A/N: This site isn’t dead yet? Woot. Written by me for class.

Into the Woods

You stand at the edge of the forest, the literal edge of it, where the meadow ends and the tall trees begin. Your thoughts flicker to your grandmother telling you stories about the woods, how they have eyes and ears and secrets, but you quickly shove those thoughts aside. For some reason, your father flew into the woods, and you need to follow after.

Gingerly, you take your first step in, as if you’re afraid of something snapping up to grab your foot as you set it down on the brown earth. You pause, but nothing happens, of course, and you tell yourself the woods are just full of trees, and trees are just wood. You touch the moss of one, just to reassure yourself of this, and underneath the touch of your fingertips the moss is thick and sticky. When you retract your hand it stubbornly clings to your skin. You pull your fingertips into the light and rub them together and get a waft of something bitter, overwhelming in an almost sweet way. It smells like blood.

The scent lingers on as you turn and rush deeper into the woods, tears streaming down your face as you clutch a freshly picked bouquet of wildflowers wrapped in a bright blue ribbon. The petals leave a fluttering breadcrumb trail behind you as you leap over tree roots and bushes, graceful and quick, following the torn foliage.

The forest opens up briefly in front of you, light streaming through the tops of trees making sunbeams across the trail. Nothing moves, and though it is early morning even the birds are silent. You spare a quick glace around, noting the stillness before spotting another patch of red across the clearing and bolt across into the dark, startling a herd of deer. The herd shoots out ahead of you, and you stop for a moment, winded and scared witless by the noise before sliding down to your knees, dropping your flowers and absently picking at the tattered hem of your loose white skirt.

The woods have dropped back into silence again, the only movement your racing heart and slowly relaxing chest. What was Father doing out here? What on earth happened? You think after a moment when your breath starts to catch up with you. You know the only way of finding out is to carry on, and you stand up, muscles protesting as you straighten your legs under you. You turn to start following the trail, and then turn again. And again.

There is no trail, no sign of what direction you came in, no blood on the moss or on the bed of the forest. Your thoughts fly again to your granny’s stories about the trees, this time with slightly less disbelief. Trying to push off the fear, you set off again, not running this time but walking, looking about, trying to find the trail again.

Snap! You freeze, hearing the sound of footsteps behind you, and you dart behind a tree, covering your mouth to smother the sounds of your panicked breath. Another snap, and faint muttering –“nothing to shoot here, gotta hit something,” –and then a loud clap, like lightning. From your hiding place you can smell the charcoal and sulfur. Another shot goes off, and you cover your ears from the noise, a slow, sinking feeling in your stomach. This is the source of the blood. This is why Father ran into the woods, it’s a hunter.

“Come out, come out,” the man’s voice croons, laughing. You snarl, trying to fight back the panic. This is just a game to him, like a goddamn movie.

Another crack, this time the bullet flies past the tree, close enough that you can see the blur, and then you can’t fight the panic, so you fly from your hiding place behind the tree and dart through the forest, the fear climbing up your throat and making your chest freeze.

You stumble and trip over fallen braches, lacking the grace of your earlier run, and another shot rings out, whizzing past your side, and you weave around another tree and then it’s just runrunrunrun, and you aren’t even thinking, just flying and stumbling and darting looks over your shoulder to see if he’s keeping up, and another lightning clap rings out and you don’t even have the breath to scream. He’s almost caught up.

The ground is getting rockier and harder for you to climb over and around, but the sound of heavy footsteps crunching on the ground springs you scrambling up over the biggest rock. There comes another shot, and this one doesn’t miss, it grazes your arm but you don’t notice for a moment, the primal flight mindset has kicked in.

Atop the rock, the ground is level, flat, and treeless. No cover, you think simply, and bolt across, clutching your wound. You snatch another look behind you, but he hasn’t caught up there yet. He’s got the gun to hamper him and you’re young and fast. Your feet catch the edge of the ground, and your arms pivot for a moment, and before you loose your ground you’re struck by how cliché the whole thing has been: the running, the chase scene, and now the climactic ending, the fall.

As you fall, and the air crashes around, you think you might wake up in the end, just like a dream, right before the shock of the landing. In a way, you do.