The Monster

I still think about that night. So long ago now, but it remains clear as crystal in my memory. The fear. The blind fear is still palpable. Sometimes when I sleep at night, instead of the dreams that usually make up that time spent unconscious, I am taken back to that night. I wish it never happened. I wish I had forgotten it. I wish I could forget it. But I can't. And I never will.

Night. The forest. Somewhere on Earth. Somewhere on earth. It is tranquil. The animals that wander this place by day have withdrawn to their burrows and their nests. Most are asleep. They had busy days; it’s hibernation season soon, and they’ve been preparing. The nocturnal animals silently wait for prey to scurry past. It is any other night. 

Until a sound. A light thudding that grows louder and louder. An owl, brown-feather and wide-eyed, was perched on a high-up branch. She turns her head almost backward towards where the noise is coming from. She sees a boy. A boy running.

A boy is running through the forest. He is swift and agile, leaping over fallen trees and bramble bushes and slick patches of moss with dexterity. Dead leaves crunch under his feet. He follows the deer’s paths, where the foliage is sparser, their footprints barely imprinted into the dirt. Farther and farther into the forest. Farther and farther away from any signs of human civilization. 

His face is one of terror and panic. His eyes are wide and wild. He is running from something. And by the look of it, something bad.

His hands are torn open. Blood leaks from them in diminutive drops. He rubs his hands on his clothes as he runs. He doesn’t want to leave any long-lasting imprint of his existence on the area around him. 

It’s freezing; the eve of winter. Small sheets of ice coat parts of the ground. He’s careful to sidestep them. Slipping and falling isn’t something he can risk. 

The boy does not recognize where he is. He has never ventured to this area of the forest before. The trees seem to close in on him, their bowers mostly concealing him. The moon is absent from sight beyond the canopies. If not for the few rays of moonlight that make it through the leaves he would be in complete darkness.

Where is the boy running? He doesn’t know. Just away. Somewhere he can’t be found. Somewhere he’ll be safe.

Seemingly all at once the forest dissolves into swampland. He can tell at first by the mud rippling underneath him, soaking into his shoes, then by the sounds- frogs croaking, fireflies buzzing, a startling contrast to the near-total silence he’d been in before. 

The shrubs are soon replaced by cattails, the ferns with overgrown vines. He’s read about swamps in books and magazines before but has never been in one himself. 

Is he safe now? How far has he gone? He wants to stop running. He wants to rest somewhere. His legs have grown heavy, especially as he treks through malleable ground. His feet get halfway sucked into the mud with each footfall. 

The boy doesn’t know what to do. He can’t keep running forever. He will be found eventually if he does not find a place to hide. He is not fast enough to outrun what is chasing him.

Ahead of him, he spots a copse of mangroves. Their roots twist out of the mud like gnarled skeletal fingers. As if a colossus had drowned in the swamp years ago, its outreached hands having turned into tree roots. 

There! Look at how his face lights up, look at the glimmer that appears in his eyes. He has an idea. For the first time, he has tangible hope.

Once he reaches the mangroves, the boy dives into the muck. He clutches the roots and pulls himself forward. He is blanketed in mud, which gets into his ears, nose, and mouth. He crawls between the roots, having to exhale to fit between them. He spits out a mouthful of mud. 

Saltwater drips on his head as he huddles within the roots. He can’t see anything. He gropes around in the darkness until he can sit up, until he can’t back up any further. From here he wipes some of the silt from his face, offering him limited visibility of the roots that encircle him and the swamp beyond. 

His breathing is irregular, and he covers his mouth to keep himself silent. His exhalations escape from between his fingers, pale white and wispy.

He should be safe here. He won’t be found here. All that he can do is wait. 

He shivers deeply. Now still, his mind not focused on running, the boy truly notices how cold it is. Especially now, wet from head to toe, he feels the chill. The mud is turning solid and icy against his flesh. It becomes harder to keep his eyes open and his thoughts level. He wants to fall asleep, but knows if he does he may never wake up again. He’ll freeze to death. He can’t stay here forever. But where else can he go? What else can he do?

The boy is lost in thought and worry when, in the distance, ten feet or ten miles away from where he cowers, a boom. The ground rumbles lightly. The animals go silent, and the rumbling reverberates through the mangrove’s roots. At that moment, when the swamp is wholly quiet, when the water he kneels in ripples against his legs, when his heart pounds faster and faster against his ribcage, the boy begins to cry. 

Maybe I never left those roots. Maybe I am still being hunted. Maybe I died, and I am in Purgatory. I don't know. I may never know. I just wish that one day I can put this behind me. Maybe it will happen. Maybe not. I'm still scared all the same, as I was cowering within the mangroves.