The Monster in the Woods

TW: Death (in general as a conversation), gore descriptions

The Monster in the Woods

Lark

There is a monster in the woods. I can hear the scrapes and crunching beneath heavy feet shuffling ever closer, closer, closer. I am become lost with my broken body resting against rugged boulder, my fingers scraping rock; leveraging myself away from the monster. Fingers bleeding beneath scraped fingernails and wretched cries leaving my lungs. I hear it coming. Coming for me.

The monster has always been- as old as the woodlands and rivers. It looms in the dark, creeping as a shadow in the night, ever silent, leaving only death behind. The stench of rot permeates through my senses as the dragging draws ever near until it stops. I fear to look at it, but my mind can’t seem to stop its magnetic draw to the creature. As tall as the trees, hunched over in rags made of the debris of the forest: bones, fabric, swords, skulls. All manner of bloodied remnants clogging the bulk of the creature. A headless monster with broken antlers resting atop skull fragments like armor along its wide shoulders, disjointed fingers with rotted flesh hanging off too-long arms hang loosely down. The creature, as massive as it is, stands as still and silent as a grave, it awaits in anticipation. The smell muddles my already pain-addled brain making tongue loose like the night before battle when the ale flows like a fountain that will never dry.

“Leave me, Oh Monster of the Woods!” I cry in anguish, pulling my blood-soaked body away from the wretched thing.

A stillness in bated breath before a ground tumbling voice spoke from the earth itself. “It is your time.”

“It is not! I will heal; I need a physician.” My mind is strong; my body is anything but. Another broken soldier lying on stained field, though I had strayed far. Though to die in the woods at the hand of a creature is a gruesome thought, I would rather die in mercy than punishment.

Another silence, each longer than the last as if the creature pondered words and thought. “All must come to its end.”

“It is not my time.”

A sound of rocks tumbling and waves crashing made birds take flight from branches far overhead. Laughter- it seemed as it spoke. “The ground gives life as it takes the same, time does not matter in life and death. The egg hatches as the bird breaks. The worm loose from the soil of life, becomes a meal for the waiting sparrow.”

Time could not be meaningless; it draws the masses in meals and prayer; in day and night. Time was measured by our days well spent and our evenings resting our minds.

“Creature you do not understand, time is essential, it gives in the daylight by sun and mourns at night with moon and stars. Do not say time does not matter, for our lives surround the time we give it.”

“Then you are a fool mortal. Nature does not hold your constraints. It thrives in all its ways whether in life or death as you will. We all become part of the forest in the end.” The creature, unmoving, spoke.

“I do not owe the forest my life! My family will grieve!”

The pondering silence with frail body, a close companion of patience as I wait for the Creature’s remark, a plea to the heart.

“We miss the sun when it disappears beneath the tears of the moon, yet it awakes another day in new form. Grief is a heavy beast, yet life continues ever on. Your time will consume you, lest it be your burden to bear. A mother cries for its faun, but the forest moves on. A predator needs the prey to feed its own young.”

Fear gripped through my heart; I did not want to die. I was selfish in wanting more from my short span. The creature must show mercy. “Mercy, Creature. I beg; I have not lived all my years. Please.”

The wetness of tears soaking my face in an unfamiliar pattern that I had not felt since boyhood. My muddied armor, sullied by both battle of the enemy and the very nature of the forest. Proud colors once worn, now smeared and ruined. Is this life after all? Battles fought, some won, though that final battle moves ever closer. The undefeatable foe.

A ticking sound as the creature trudges closer, the bits of bone hitting together in sorrowful melody. The carcasses calling out, reaching towards me with ribs and tail. Worn skins of animals long dead and freshly found hanging in limp fashion, a trail of destruction.

“Monster, what is your duty if not honor bound by life?”

“Ah, but don’t you see mortal that death is yet another part of life? The rabbit eats the clover; the wolf eats the rabbit. Nature needs death to survive. Death becomes life, as life becomes death. Your time is meaningless when your flesh feeds the flowers and trees, when your hair builds the nests of birds and bones for the hungry.”

When did the creature move closer? The stench of decay becoming a miasma of redundancy in death. Its boney fingers drawing nearer. My feet scrambling for purchase on the fallen leaves in shades of sunset, an omen. An ending coming close. My final battle drawing near, though no sword present, no foe to fight. Alone besides the Monster.

“I don’t want to die.” A whispered confession hidden in the depths of the forest.

Clutching hands with strong grip against weak arms, darkness looming in my mind. My body failing in the silence of the forest. Not here. Not now.

“Nothing wants to die. Nothing wants an end, but everything must. Death is a beginning, my mortal friend. We give to nature as nature has given to us. Use the blessing to become. Become.”

Pinpricks of light, my head hitting the ground. Rot and nothingness surrounding me. I would fear, but exhaustion ways heavy on the body as death draws near. It is close. And as the blackness consumes me, my last image from the mottled creature; the trail before it, broken rotten things; the trail beyond it, a paradise of blooms over stones laced heavy with ivy.

Become.

I can become.