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If my memory serves correct, the first thing I remembered was the cold. Clearly it had only recently settled and was definitely unstable on top of me, yet somehow it held strong to my skin, when I tried to shake it off it was tight and biting, as if made of steel. For whatever reason I decided to ignore it at the time. I honestly wish I hadn’t. With more effort than expected, I pushed myself upright, not remembering when or where I had fallen. That wasn’t the biggest problem unfortunately.
Once I was standing I noticed small flakes of the ice peeling off. Out of curiosity I ripped off the rest in one firm tug, the cold coming undone and falling around me. Though as it did I screamed in agony, falling to the soft ground and clutching my arms, nails digging crescents into my skin. It felt like I’d just removed something akin to a nail or tooth, but everywhere. I don’t think I have the words for it but I know all I could think in the moment was:
“It’s gone. They've done it. They’ve torn away my body.”
Now I knew that wasn’t true, my skin, which was now slightly red to my grip, very clearly sat on my bones like normal. Though as I sat there, I noticed none of the ice fell on the ground with me. I tilted my head curiously, the pain subsiding as I watched the ground, looking for something damp or even just evidence of ice being there but nothing showed. Instead my eyes focused on the other form. There I sat, right on top of soft, green moss growing as far as the eye could see, but there was something…off about it. Something unnatural but familiar to me.
I could tell there was this pulsing to it, softly beating, though with no thumping to accompany it. It felt like a heart but yet, there was no blood to be pumped through its roots. No oxygen coursing through its veins. Even as I put my hands into the moss, trying to touch the music, the sound never came, the moss wrapping gently around my fingertips. I couldn’t help but try to listen anyway. That was when I realized the utter silence of the world around me, no insects chirping or bird calling, just… quiet. For a moment even I stopped breathing, taking my hands back to my chest. As I did, this suffocating silence immediately covered every inch of the fog flooded jungle. Even the air seemed to hold its breath in trepidation, yet nothing came.
I tried to squint through the fog, to see anything other than trees, but a deep heaviness settled behind my eyes. With an almost instinctual desperation I managed to keep them open. There must've been something in the fog keeping me slow to notice the strangeness in this place, well…to notice anything really. With each little push to get myself up it only felt more and more like it was trying to keep me down. Within a moment I was back on two legs.
“Had the sun left me?” I wondered, looking up to find not the sky, but more leaves. Dark foliage consuming the sky and leaving me with nothing but greenery. They connected to long trunks, bark crawling back down to the ground from hundreds of feet up. I wanted to see the sun, or even the moon if I could, though the longer I stared, the slower time seemed to move. For all I knew, it might as well have. For all I didn't know, it had. A long time ago.
With little direction I walked further into the forest, a strange sense of purpose flooding my thoughts yet I didn’t quite know where I was going. My legs took long striding steps,
“Much too far to be comfortable” I thought, watching as they changed directions every other footfall or so.
They tingled a bit, like when you sit on a limb for too long and suddenly it’s asleep. I tried to shake off the feeling and yet as I did, it only came back stronger. With a newfound urgency I tried to kick out, testing if I could even find my own body anymore. I was happy to find I could still move it, even if it had been sluggish and annoying to do so. And in turn, I tried again.
And again.
And-
No more. The tingling was back, stronger than before. Much Stronger. Though as I tried to kick out a final time it only climbed further up my body. The more I moved, the faster it went, grabbing and pulling until my arms pumped along with my legs. I stared in abstract horror, watching my body speed up and run faster than I ever could on my own. At least, I think it was my body.
As the tingling reached my head I noticed it didn’t seem to reach my thoughts. The long twisting vines of control taking away the brain fog and leaving me feeling more like myself than ever. I could see again, noticing every strange problem and unnatural occurrence. I honestly believed I was going mad. Looking back I wished I’d just let it have my brain too.
I tried to scream. My voice suddenly unable to call for the second I made a sound, my mouth shut tight. The possession reaching every inch it could get its bratty hands on. I panicked and yet my breath didn’t hitch, my lungs didn’t rise, my shoulders didn’t tense. All I could do was simply watch.
I watched my body run along, taking dangerously sharp turns and tracks until I eventually ended up in a clearing. It was perfectly circular, the trees lining the edges with looming shadows. My body-
The body stopped in the dead center. The eyes had frozen to one place now, and as much as I wanted to turn and look, I could only feel the other’s eyes watching. Trees leaned in as if listening and the air went deathly still. I knew it was hungry, it was practically starving but it waited. I stopped trying to fight back long ago, the fog running through my nose and into my very soul, trapping my brain in a prison of invisible chains. I could only think of one thing:
“Feed it.”
The voice whispered, scratchy and dark though no more dangerous than a wasp.
I hated wasps.
I stared at the tree ahead of me, a small sigil staring back at me. It was barely noticeable against the sea of bark and yet, with nowhere else to look, I stared at it. I was already allowing the moss beneath me to creep up around my—IT’s ankles. Soft but trapping, it clung to warm skin, living skin, and kept going, with each frozen second ticking down to my death.
When the moss reached the shoulders the symbol began to glow faintly against the wood, changing and contorting faster and faster until it was sickening to look at, never making a sound. I felt like twisting with it, hoping my bones would snap gently when the moss began to devour. I guess I was kind of sickening too.
“Hopefully I wake up somewhere nicer,” I thought calmly, “maybe a little less cold, or a little less lonely.”
As it’s eyes fell into the moss the symbol began to slow. I never truly saw what the final form was. In all honesty I hope I never do. By the time it stopped, my eyes had already sunk far deep into the ground, the body following it, thoughts and all.
The last thing I remember was the cold, held close to my skin.
The moss beneath me did nothing to ease the chill.