Forbidden Forest

 The forest floor was drenched with the mist that hung in the air, the sounds of the creatures dwelling inside sounded both far away and close by. Luna walked cautiously under the low-hanging branches, pressing her hand into the mossy trunks to keep her balance as she placed one soggy boot in front of the other. She could feel eyes on her at all times as she moved as silently as possible through the muck, twigs, and saturated rocks of the forest floor. The mist that hung in the air was thick, dense, and heavy, almost weighing everything covered in it down with pressure. It was not like a normal mist, but something alive.

Luna continued walking through the dense air, taking shallow and strained breaths as if she was being suffocated the deeper into the forest she got, deeper into the belly of the mist. She was traveling during the night, a dangerous game to be sure, but necessary for what she needed to do. The lantern that hung from her backpack was dark, the flame snuffed out long ago. She could feel the hair on her neck and arms raise up as she made her way through, hearing breathing around her and twigs snapping further up. She had to keep going, had to get there before her time was up.

She finally saw the first marker a few yards in front of her, a boulder with an engraved slab rose from the ground, covered in moss and leaves. The closer she got to the marker, the more she saw the chiseled features engraved into the massive slab. She saw what looked like a crown, covered partly by moss, the engraving was worn down by time and elements. Who knows how long it had been there, but it was the first marker she needed to reach. She looked around her surroundings, watching carefully in the grayish mist for anything looking to prey on her. She could feel them all around, but she couldn’t see them.

The creatures continued their nightly songs, the insects buzzed and hummed, and chirps and calls from nocturnal birds resounded around the forest, so she knew there was some safety. Luna knelt down beside the marker and pulled on some of the moss to expose another engraving. A skeletal hand pointed in a direction to her left, showing where the next marker would be found. She reached behind her into a pocket in her pack and pulled out a compass. She opened it up, unclasped the clip, and placed it on the flat top of the crown, watching as the needle rocked back and forth before starting to spin. It spun quickly, rapidly gaining speed, but not slowing to show what cardinal direction she was going.

She silently sighed to herself and quietly clipped the compass back closed before putting it back in her backpack pocket. She angled herself in the direction that the hand pointed and started walking that way, avoiding obvious traps laid by the forest and the predators that made it home. She soon found the second marker, a tree that had toppled over in such a way that the gouge looked like a malicious grin. A pair of luminescent beetles sat in two crevices, giving the illusion of orange eyes in the black pits of eye sockets.

She looked around at first for a stone slab, like the first marker, but soon found that it had been swallowed up by the maw of the tree. She looked around once more, checking for anything that would pounce on her, but once more there was nothing. She held her breath and listened to the forest, but many of the sounds that were there at the first marker were gone. She could still hear the chirping and calls of the nocturnal birds, but they were far and few in between.

She felt an easiness building inside her stomach but knew she had to press on. She leaned her head towards the grinning mouth, seeing a darkened outline of the engravings. It was another crown, but she could see fully that the crown was seated on the skull of a skeleton. Same as before, the skeleton pointed in a direction. She pulled back and looked in that direction, seeing a swampy embankment nearby. She dreaded the thought of going through the swampy area, but the urge to get this done drove her on.

In the blink of an eye, she was already standing at the shoreline of the swamp, amphibians scurried into the water in the night, chirping at her. She heard something in the water splash the surface and looked around to see anything in the night. She knew something was watching her again, something hungry, although she had to keep telling herself to keep moving. Her legs tried to resist, but she forced them to move on, step by step, she pressed on into the swamp. She followed a narrow strip of mud just along the surface of the stagnant water, hearing splashes all around her as toads, frogs, and other manner of creatures entered the water. She could hear something dragging itself along the embankment behind her, following along just close enough to be heard. She didn’t dare look back, knowing full well that whatever it was, she didn’t want to see it.

She did her best to keep a steady pace, walking briskly to get out of the swamp, but each turn of her muddy path was obscured by the dense mist until she came to the bend. The deeper into the forest and swamp she went, the fewer sounds of creatures she could hear. No longer could she hear the chirps or calls of the nocturnal birds, but only the sloshing of muck under her boots and splashes in the water nearby. The dragging from before sounded closer, and with it, she could hear hissing from directly behind her. Her pace quickened more, and she was nearly running by the time she saw the outline of the last marker.

The hissing grew louder, and she could feel hot breath on the back of her knees as she quickly walked, it was readying itself to strike. She finally saw the edge of the swamp through the mist and made the choice to run, to escape the danger. She kicked off from the mud as best as her legs could, running for the solid ground, running for her life from the creature. She heard a bone-crunching snap behind her and felt the excruciating pain as something sharp ripped into her right leg and tripped her to the ground. She tried to kick and scream, but there was only silence. She pushed herself up and gave the most explosive attempt she could muster at running, freeing herself from whatever took hold of her leg.

Luna didn’t look back, she ran as hard and as fast as she could, her blood dripping down the sides of her limp and broken leg as she hobbled to the third marker. She heard a great splash in the water once more behind her before everything around her in the forest went silent. It was the deafening silence that she felt the most exposed, the most in danger. No birds, insects, branches, or water, just silence all around her. She could feel the pain in her leg, and though she tried to cry out in pain, she was silent. She leaned against the third marker, another slab made of stone, with obvious water lines where the swamp had washed away features of the engravings.

She caught her breath as best as she could, the pressure of the mist increasing on her as she tried to slow her heart. She ran her fingers along the face, feeling what was left of the crown and skeleton. She felt the indent of the direction it pointed, looking in that direction and seeing nothing. She had reached a clearing inside the forest, but the mist was even thicker than before. She saw multiple lights in the mist, eyes staring at her in the depths, but started in that direction regardless. She was close to accomplishing her task.

She began her painful hike into the clearing, towards the eyes, hearing whispering begin on the wind. The whispers were muffled as if she had something lodged in her ears, she could not make out anything that they said. She felt pain in her right leg, sure that whatever got her in the swamp had broken her bone, but she didn’t have time to tend to it. She had to do this now before the hour was gone. As she trekked deeper into the clearing, deeper into the mist, she could hear the whispers more clearly. Some spoke her name, maliciously calling her to follow them, others were still too inaudible to hear clearly, but still ominous.

The deeper into the clearing she went, the denser the mist became, and the louder the whispers came to her. The eyes were moving around her, shifting with the mist as she continued. She knew that these creatures of the dark were there, creatures that flowed through the air with a womanly figure, luring prey into their grasp. She saw several floating past her but also saw several shadows in her peripheral that moved like children. They ran past her, making not a single sound, yet clearly there.

After some time, she finally saw the last marker in the distance, a giant slab made of the same stone as all the rest, with a skeletal figure draped in a tattered cloak, wearing a stone crown and holding a scythe. She had finally made it, through the danger and perils, she had reached the end. As the statue came more into focus, the mist began to clear, and the wispy figures became more noticeable. Feminine figures, draped in the same tattered cloaks as the statue before her, with glowing red-orange eyes covered by wet, black hair. They whispered her name, whispered their ominous desires, whispered dangerous promises, all attempting to prey on her. She pushed past them all, deaf to their whispers, to reach the statue of The Reaper.

When she reached the statue, she saw that the eyes in the skull were illuminated with the same red-orange that the floating women had, staring into her soul the moment she arrived. Its goliath hand moved from the shaft of the scythe and reached down to her. She pulled off her backpack and opened it, not taking her eyes off it as she pulled out a braid of hair. She placed the braid in the hand of the giant Reaper, and stood there, waiting for a response.

The Reaper clasped the braid in its palm and lifted its hand up to its mouth, opening its maw and leaning its head back to swallow the braid. Silence struck everything around Luna, the floating figures were gone, and so were the whispers. The mist began to clear and retreated back into the forest around her like a creature of ancient times. She could breathe normally again, as the weight was removed from her as soon as it was gone. She looked up at the Reaper and noticed that the full moon was bright orange and nearly completely darkened by an eclipse. She held her breath again, waiting for the answer, waiting for her needs to be accepted.

The Reaper gripped the shaft of its scythe, looking down at her with the same red-orange eyes as before, and swung its massive blade at her in the blink of an eye. It cleaved through her, but she still stood there, breathing heavily and waiting for her death to come. Nothing happened, at first, but then she felt off balance and lighter on her right side. She looked down quickly and realized that her right leg was gone, only a stump from an amputation was left. She again tried to scream, but nothing came out of her mouth. She held onto her amputated limb, begging for this to be a dream, but each grasp at the missing area solidified that the price had been paid.

She fell onto her back, holding her limb and looking up at the Reaper, watching its eyes blaze brightly as the moon mirrored its eyes. The wind picked up, and as it began to howl all around her, the cloak covering the Reaper billowed to reveal a woman standing between its legs. She walked out from under the Reaper and stood in front of Luna, smiling as tears rolled down her cheeks. She fell to her knees and hugged Luna tightly, holding onto her in a death grip, as if she would be dragged back into the shadows if she let go.

Luna held onto the woman tight as well, and stoked her hair, silently crying as she felt tears fall down her eyes for the first time in a long while. The ritual had been completed, and the price had been paid, all debts were resolved. The eclipse moved on from the moon, and the Reaper turned into a stone statue again, the illuminated eyes going dark before the mist opened a single pathway through the forest. Luna and Selena stood, Selena helping Luna as they hobbled through the forest, holding each other tightly.

As they entered the forest, the path to the clearing closed with mist once more. The eyes of the Reaper illuminated in a quick flash before the whole clearing was swallowed up by the mist-like rushing waters. When the mist cleared once more, the goliath Reaper had been swallowed down into the soil, the clearing turning into a single pond filled with swamp water, and only the top of its head could be seen, with the points of the crown exposed.