This one was for one of @Bluemoon Scriptor's BloodPen Arena Contests title Into the Woods.679Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMu4ZsD91c3
Come closer; let me tell you a story. It’s a tale of murder, mayhem and midnight madness.
Curious yet?
What if I told you that it’s a true story? That it’s my story?
Now you’re intrigued.
Do you want to hear it?
I hope you’re not squeamish.
Are you ready?
Then let’s begin.
When I was five years old, our neighbour went walking in the woods at the back of our property with her two young children. When she returned she was covered in blood and claimed to have no recollection of what happened. Her children never returned with her and were never found. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
But that was only the beginning of the strange happenings in Tenebris Woods.
Two weeks later a man was found hanging from a tree, a rope tied around his neck in a hangman’s noose. An apparent suicide.
Later, four young friends disappeared after a dare game went wrong. None of them were ever found. The fifth friend only lived to tell the tale because he was too scared to follow his friends into the woods. Smart kid.
And so it continued like this. Women returned disoriented and confused with no recollection of what happened, children just outright disappeared and the men were always found hanging from a tree. It was always the same; women never went missing, children never hanged and the men never returned. Sometimes we’d go years without an ‘incident’ and people would finally begin to move on with their lives and forget about the woods. Other times it would only be days or weeks between ‘incidents’.
When I was old enough to understand what was happening I asked my mother why we didn’t move, why we continued to live at what I liked to call ‘the edge of darkness’. I questioned her numerous times throughout my childhood and the time that I lived in that house and her response was always the same. She’d tell me that we were safe, that whatever was happening in the words would never happen to us. She seemed so sure of it that I believed her. I asked her many times how she knew this but she always dodged the question, saying that she “just did.” When I was twenty years old I finally moved out and into an apartment block in the next town over with my boyfriend. At the end of our street was the Dolor Woods – most of the trees were dead and all the trails were covered with leaf litter and other forest debris. I never really took much notice of the woods until one night three years later. I was walking down the street on my way home from work when I felt myself being drawn towards it. I can’t explain it, I just had a sudden desire – a need – to go there. It was as if somehow my subconscious mind knew that’s where I needed – or perhaps ‘wanted’ is a better word – to go. As I began to walk through the woods I became very conscious of every noise I made. Every crunch of leaves beneath my feet, every rustle of branches overhead had me on high alert. There was a slight breeze that seemed to carry my name on its cold breath as it passed through the trees. I was on high alert. A mouse would scurry across dried leaves behind me and I’d jerk my head around to see what it was; a bird would take flight above me, leaving the branch it once rested on swaying slightly. Yet I continued through the woods, following what was left of the path. The branches of the decaying trees would creak in the breeze, their gnarly roots sticking out of the ground as if to trip me. Ahead there was a figure crouching over something. No. Someone. They hadn’t seen me yet, I still had time to turn and run, and yet I continued – straight towards them. As I got closer I saw that they were wearing sports gear – must be running buddies, I’d thought – the one on the ground appeared to be injured. As I approached I stepped on a twig that snapped underfoot, alerting them to my presence. They both looked at me, startled before the uninjured friend quickly stood up and asked if I could help them. As he began to tell me what had happened, something my mother had said as I was leaving floated across my mind. “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.” At the time I hadn’t understood what she meant and when I asked her she just smiled at me. I didn’t know if this was the moment she was talking about or not but I felt a sudden wave come over me and in the next instant there was a coil of black smoke hovering at each hand. When I looked back up at the two men they were both looking at me in shock. I tilted my head slightly and studied them, deciding which one to kill first. I could kill the injured one and let his friend think he has a chance to escape or I could kill him first and then the injured friend would be forced to watch. I liked the sound of the latter better, something nice and easy for my first kill.
With my decision made I began to chant – they were words I’d never even heard before but somehow they seemed so familiar – and raised my hands in front of me. The coils of smoke swirled around my hands, twisting around until they began to take the form of a rope about three centimeters thick. At one end of the rope was a hangman’s noose. Both friends looked at me in horror before the uninjured one turned and sprinted away. With a quick jerk of my head in his direction my noose darted after him before looping over his head and in one deft movement, lifted him into the air before tying the other end to the branch above. His body twitched for a few moments and then ceased, only moving as it swayed in the breeze.
I looked down at his friend who had began to crawl away and began chanting again, summoning once again the powers I never knew I possessed until this moment, coiling the smoke once again into a hangman’s noose.
As I walked out of the woods that night, two men swaying in the trees behind me, a peace settled over me and I made a decision to visit my mother the next day.
When I arrived back at my childhood home I wasted no time in getting straight to the point.679Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCYgMat7Vr1
“Mum, when I was leaving, you told me that when the time came I’d know what to do. What did you mean by that?” My mother looked at me for a moment before an excited smile broke across her face.679Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTzwwtO520L
“It happened didn’t it? How did it feel? Was it exciting? Did you love it? Oh, I still remember my first time,” she closed her eyes remembering, a small smile on her face.
“You’re not talking about sex are you mother?” I asked, confused.
“No dear, your first kill. That’s what you were getting at isn’t it?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Because my powers have gone. They’ve been passed on to you now. Enjoy it while it lasts my dear.”
To this day, people still wonder at the strangeness that lurks in the woods behind my childhood home, a kind of dark magic you might say.
To that I say that, you are, in part, correct. You see, it’s not just dark magic that lurks in the woods. No. Magic needs something, or rather, someone to control it. And darkness needs a host.
My mother once reveled in the darkness and the magic that was bestowed upon her. Now that I am of age, that gift has passed to me.
Now, now it’s my turn.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
