attached to me. In the span of the last twenty four hours I’d learned that my soon to be husband was sleeping with my sister.

Fantastic right?

A cliche any book worm should’ve seen coming.

So I took a trip to get some space, some air. Stumbling my way, under prepared, to a local state park. Wallace Falls State Park. With the cooler season falling a bit underway, I figured it’d be completely devoid of human life. And I turned out to be right, as I now stand soaking wet, canoe flipped over and the river roaring behind me. My shoes long ripped from my feet, a hysterical laugh trickling from my lips. “It can't get any worse.”

Stranded. Alone.

Twigs snagged at my skin, red streaks in their wake. The forest silent, like I’d intruded on yet another private affair. The trees are a deeper green than the documentaries gave them credit for, the woods silent, no distant birds, no scratching of squirrels running in the trees. It felt wrong to be here, but a sensation pulled me deeper.

The rushing water fading from view as I traveled deeper. There has to be a service road out here somewhere, I mean they have those right? I hadn’t signed any of the visitor logs at the front of the park when arriving, didn’t even rent a spot, just drove through, got out and started going until I found the canoe, left floating tethered at the shore. “Great job, no one knows you’re out here. So smart.” Kicking at a mushroom seated at the base of a log dark with decay. My belly rumbling with hunger, a deep ache telling me to find food, find warmth, find anything other than the nothingness I had right now.

I’d read so many wilderness survival books during college, hoping to take a camping trip with my roommates, but it had never happened. Now here I stood, twenty seven, cheated on, soloing in the woods staring down a mushroom that had a fifty-fifty chance of killing me. I hadn’t had time to eat after my night shift and came home to hear my sister in passionate throes with my fiancé, well I guess my ex fiancé now.

Huffing, I planted myself on the ground. A chill creeped along my spine, glancing over my shoulder, I stilled to listen in. It felt like I was being watched. Groan. Okay, so eating was at the top of my list right now, forget the possible predator staring me down from between the dark foliage.

Plucking up the white spore, twisting it between my fingers, to eat or not to eat, that is the question. Worms came from the spot it had once been, slipping and sliding around the hole back into the moist caves they’d tunneled in the earth. “There's more?” Beside the small hole I’d made stood another mushroom, same white top, skinny and tall. Then another, and another and another. Patterned in a half moon shape around the decaying log that I now leaned my soaked back against, the bark rough through my shirt, my only meal that I could wrap my head around in sight.

This feels like a dance with death. If I eat these I could get sick, I could die, or I could be absolutely fine and appease my clawing hunger. “You’re being a drama queen.” You’re also talking to yourself, so let's be real. Not even a full day without civilization and I'm starting to go crazy.

The crunch of the mushroom between my teeth, the bitter, raw, uncooked taste was not my first choice but after it mellowed in my mouth it wasn't half bad. So I grabbed another. The hunger drives me on. You don’t realize how much fighting water actually takes out of you. In the movies it looks so easy, swimming in the rapids and getting out, hair shimmering and lightly out of breath. It’s a lie. All lies.

My hand grasped air as I went to reach for another, dirt on my lips and fingertips, tucking itself under my nails. All gone, I don't know how many I’d eaten but I knew it was time to get moving, the sun rising higher in the sky. The chill settled into my bones when I trudged my way into the strips of sunlight that broke through the canopy. The mist above the undergrowth started to clear a bit as time ticked on.

A lightness floated in my head, as I spotted a dirt road ahead, not at all well maintained but something was better than nothing, right? Weeds peaked up through the compact dirt, the trail still visible as the vegetation hadn’t taken it over quite yet. But it was on the verge. Looking both ways, it seemed as though they stretched on for miles. Just trees, bushes and more trees, and still that feeling that I was being watched, but nothing had tried to kill me yet so onward I’ll go.

My feet feel heavy, my fingertips tingly. Maybe those mushrooms weren’t the best idea. “Damn nature books failed me.” It felt like wind between my lips, the words hardly audible. I’d die by mushrooms in these woods, with no one to find me, my bones to whatevers stalking me for the last few hours. The road seemed to widen a bit, the dirt path seeming filled with less debris than before, but still no sign of civilization or signs of life anywhere. Not even the birds want to be here.

Same.

My eyes feel dry, sluggish, tears not coming to my aide. My hands now completely numb, my body not even registering if we’re still cold or not from the river rapids, or the previous dew from the morning. Ahead of me the path seemed to fork in two directions. Which to take? They both looked the same, trees, dirt, the same old barely there path. But I had a feeling, at this intersection I could go right and follow it hopefully back to the river, then back to my car and then back to my house. Back to my life. Or I could go right, deeper into the woods that already had taken all sensation from me thanks to those mushrooms.

I shifted to the right, dragging my feet, streaks being left in the dirt. I didn’t want to go back, I didn’t want to have to deal with my being unwanted.

“I want you.”

It was a deep tone, a whisper in the wind. My conscience already felt so numb that I couldn’t even feign to be scared. Whatever had been watching me, or whoever had been watching me, since the mushrooms, was finally making its move. The air hung heavy around me as a dark figure danced with the stars in my vision, a limb outstretched. Pushing my shoulder forward, I swung my arm to touch its outstretched limb and a rift formed like a rip in the page and it pulled me through.

As I passed through the rift, it felt like acid was flooding through my veins, and I looked up to see predatory eyes staring at me, lips spread into a wicked smile with teeth as sharp as knives gleaming a pure white, ear tips pointing through it’s long hair.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to step into a fae circle?” The mushrooms. It hadn’t just been a half circle, it'd been a full prey circle meant to ensnare.

It echoed in my ears, ringing back and forth in the numbness as I felt a warm rush drape from my neck down my chest. Its eyes held mine as the world faded to black. No pain, no second regrets, no fear. I’d chosen my path at the intersection and I’m happy it was filled with something.

Filled with peace and darkness.