The Dark Forest

Prompt: A Celebration  |  Genre: Magical realism/metaphor  |  Word count: 2500 words

I wake up with a splitting headache throbbing in time with the aches all over my body. I am trying to get up but my arms are shivering with pain and exhaustion. After a while I give up and slump back down on the forest floor.

I should be scared; this is after all the Dark Forest. All of us in the village have heard the stories about the beasts that call this place their home. One of them could be lurking around right now. But I can’t seem to make myself care. I’m too tired. Maybe I won’t need a deadly beast with big, sharp teeth to kill me. I might just bleed and starve myself to my death. Well, that’s also one way to go. Not a glorious or peaceful death, but then I don’t think anyone else is around to notice.

Somehow, that thought seems to comfort me and I begin to drift off.

When I wake up again, I feel a little more refreshed as if my body somehow fixed itself while I slept. That’s odd. I’d thought I was going to die but here I am, on my way to getting better. I’m not sure I’m happy about that. I’ve heard that you tend to get better right before things do downhill. It would have been better if I had died in my sleep. I don’t want to see myself dying, or worse, struggle to stay alive. It’s too much of an effort and right now, I don’t think I want to make that effort.

So I let myself drift off again hoping to never wake up.

But I wake up again. And again. And again.

Every time I wake up, I find myself in the same position; lying face down, dead leaves strewn all over, the trees above forming a canopy. Each time I realise that I am slowly becoming a part of the forest floor; leaves, dirt, worms and even some moss covering me like a shroud.

Yet, I lay still. It’s as if the fire of life has left me. I don’t even feel any remorse or grief over this loss. My weariness surpasses any other emotion I may have once felt.

I no longer remember how many days have gone by. The days feel like eternal dusks and the nights like the endless space robbed of its stars. The silence has also grown deeper. If I close my eyes and press my face to the ground, I think I can hear the earth hum and the vines move as they slowly creep on me. Or maybe I’m just going mad. Because these are not the only sounds I hear.

It started a few days ago. The voices, they sounded like bees buzzing in the distance. I had dismissed it as just one of the many sounds of the forest. But they just kept on growing louder.

I am able to hear them right now quite clearly. Maybe because they are screaming at each other. I try to lift my head just so I can hear what they are saying. A few leaves fall off me and I hear a couple of butterflies flutter away. I feel a twinge of regret at disturbing them but the voices beckon me. They have cast a spell on me. I try to move a little closer but the plants and the vines are holding me tight. I push and I push, but I don’t move an inch.

I start to breathe hard as sweat flows down my brow and my muscles ache. I want to move but it’s taking all I have, and I have so little.

So I give up and drift off again.

The ground shakes under me. But I hold my stance.

My sword feels slick under my hands. I wish I could bend down and pick some dirt. Strengthen my grip. But there’s no time. He’s almost here.

Wait. Why is he slowing down? Is he going to…

I jump and roll to the side. Just in time. I hear a loud roar and whoosh. A wave of heat washes over me. I look behind to see a fading wall of flame scorch the ground where I was standing just seconds ago.

My heart is pounding. My palms and my knees bruised. I feel the pulse of my blood pounding rhythmically with my wounds. But I ignore it. Instead, I notice that he is blinking and shaking his head. This is my chance. I get up and run, circling behind him. His giant tail is still. But I know that it won’t be for long.

I run and climb up his tail with ease. Surprising. I guess the scales on his body provide a good footing. He doesn’t yet sense me. I’m too small. Good.

I race up, my sword still in hand. When I reach his back, I take out my lasso. I tie it up one of the ridges. I brace myself to swing down to his heart but that’s when he moves. I lose my balance and fall. I’m still holding on to the lasso. So now I’m hanging by the rope, dangling as he moves this way and that.

Suddenly a bright flash of light hits him in the chest and throws him back. The lasso swings to the left and I land on his chest, right before he hits the ground. My girlfriends spring into action and throw around ropes to hold him down. I steady myself atop him and thrust my sword deep into his heart.

Scream.

That’s what I had thought he would do. Instead, he smiles. A golden glow emerges from him and surrounds him. Why is he glowing? Suddenly his dragon face morphs into that of a boy. A boy with eyes that are deep and gray like the ocean I had once seen.

This time, it’s my turn to be disoriented. I look around to get my bearings.

I’m in a room. He is standing right before me. His eyes are burning, and I feel the heat deep down. Without any warning, he lunges and grabs my arms. My saree pallu* slips off unable to bear this violence. His eyes dip down to my cleavage. My heart is pounding. I can feel tears brimming in my eyes. I plead. I cry. I scream. But his eyes don’t move. They ravage me and feed his hunger. He raises one hand to tear my blouse away. But instead he tears my flesh out. I scream in agony and anger.

He backs away, his eyes frantic. I didn’t want to hurt you, he says. I only wanted you, he says. I don’t hear him though, my own frenzied heartbeat too loud in my ears. I turn and run. I don’t know why, but I yearn to look back. So I do. His deep, gray eyes watch me run away from him. Watch me as they bleed.

I wake up with a start. My heart is still beating hard. I look around. The forest is still; nothing has changed. It was just a dream. But I realise that something has changed.

My head is a foot above the ground.

I’m on my hands, looking down; several vines twisted and broken, lying around me. I guess I must have broken them off when I woke up with such a violence. The heady rush was still coursing through my blood like molten lava. It makes me want to get up and free myself from my own prison.

So that’s what I do.

I am standing now… or at least trying to. My legs are wobbling so hard, I feel like a toddler again who is learning to walk for the first time. I smell of rot and the fresh smell of wet earth. That’s strange. How can I smell like death and life both at the same time?

I stumble towards a tree nearby. I hold it for support but even my arms are shivering, like they have forgotten what it means to have and to hold.

I walk around the tree, holding it all the while, and that’s when I see it. The thing that had sparkled before I had lost my consciousness all those years back. It’s a pond, its surface eerily still like a sheet of glass.

Years? Did I just say years?

I look behind to where I had been lying and I realise too late that it has been years since I first arrived. Now that I am standing, I have regained my sense of time. My stomach rolls up into a tight ball and sends a shockwave of pain to my solar plexus. I hunch over and my knees buckle, forcing me to slide down the bark and plop hard on the ground.

Why did I not wake up sooner? Why did I let myself waste away? What happened to Surya?

Surya!

My eyes snap open. I have to get back to him. But… is he still waiting?

I see something at the edge of my vision. I turn my head towards the disturbance and I see it—a hazy glow above the now rippling and shining pond. Curious, I clamber holding the tree and push myself toward the pond.

As I walk closer and closer to it, the voices grow louder. I realise now that the voices were coming from the pond all along. I totter towards it, curiosity and fear egging me on. When I reach the edge of the pond, I see images floating on it, the way they do when you recall your memories… but these images, they are undistorted.

I fall on my knees, my stomach plunging with me because I see him. And her.

They are fighting; she is clawing at him while he is trying hard to defend himself without hurting her. Without hurting me.

I sob and for once in my life, I don’t hold back. I sob out my pain, my anger, my frustration, my regret. I sob holding my stomach, trying to stop my heart from falling and hurting anymore. But it doesn’t stop hurting.

Through my cries, I hear her crying too. I open my eyes and see her in the pond, looking right at me. She is still dark, her eyes still yellow, her lips still crimson… and yet for some reason she looks like a lost child to me. I can feel her yearning for a hug, and I yearn to hug her tight. She turns her face away and watches out the window. Surya is walking away. He doesn’t look back.

But she knows and I do too that he has tried all that he could to hold on. We don’t feel angry at him; only a bone-deep sadness and loneliness.

Suddenly, the surface ripples again and her face morphs into his… the man with the deep gray eyes. He morphs into the boy and then the dragon. But their eyes… they remain the same. And they look at me with a fire that kindles something deep within me. I reach out to touch the dragon’s face but the water ripples as soon as I touch it and the image disappears.

It hits me with a sense of deep emptiness inside me. I had always felt this emptiness. But now it has a face.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I turn back and fall. There’s a woman standing before me. She is clothed with the plants and flowers of the forest. I look closely and I see plants growing and climbing and blossoming all over her, filling the air with a sweet fragrance.

She smiles, “You like what you see?”

She turns around to let me see her fully. I gasp when I see her back. She is garbed with dead plants and wilted flowers, the odour of decay pervading through her.

She turns back to me, “I see you don’t like that side of me. But don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical?”

“Hypocritical? How can anyone like rot and decay?”

“Why not? You like life, don’t you? Where there’s life, there’s death. It’s just the law of the land.”

I stare at her, unable to find a retort. I look back at the pond. It lies still with no ripples to indicate it ever moved. But her image is printed in my eyes and I wonder if she is my other side.

“She is. I’m glad you are able to see that now.”

I turn back to the woman with a rage. I want to deny her words, deny that that monster has anything to do with me.

“That’s ok. You take your time. It’s not easy to face your demons. And not everyone can do it either.” She cocks her head, watching me, “I have a feeling you are not one of those people though.”

She gives me her hand and I take it. She pulls me up and leads me to a large tree nearby. I slump down with a sigh.

“You are tired. You need rest and food. Here take this,” she says, as one of her flowers blossoms into a fruit and she pulls it out.

“I have been resting”, I raise my eyebrows. Nevertheless, I take the fruit from her hand and my stomach growls in approval.

“Yes, you have. Do you know what they say about the Dark Forest? That anyone who enters never returns?”

I halt in the middle of biting the fruit.

Assured that she has got my attention, she continues, “Though technically, it is true—no one actually returns—some of them do manage to leave. But most of them don’t. You know why?”

I shake my head.

“Because they never wake up.”

I gulp down the fruit and stare at her.

“But you did, and that gives me hope. You might just be one of the few who find their way.”

I sit up straight, “Really?”

“Yes.” Before I can ask anything more, she chips in, “No, you can’t go back the way you came. Even if you try to, you’d end up coming back here. No, there’s only way you can walk out of here. But it won’t be easy. Neither can I guarantee you that you’d make it.”

My eyes grow wide, “Make it? You think if I go that way, I’ll die?”

“No, no… that’s not what I meant. What I mean is that you might die before you complete your journey.”

“Then why should I even bother?”

She smiles, like a mother smiling at a child’s innocent but crazy question, “Because it will set you free.”

I think about it. Think about her—my midnight twin—and I realise that’s what I want more than anything else in the world.

The woman laughs and several flowers shower down on me.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s the universe celebrating.”

“Why?”

“Because it has found the sheep that was lost.”

 *saree = An Indian attire worn by women;  pallu = the loose end of the saree