A Foggy Forest

A foggy forest, twisted trees stretching like skeletal fingers, a decrepit sign that reads: "Abandon All Hope." The wood is silent, save for the shifting mist curling around the trunks like grasping hands. The air is thick with damp rot, the scent of earth long undisturbed.

Emily shivered at the sight of the notice, her face was pale and drenched with fear, as she pulled her jacket tighter around her. The fog and cold were really weird. She shouldn’t have wandered this deep, but curiosity had gnawed at her, pushing her past the point of reason. The stories about the forest had always seemed like local folktales, crazy warnings meant to keep children from straying too far. But now, standing here, the silence felt unnatural. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

Just then, a whisper blew into her ears. They slither through the air, too low to make out words, but familiar. A voice from the past. A lost loved one. A secret only she should know. They beckon, tugging at curiosity like a fishhook through flesh.

"Emily..."

Her breath caught in her throat as she sharply turns around to locate the voice. That voice. It sounds just like her mother. But that’s impossible. Her mother had died three years ago. And yet, the whisper carries the same warmth, the same soothing cadence she remembers from childhood bedtime stories.

"Come here, sweetheart. I’ve missed you." The voice added.

The fog thickens, shadows pooling between the trees, growing darker, deeper.

They are not men, nor beasts. They are the absence of light itself, gliding between the trees like liquid voids. No eyes, no faces, just unimaginable figures stretching unnaturally in the shifting mist. They flicker, like candle flames in a dying breeze, and yet they never vanish completely. Always at the edge of sight. Watching and waiting for you alone.

Emily takes a step back, her pulse hammering. The ground feels unsteady, her legs shaking rapidly, like the earth beneath her feet is no longer solid. She swallows hard, trying to convince herself it’s just a trick of the mist. Just her mind playing games with her in the dark, she tried to run, but to no avail.

Then she hears it, a heavy breath, too close behind her.

Spinning around, she finds nothing but the swirling fog. But she knows she’s not alone. Her skin prickles, a heavy weight pressing down on her chest. The whispers grow louder, voices layering over one another, pleading, laughing, sobbing as it grows louder. And beneath it all, a voice that is unmistakably her own, speaking words she does not remember saying.

"Help me."

A shadow detaches from the others, drifting forward, slow, deliberate. The whispers stop. Then, a single word in her voice said:

"Run."

Branches claw at her arms, snagging her clothes as she bolts through the trees. The shadows move with her, shifting like ink spilled into water, closing in, closing in. Her breath comes in ragged gasps, her legs burning with effort. She stole a glance over her shoulder.

And sees them.

Hundreds of them. Silent. Flickering. Hollow. The ground beneath her vanishes. She falls, and the fog swallows the scream.

The Suicide Woods

She passed the sign with barely any notice given to it. She had seen the photos of it before, in books and on screens, and she was not shaken by it. Keiko considered the instruction unnecessary.

The sign was supposed to be a warning but it was ill heeded but for the few who understood its true meaning. Those had ‘abandoned all hope’ before before they set off for the forest. They had succumbed to despair long before they had even heard of the Suicide Woods. Once they’d gained the knowledge of them, and their location, however, they set out on what they thought would be their final journey.

Keiko was one of those who had decided to end their life. Everything had become so dark that no thing and no one could redeem her existence. She would walk into the trees as so many had done before her, and, if her knots were correct, the fall and jerk would snap her neck. Death would be instantaneous. Her pain would be over.

The trees creaked as she passed, and the fell wind carried the stench of decay before her. The deeper she went the worse the smell became. It was like foul and heated rotting meat. The natural exothermic reaction of entropy destroying the remains of the former victims of suicide. It was strange to use the term ‘victim’ Keiko thought when the sentence of this illness was self induced and terminal. In previous months and years she had been more charitable in her considerations, but now here she was, joining their ranks.

Shadows before her, suspended from the boughs, became more definite. The long elliptical shapes became human shaped. These were the bodies of the recent dead, she assumed, too soon to have decayed and petrified against the exposure to time, and nature.

The first body she saw was that of a nurse, like Keiko, but the uniform here was turning green, blue, and black with mold. The next was of an elderly man, with a face lined with age and scars from some torment visited upon him by life. The third she saw was a woman, a recent mother judging by the deflating swell of her tummy. Keiko had failed to save ladies like her, both during and after the birth of their children.

The physical reality of the corpses left hanging, and unredeemed in the woods brought her planned act into sharp relief. While she had no hope, it seemed she still had doubt, and her resolution wavered.

The mother’s eyes opened, and the corpse began to wail. So to do this nurse, her eye holes gushing blood as she did. The cacophony was an unholy sound, which was joined by that of the noise of the corpse of the old man, which simply began muttering, trying to speak through its strangulated trachea. Her life had no hope, but it could never be as bad as this, eternal torment suspended in despair.

One Would Live

If Grim Cruethful had to listen to any more bickering, he just might lose his mind. Better that than his soul.

“I heard the Runcorn can look like anything it wants,” little Lottie Quail cried defiantly. She was small for 6. Small, but loud.

Grim’s group of children was deep in the woods, somewhere past The Sign — which was long past the imaginary line that adults drew for children, separating the village from the Danger. The object of Lottie’s reply, Max Scathen, had been teasing her since their stealthy dawn exit. She had never seen the Runcorn; if she ever saw the Runcorn, she’d probably wet herself; that would be the only reason it wouldn’t eat her. Her piss-soaked dress and her piss-stinking nethers.

The group was five now. Five children all under the age of ten, being led by Grim, the eldest, away from a village that was no longer safe.

“How much farther?” Lottie demanded.

“Does Pissy miss her Missy?” Max sneered.

“Quieten down!” Grim commanded. “Both of you. These woods aren’t safe?”

“We know,” Lottie whispered.

A heaviness took Grim. His steps faltered.

“The Runcorn likes littlies,” Max taunted. “Littlest, juiciest first.” His eyes leered; his tongue flicked over his lips.

“It’s dangerous in the village,” Grim explained. “But not where I’m taking you.”

“We’ll be safe,” Max stated confidently.

“Yes,” Grim confirmed, without hesitation.

“Safe?” Lottie beckoned, peering up into Grim’s evasive eyes.

“Everyone will be safe,” Grim replied resolutely.

“Cassie isn’t safe,” Lottie mentioned.

Max’s assurance wobbled with his lips.

They were six when they set out this morning. Grim knew a cave, he told them. High in the hills. Where the Runcorn couldn’t fit. Only half a day’s hike.

Then Cassie got lost. Then they all got lost trying to find her.

Then they found her.

Bits of her.

By the time Grim had rounded them all up it was nearly nightfall. Too late to turn back. And the hills too far to reach before dark.

“How do you know the Runcorn likes littlies?” Lottie asked Max.

“From the stories,” he condescended. “Every 13 years it comes to feed.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Lottie asked. “Feed?”

“If it doesn’t eat the children it’ll eat the grown-ups,” Grim reported. “All the grown-ups.”

“Is that why they didn’t come after us?” Lottie asked, quivering.

Grim remained silent.

He led the children into a clearing. Not its cave. But it would have to do.

It would be quick. The five of them, remaining — the Offering. One would live. That was the deal. One to keep the legend alive.

“We’re here,” Grim instructed. “Gather round, children. You too Lottie.”

The girl was wandering again. He didn’t have the heart to point out that it was Lottie who got separated first, earlier. That Cassie might still be—

It didn’t matter anymore. It would be over so, so soon.

“Lottie!” Grim chided. “Come here, Lottie!”

“Why do you keep calling me Lottie?” the girl-thing asked, turning. “That’s not my name…”