The Place in the Forest

 

           

               The wall loomed above me and Buddy in the night, standing steadfast like the sentinel and guardian it was. No one could venture past it. I had stood atop it many times, looking down over the dizzying 100-foot drop to the hard earth below. Looking west, one could see a bit of what lay beyond. A vast forest came to within twenty feet of the base; a sprawling mass of green that went out as far as the eye could see. What was hidden inside and beyond these trees, nobody knew. We had lived within the wall for centuries, protected from The Darkness that was said to linger in the heart of the forest. Every child had their own story about what The Darkness was; their own personal boogeyman.

               “It’s a giant spider that wraps up anything unfortunate enough to tangle in its web and suck out their life.”

               “It’s ghosts that haunt the whole forest, stealing souls and building an army to one day attack the living.”

               “It’s a good spanking if you don’t stop talking about it and get back to your chores!”

               Whatever it was, laying dormant and sleeping within that ever-stretching expanse of foliage, it had scared our ancestors enough to settle here, along the ocean’s front. From anywhere within the city, on a quiet day, you could hear the waves crashing no more than 2 miles away and smell the salt rising off the water and mixing with the smog and dirt of the city. Every aspect of life revolved around the sea; fishers went out day after day to bring in their hauls, desalinization factories operated round-the-clock to provide fresh water and jobs, legislation and politics focused every effort on keeping the waters clean and in sight. The sea was our protector and friend; its kind waves forming the eastern border and keeping away the memory of The Darkness that existed inland.

               I hated the sea. I don’t think I could be the only one, but I certainly never found anyone else brave enough to say it. While everyone else feared the land and The Darkness, I always feared the ocean. Not 500 feet from the shore, the sea floor dropped away and left nothing but miles of water in between you and it. And who knew what was swimming around in those miles? The thought of being alone, paddling helplessly as unfathomable horrors of the deep slithered beneath you, waiting for your legs to finally become too tired and for you to slip quietly and without resistance into the inky depths turned my stomach far more than any giant spider or ghost within the forest.

               My fear of the water had been bothersome my whole life. Living in a city where everyone and everything worships your worst nightmare isn’t exactly my cup of tea, and such a fear has real impacts on your job prospects in such a place. Luckily, there was at least one profession that didn’t involve countless hours on or near the ocean: city guard. It was an easy job; maintain and fix the wall, keep people from venturing beyond it, and (best of all) live, work, and stay as far away from the coast as was physically possible. There was no better place for me and so, as soon as I was old enough, I volunteered to serve on the guard.

               Ironically enough, it was my time and service within the guard that drew me towards breaking the very laws I was meant to be enforcing. I remember my first time looking out from the wall’s height, the warm breeze on my face as I stared in awe of the massive forest stretched out before me. While I knew the forest existed, I had never thought there could be such a massive horizon of green. This sea of trees was frozen in a rolling sheet of calm, gentle swells that was far more inviting and peaceful that the sea of water at my back. How any Darkness so great as to force us into hiding along the ever-beckoning coffin of the ocean could exist in this tranquil place was unthinkable to me. I could hear birds singing gayly among the boughs and saw dear and squirrels skittering in and out of clearings in the tree line. For the first time in my life, I felt at peace, like the great saltwater abyss only a couple of miles back had receded and would not vex me again.

               It’s hard to say when I first decided to commit treason and go beyond the wall. I had worked for the guard for several months, training and learning survival skills passed down through the centuries. I eagerly learned everything I could about the forest beyond: what kind of plants and animals were known to exist, which small parts near the wall had once been mapped, some of the ancient survival techniques should The Darkness ever threaten our way of life again. I also spent as much time on top of the wall as possible. With every sentry shift I took, I felt more and more as though the forest were calling to me, beckoning me inland to discover our past and my future. Eventually, this call became so great that I had trouble sleeping. My every though beat with the drumming of the forest, an insatiable desire to uncover the mysteries that it held. I knew it was a crime. I knew that if I went, I would likely die, or if not then I would never be allowed back within the city. But, despite this knowledge, something within me still yearned for a life free of the sea and of the wall. As I said, I couldn’t say exactly when the decision was made, but once I made it there was no turning back.

               The wall was manned 24/7 with sentries looking for anyone who may be trying to leave. But I knew every crack and feature of it better than anyone else. Fear of The Darkness had kept the whole population in check throughout the years, and in the guard’s record there were only three people who had ever attempted leaving. Two of these attempts made it to the forest edge and were never seen again; the third had been apprehended before even making it out. All this is to say that escape attempts were incredibly rare, and the guard was surprisingly only one-for-three in actually successfully stopping the escapees. And none of those three had been guard members themselves, knowledgeable in how the shifts changed and where the weakest points in the base were. That gave me the advantage, and I felt fairly confident I could make it into the forest with little to no problems.

               I planned out everything I would need weeks in advance. Obviously, food and water were a must. I had inventory duty every couple of days and managed to filch some rations without anybody noticing, cooking the books as needed. By the night of my escape I had enough to last me two weeks. Beyond that I would have to rely on my survival training to keep me going.

               Clothes were second priority. The standard issue guard utility uniform was very durable, designed to withstand the labor of repairing the wall, while still being lightweight and flexible. My large supply sack could easily hold four sets of the uniforms in addition to the food, so that would have to last me as long as it could. The sack itself was also quite the useful tool; large enough to hold everything I would need (including some tools like my entrenchment spade and compass), but rugged and ergonomic enough to not be cumbersome. I filled the pack up with as many clothes and rations as it could feasibly hold.

To protect myself from whatever Darkness did exist out there, I chose one of the sixteen-inch machetes used for clearing creepers and vines from the wall base. We had guns and ammo in the guard armory, but the inventory list there was kept under much stricter control than the easily replenishable food pantry. Additionally, a firearm and its ammo would weigh far more than the blade and had infinitely more mays of breaking or else becoming useless. With the machete, all I needed was a whetstone and sheath and it would likely last me a lifetime.

The final thing I would need to take was Buddy, one of the guard's defensive dogs. The dogs were trained to help the guard find any hidden packages or dangerous items along the wall, run down any person trying to sabotage our operations, and to defend guard members from any kind of threat. Those of us lucky enough to work with them often developed the best of relationships with the animals, and I had a soft spot for Buddy, who I had taken on several package runs on the upper side of the city. I knew Buddy had no understanding of treason or crime, and that we would loyally help me every way he knew how beyond the wall. I would sneak him out of the kennel on the night of the escape as the last thing before I left.

With everything in place and planned out, the night of my break finally came. I chose an overcast evening after a grey and rainy day, when visibility from the wall would be at its lowest. There was a grate in the upper city portion of the base where rain and some sewage were allowed to drain out beyond the wall. When the rain came down enough, as it had that day, the ground around this grate became soft enough to dig through and expose a fairly large crack in the wall that I had discovered but never reported for fixing. There were supposed to be overlapping patrols of every wall section; if the base patrol sentry was moving one way then the top sentry would be going the other. But I knew from experience that the timing of these overlaps was rarely ever maintained precisely, and, in fact, there were often large gaps in observation of certain sections at any given time. If I went just as the base sentry was out of sight, I was sure no one would see me.

As soon as the base guard passed out of earshot of the grate, I made my move. Kneeling down in the soft mud, I began furiously digging with my entrenchment tool, softly ordering Buddy to join me. Together, we were able to expose the opening to a large enough degree in less than a minute. The knees of my pants becoming damp from the earth, I quickly but quietly pushed my pack through the hole. I then commanded Buddy to crawl through after it. He sank low onto his haunches, waddling under the gap with an almost comical wiggling motion. Finally, I got down on my stomach and low-crawled through the space. It was a tighter fit for me than it had been for Buddy, and I had to drag my face and chest deep into the mud to squeeze through properly. My elbows slipping and sliding as they struggled for purchase on the sodden ground, I was finally able to pull myself though and into the calm darkness on the far side of the wall.

The instant I emerged from my struggle my heart began pumping extatically. This was it, the most dangerous part of the escape. The forest edge lay only twenty feet away, but in my anxious state it seemed like a mile. If any guard on top of the wall saw me, there would be a hail of gunfire from above and I would most likely fall on the spot. I knew it was unlikely, I knew visibility was low and that I had done everything I could to plan and make it so I wouldn’t be caught, but I still felt the fear of failure wash over me like a surging tidal wave.

With every ounce of strength I had, I rocketed myself forward and sprinted for the tree line. I heard my breath wheezing out in heavy gasps and felt my heart ready to burst out through my chest. I kept my eyes forward, praying that the trees, which seemed to stay at the same distance, would come just a little bit closer. I thought I heard shouts over my shoulder. My thoughts screamed that I had been discovered and that at any second, I would feel the sharp sting of a bullet and taste the copper of blood pouring into my mouth. I dared not look back to confirm or dispel these thoughts. I just kept pushing forward, digging my feet hard into the soft earth and launching myself as far as I could. After the gut-wrenching sprint, the tree line finally crashed down around me, wrapping me fully in its green and brown asylum.

No shots were ever fired. No bullets or shouts chased me into the forest. As I leaned against a large trunk, catching my breath, it occurred to me that the cries I had heard may have just been from my own adrenaline. I waited, breathing heavily, trying to see if anyone or anything would be coming after me. Nothing did. As I slowly regained control of my breathing and my heart-rate, a new emotion came over me: elation. I had done it. I was beyond the wall, in my peaceful forest, free from what I had known and feared before. The relief settled into my heart, and I abruptly became aware of how exhausted I was. Moving slightly deeper into the forest, I found a suitable place to dig in for the night and rest.

Over the next few days, the first thing I noticed was the lack of salt in the air. Not only was the smell gone, but the weighty, sticky sensation that always clung to you around the sea had also vanished. For the first time, my skin felt light and natural. The dim green light that filtered through the leaves was also a radical change, nothing like the harsh, direct sunlight of the coast. In the shade of the tress, one could sit and rest comfortably for hours on end without having to worry about burning. And the quiet of the forest was unlike anything in the city. There was the ever-present hum and buzz of countless unseen insects and the occasional bird call from high overhead, but nothing like the constant roar of the city. No vendors yelling about their wares. No carts or cars puttering down congested streets. Best of all, no crashing of waves upon the shore. The relative silence was a godsend, and it gave me the peace of mind to enjoy the decision I had made.

I had never truly planned any of my life after the initial breakout, and so for some time simply wandered aimlessly. I had my compass, and knew that if I continued northwest I would never run into that infernal wall. I kept generally to this heading, simply enjoying the wonders of the new ecosystem around me. I took pleasure in noticing and studying all the plants species I had read about in the guard libraries. I carefully observed and tried to approach the various animal species and avoided the ones I knew to be dangerous. Buddy and I would often play among the trees, ducking in and out of hollows or playing fetch in some of the clearings. It was a simple, content way of living, and it gave me more satisfaction than I had ever dreamt of.

Nights in the forest had their own unique beauty. The moonlight cut through the canopy in a more piecing white spear than did the sunlight. Bioluminescent algae and lichens dotted the world, adding brilliant shades of blue and green to the dark. The winds would often start to pick up, rustling the leaves in a gorgeous symphony that was accompanied by the chirping of crickets and the hoot of an owl. When the winds died, the nights had a cool serenity to them, and I would often sit around my small fire, musing about what the day ahead would bring.

The new life was not without its challenges. The rations did not last as long as I had hoped, and while I had read about and practiced hunting in a controlled environment, actually doing it was far more difficult. Buddy was a great hunter though, chasing down rabbits and small fowl for me to cook over the open fire at night. We continued to eat well, and found enough streams to refresh the canteens for a few days. Injury was something I tried to avoid as best as possible, but accidents still did happen. When I did get hurt, I had to use only what the forest provided to heal, since I had stupidly forgotten a medical kit. Still, I managed to overcome each of these obstacles as they arose as best I could.

Of course, there was also the looming fear of The Darkness. I never saw anything quite so frightening as to scare me back to the coast, but all the stories from my childhood played their harrowing songs in my head. On particularly dark nights, when the moon was new or obscured by clouds, I would always be more on edge than normal. My dreams swirled with visions of a moving shade, with piercing red eyes and crooked, yellowing teeth that billowed through the forest like a cloud of smoke. It would come baring down on me like a storm, swallowing me in my sleep. I tried to tell myself that these were only stories to frighten children. But it was not children that had been frightened out to the coast and, although I saw no monsters to speak of, I knew something was out there somewhere.

After two-and-a-half weeks wandering, I came across a place in the forest that was different than the rest. The changes approaching this area were subtle, and anyone not focusing hard on the plant life (as I was doing) would likely not have noticed them at all. At first, the underbrush began to grow more densely, pushing up through the soil everywhere that wasn’t conquered by a massive tree trunk. Theses trunks also began to show differences; they were thicker around and darker in color than the ones that made up the rest of the forest. The trees grew to enormous heights, the entire canopy gradually lifting up nearly thirty extra feet into the air. All around, the plants seemed bigger and more vibrantly colored. But there was something unnerving about them as well. I couldn’t describe exactly how, but the flora simply felt unnatural. The shapes in which it grew were just slightly off, and even the air itself felt sort of warm and stagnant.

As we moved deeper into this new kind of growth, Buddy became more timid and restless. He would often whimper, sniffing the air cautiously before tucking in his tail and continuing a few steps behind me. I could understand his unease and had to fight my own instincts a bit to keep moving forward. Something else seemed wrong to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

Suddenly, I noticed that Buddy was no longer following me. I looked back and saw he had stopped about ten feet back, tail between his legs and whimpering loudly. I told him to come, but he did not. I repeated the command, but he just began barking madly. Something had him spooked rather fiercely, and the moving shade flashed into my head again. In the bright sunlight, however, the amorphous mystery of The Darkness conjured up a morbid curiosity rather than terror. There was still anxiety and dread in my chest, but my mind pressed for me to continue onward and see what no one else had for centuries. I told Buddy to stay where he was and pushed ahead on my own.

Going deeper into this unnatural part of the forest, I felt the dread and unease within me slowly rising. I looked around at each strange curved and branch of the trees, feeling them close in around me as they got even larger still. It was then that I became aware of what was causing so much of the hollow feeling; it was silent. Dead silent. No bird songs, no rustling leaves, not even the buzz of the insects. The only sounds were my boots crunching through the underbrush and my breathing. It was a maddening silence, since it was quieter than any natural place on earth had any right to be.

Ahead, I saw a place where the sunlight peeking through the tree trunks was an unfiltered, bright yellow. I knew it had to be a clearing, so I began heading towards it. The trees and plants just on the edge of this clearing were the most bizarre of any. They had massive growths of strange bark and bulbous flower heads that looked like they came from some alien world. They bent and twisted upward, seeming to reach out in desperation to the sky overhead. I could now feel my heart trying to reach up with them, beating a savage cry for respite from the terrible thing that must be in the clearing. Fighting every urge I had, driven on only by an intense need to understand, I stood on the edge of the clearing.

Before me was a vast expanse of blackness and death. It was an ashen field that reached out for what had to be miles. In this place, the forest was burned down completely, with not even the hint of tree trunks having survived the blaze. The soil was so saturated with the ash that it was the color of coal. What was more disturbing still was that this was no recent fire. There hadn’t been some great winds or heat the previous night, no animals running to escape over the prior days. Whatever happened here had been over for a long time, and yet the forest had still refused to reclaim the area. Could The Darkness have done this? Was it such a terrible daemon that even the plants themselves feared it and the wake of destruction it caused? The only way to answer for sure was to go further in.

I treaded as carefully and lightly as I could through the clearing, the ash puffing in tiny clouds around my feet with each step. While no trees or stumps stood in this place, there were some kind of other structures that jutted to the sky liked blackened teeth. There were dozens of them, all skewed and broken in different directions as they pierced through the dead ground. As I got closer, I noticed familiar shapes and patterns in relief on them: these were buildings. Or, at least, what was left of buildings. The broken, jagged walls had been brought crumbling down long ago. They formed streets and alleys, just like in the city back east, and I wandered through like some kind tourist in a museum of destruction. Coming around a corner, my eyes fell upon the most horrendous sight I had ever seen. My legs turned to nothing beneath me, and I crashed to me knees, feeling as though I had become part of the ash.

Ahead of me, in a square that had to have been the town center, lay the bones of hundreds, if not thousands or human skeletons. They were blackened and crumbling like the ash around them, all in a shambling mess in the square. They had been gathered around something in the center of the opening; a large, unmistakably man-made device that itself seemed fragmented. The remains were scattered about, all at least ten feet from the device, and some were even facing away as if in flight. The grotesque grave was the only monument to what had happened here, to the weapon that had been unleashed and still partially stood surrounded by its victims.

My stomach dropped, and I nearly hurled as the realization flooded over me, a realization that I’m not sure how I came to, but was certain of nonetheless. This place was not caused by The Darkness, this place was The Darkness. This is what our ancestors had feared so much that they fled far to the east. It wasn’t some monster or giant or ghost. It was themselves. It was their own destructive power; the weapon they had created and launched against some enemy. A power that had decimated a town and scarred the land so much that centuries later it still had not healed. If it had not been for the unknown expanse of ocean, they may have fled even farther from their own monstrous work. The most nauseated thought of all, however, was the memory of the wall. I had been one of its attendants, one of those who chose to keep up the tradition and purpose for which it was originally built. The wall was not meant to keep The Darkness out. It was meant to keep in those who had unleashed it.