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I have no wish to live, though I've yet to die.
It's a thought that has plagued me ever since I found myself walking into this forest. I swear that I did not even know my legs were carrying me into this forest, though I remember the days before I entered rather well. I've not the slightest idea why I entered. All I know now is that no matter my desire, to leave or to stay, I've never found the way I came.
Whether that was six hours ago, six days ago, or six years ago, I can't say I know. My memory is fog. I can make out shapes in the haze, though the moment I search for detail, the shapes run away, as if fearing my discovery. Am I such a beast to them that they can not bare to let me see them? A pointless question I suppose, for I can not see them, and they've no wish to be seen.
I walk through the forest again today. The sun does not peer through the leaves above, and I do not recall the last time that it did, or if it ever did. There are only a few things I see now. I see the trees, grand, tall and immovable. I see the dirt, without a single blade of grass to bespeckle the land.
And I see the Monster. I always see the monster. Even on the best of days. I see it. Always there. Ever present. It approaches, always walking, crawling, or stalking toward me. I doubt I'll ever know where it came from, or why it comes for me. Though I do feel one thing emanating from it, like radiation comes to cause a cancer within my breast.
Malovolence. Pure, unadulterated hatred. I know not what I did to anger the Monster, though I do not have the chance to think. I hardly ever have the chance to look at the Monster even.
It is all I can do to keep moving forward.
Though, there are days where I dare a peak at the Monster. It never looks quite the same, though I always recognize it. Even as it waxes and wanes with the density of the woods around me, it is always the same Monster.
When the trees are spaced out around me, when I'm in the thinnest parts of the wood, the Monster does shrink. It is hardly larger than a dog, and I remember seeing it the size of a cat one wonderful day, though still it followed. Still it hated.
The days where the Monster grows largest, is when the trees grow thick. When there is hardly enough space for me to move between them, the Monster grows near as large as the trees themselves. Despite its size, it still traipses behind me. Never fast enough to catch me. So far, I have always outrun it. Even when the Monster becomes truly aggressive, growing more feet than it has legs, its skin turning to blades, and giving chase as if I am the only scrap of food for the starving animal to have.
I run. I run, and I run, and I run, and I run, and I run, and I run, and I run, and I run.
I run until my body screams. My hearts thumps in my chest loudly enough to deafen me. As I lose energy, so does the Monster. I will collapse, and mere feet away, it will fall. It is days as those that I am able to truly see it. I see its eyes, and for merely a second, I do not see hatred, but longing. If it had a mouth, I can not help but think that it would ask for me to reach out to it.
No matter how kindly it would ask, I would not reach out.
Not yet.
I would fall asleep. I would wake. The Monster would be inches closer. I would stand, and I would walk yet again. As I walk, feeling the Monster behind, though not willing to turn around to see it, I remembered the oddest thing I ever saw the Monster as.
It was as sludge. A single limb dragged itself forward, clawing its way toward me. As I walked, I would turn around every so often, and see that I still grew further in the distance. I knew it could as easily turn back to the beast it had become before, so I never could stop walking, but the feeling of knowing it was there, though nearly miles away, I could sense a brighter feeling within me. Something I hadn't felt in what felt like ages.
It faded the next day. I woke on the dirt, and found that it was the same being that it was before. Fast, but never fast enough.
Finally, today, I will myself to turn around.
I do not see Monster I know, though it is in my vision. Today the Monster does not look like the Monster, but a reflection. Somehow, this frightens me the most. Before I've the time to think, I run.
My feet beat against the dirt, hardly finding the purchase they need, but never slipping to let me fall. My cheeks grow wet, the tears in my eyes cloud my vision. Still I run, bumping into trees, and stumbling in the loose soil.
For the first time ever, I hear the Monster speaking. I understand every word, though I wish for illiteracy. It reminds me of the life I have lived. The people I knew. Then, it reminds me how they are all gone.
Now, there is only the Forest.
There is the Forest.
There will always be the Forest.
There never will not be the Forest.
The Forest is all there is, and the Forest is all that will ever be.
Until it isn't.
I find myself freezing on a cliff's edge.
The drop is sheer, and the nothingness outside of it is pure.
It is not the nothing of an empty room, or the nothing of a barren desert. It is pure nothing. Beyond the cliff I see nothing. There is no light, and there is no dark. There is no noise, yet still it deafens me.
I look one way, and then the other. The Forest is collapsing into the Nothing.
When I force myself to turn to the Monster, I see it, standing right there. I could reach out to it, if I so desire, touch my reflection, and answer the call of its eyes on the nights when it ran out of will to keep chasing.
Its eyes hold no emotion today. There is no emotion. There is no longing, nor hatred. If I look closely, I see only the abyssal Nothing that lies beyond the cliff on which I stand.
Gently as a lover's touch, it reaches a hand toward me. It holds there, frozen in time, waiting for me to take its hand.
I stand there for hours. It does not move either. It only stares at me, waiting for me to take its hand. The curiousity within me grows, and becomes sickly within my stomach. As hours pass more, the final realization that I have no other action dawns within me.
Finally, I take its hand. For the first time, a mouth splits in the middle of its face. A dim smile slowly grows, its gaze never leaving mine.
Even as it walks off the cliff's edge, taking me with it.