The Forest

Night-time. 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 The animals that wander this place by day have withdrawn to their burrows and their nests.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’ve been having busy days recently; it’s hibernation season soon, and they’ve spent much time preparing- stockpiling food and insulating their dens. The nocturnal animals silently wait for prey to scurry past. It is any other night. 

Until a sound. An unusual sound. A sound foreign to this setting. A light thudding that slowly grows louder and louder. It doesn’t sound like an animal running, a bear or a wolf. It’s lighter and the time between thuds is more spaced out. An owl, brown-feather and wide-eyed, was perched on a high-up branch. She turns her head almost backward toward where the noise is coming from. She sees a boy. A running boy. 

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 stomped down and sparse, their footprints barely imprinted into the dirt. Farther and farther into the forest. Farther and farther away from any signs of human civilization. Farther and father into the thick of it.

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

His hands are torn open in long gashes. Blood trickles from them in diminutive drops, down his arms. 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. Thin sheets of ice coat parts of the ground. He’s careful to sidestep them. He can’t risk slipping and falling. 

The boy does not recognize where he is. He has never ventured to this area of the forest before. This place is more foreboding, more packed-in than where he’s been 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. He is running away. Far 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, flowing water; a stark contrast to the near-total silence he’d been in before. 

The shrubs have been replaced with cattails, the ferns with overgrown vines. He’s read about swamps before but has never been in one himself. 

How far has he gone? How many feet, yards, miles has he crossed? He wants to stop running. He wants to rest somewhere. His legs have grown heavy, especially as he treks through pliable 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 grabs onto the roots and pulls himself forward. He quickly becomes covered in mud, which gets into his ears and nose and mouth. He squeezes between the roots, barely fitting into the space within. He spits the mud in his mouth. 

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. It sounds like he’s muttering something under his breath. Help me help me help me help me help me. Like some organic rhythmic beating. Help me help me help me.

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

He shivers deeply. Now stationary, his mind not focused on running, on getting far away, 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 straight. 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. Then another; a little louder, a little closer. And another. Another. 

Here and now, 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. Help me help me help me.