A long time ago, there was a sprawling land called Glost. Glost was a center of trade for many regions, with their markets and ports always in demand for buyers and sellers alike. The region's vast cities with their playhouses and forums were the envy of many a nation. However, not all was well in the land. Many outlying villages were deprived of the basic items needed to live a health life. Food was scare, drinking water was often dirty, and those citizens in the villages had no hope of ever improving their lives. With their daily struggle to even survive, none could afford to even leave their home village and move to one of the glorious cities that they heard of from passing travelers. Everyone knew that being born in a village, meant dying in a village; and that death could come at any time if they failed to find food. This is the story of one villager's perilous journey trying to find a way to help his family, and his realization that some legends have a basis in truth.
In the village of Klaberg, the situation was especially dire for its citizens. Klaberg was located far on the south coast of Glost, an area that was widely regarded as most abandoned by the Glostian hierarchy.
While some of the villagers closest to metropolises received some food and water aid on behalf of the Glost national church, any towns further than several miles away were considered permanent slums, where none of the higher-class dare tread. Even though living in villages held only despair for most, several citizens still held out hope for a better future.
One day, Heinrich Javert, a citizen of Klaberg, decided that he would escape from the practical imprisonment of his village, and make his way to Glost City, the capitol of the land. Heinrich was a portly man, with large broad shoulders and strong arms. He frequently wore a tattered brown shirt which had been hemmed together from various bits of cloth that he had found around the village. To accompany his shirt, he wore a worn and stained pair of blue pants. He did not wear this outfit out of a particular love for the clothes, but because he could not afford any other clothes to wear.
Heinrich had been born in Klaberg four decades prior, and had never once set foot outside of his town during his lifetime. The man not only wanted his own life to improve, but the lives of his family as well. Maria, Heinrich's wife, was seven month's pregnant with their second child. The couple already had one child, a sixteen year old boy named Gabriel. Heinrich's main occupation in Klaberg was lumberjack, and his wife worked as a seamstress until complications with her pregnancy rendered her too sick to work. Fearing for his family's well-being, Heinrich enlisted his son as an assistant in his wood-cutting profession.
In southern Glost, there existed a dark legend which all children were told at a very young age. The legend stated that any who enter the dark forest of Pelhaven would suffer a terrible death and despair. Although most high-class individuals in Glost wrote off the story as a silly superstition which was meant to teach children obedience, there were many other people in lower outlying communities who believed the stories to be true. Heinrich himself never believed such superstitions even as a child, and thought that the woods were nothing to fear.
Mere weeks before his wife was to give birth, Heinrich thought of an idea to save his family while lying in bed. 'I can travel to Pelhaven and chop down some of the trees there. Even though the journey would take almost a day, the wood in Pelhaven forest is supposedly quite rare and it would fetch me quite a lot at the market. If Gabriel and I are able to fell several trees, we should be set for a while. We could probably even pay for special medical care for Marina to make sure the baby's ok.' The man then closed his green eyes and slowly nodded off to sleep.
The next day, Heinrich prepared to set off to the far forest, hoping that he would be able to make quick time with his horse and wagon. He left his shoddy wooden home on the outskirts of Klaberg and planned to set out towards Pelhaven. Heinrich had wanted to bring his son, but he decided that his presence would be better spent at home, tending to Maria. 'I hope I bring enough supplies with me for the trip,' he thought as he loaded his wagon with what little food he could spare from his family. As he prepared to leave, he wished his son and wife goodbye and set off to Pelhaven.
The trip to Pelhaven took half a day, and as Heinrich neared the outskirts of the forest the sun hung low in the sky. 'I did not expect the trip to take so long,' the lumberjack thought, exasperated. As he approached Pelhaven, the dense brush and foliage coupled with the coming night began to hinder Heinrich's navigation, causing him to mark trees with an X once he passed them as a means of staying on the proper course. Once he entered the forest proper, he was surrounded by trees on all sides, and set up his wagon so he could quickly fell trees and load the wood. 'The sooner I can get a full load of wood, the sooner I can get back home to Maria,' Heinrich thought. 'Two or three trees of the rare Pelhaven wood should be enough to lift us out of poverty, and I can fit those in for sure in my trunk.' Within twenty minutes, he had readied his large axe and began to swing at the nearest tree.
After several blows from his axe, the medium-sized tree fell to the ground, and Heinrich started to portion out the trunk into carry-able chunks. When he was nearly finished with diving up the tree, Heinrich heard a twig snap behind him. The lumberjack quickly turned, with slight panic in his eyes, hoping to discern the origin of the noise. However, when he looked around in the direction that the noise came from, he found nothing. "Hello," he called out loudly, "is anyone there?" The howl of the cold night wind served to be the only response to his query. 'Come now Heinrich,' he thought to himself. 'you can't go imagining silly things at night time. What would Maria say if you started to believe in that rabble about this forest being haunted, eh.' He smiled to himself and finished his work of diving up the first tree, and then loaded the logs into his wagon.
His gaze then fell on a second tree that was nearby, and as he started to swing his axe into the tree, he heard a deafening scream cry out, the sound so close that it sounded like it was coming from the tree itself. Heinrich gasped and quickly recoiled, nearly dropping the axe into his foot out of clumsiness due to the fright. 'No no,' he thought to himself, 'that was just the wind, it had to be. Or someone else screamed nearby in the forest. There's no way that trees can really be alive or feel pain.' Awestruck, he lowered his axe and contemplated his choices. 'Part of me just wants to get of here,' he thought, 'but I can't just go back with wood from one tree. That would surely help out financial situation, but it would not be enough to help Maria on its own. My duty as a father both to Gabriel and my unborn child forbid me from leaving before the task is completed.' He steeled his resolve, and continued to chop into the tree, undeterred by the wails that sounded with each axe strike. After the second tree fell, he divided it up just like the first and loaded it onto his wagon.
As he turned trying to locate a third tree of adequate size, he saw a strange creature next to his wagon. The creature had a small, wispy black body, two small stubby black arms with no visible hands or fingers, and two large, red oval eyes. Over its face, like some sort of mask, it had what appeared to be a tree stump, with a pair of branches on the sides of its head, where ears would normally be on a person. The branches had several leaves on each of them, and there was a round slit cut out in the stump where the creature's mouth seemed to be. On top of its head, its wispy body extended upwards above in a tuft of black.
Heinrich yelled as he saw the creature, and readied his axe in an attack posture. "Don't come any closer, you monster," he shouted. But, as he blinked for a millisecond and opened his eyes, the creature was no longer next to his wagon and was nowhere in sight. 'Ok Heinrich, you're really starting to lose it,' he thought to himself. 'You can't afford to lose your cool now and actually fall into all that garbage that the other commoners believe. Just keep your head on straight and chop down one tree and then you can leave this silly forest. There's no such thing as monsters or curses or anything like that.'
He found a third tree of suitable size and began to chop it down; breathing a sigh of relief when no sounds of screaming accompanied his strikes. When he was almost finished chopping down the tree, he heard the sound of rustling grass behind him. He turned around to see what looked like trees walking towards him on their roots. Each one of the trees had a large x-shaped mark across the front, the same mark that Heinrich had made when he marked trees to avoid getting lost. The man was unable to keep his composure, and he dropped his axe and began to run away from his wagon. He continued to run wildly for several minutes, until he looked back and no longer could see trees chasing him.
'What is going on,' the old man thought. 'There's no way that trees can move, no way that trees can feel pain, no way that any of this is acually happening. This is all just in my head, I just have to get back to my wagon, cut that last tree down and get it into my wagon and leave. Then I can put this whole trip behind me and make Maria's and Gabriel's life better.' He sighed as he began to turn around to head back towards his wagon, only to find that he had lost his way. 'Wait,' he thought as he tried to track his path using his footfalls, 'I can't find my tracks anywhere. There's no marking of any kind in any direction on the ground to give me any indication of where I came from. Normally there would be foot impressions or trampled leaves or something, but there is nothing; as if I was just dropped into this spot from the sky.' Puzzled, he continued to try to track his route when he heard a familiar voice on the wind.
"Father," the voice yelled, "It's me, your son. Mother sent me to come and bring you home. It's nearly Midnight Father and we don't want you to stay out overnight."
Heinrich looked around, trying to find his son, but he could not locate Gabriel. "Gabe," he called out, "I can't see you, it's just too dark out. I have to go fetch the wagon and then I can leave the forest with you."
"No Father," the voice implored, "don't worry about the wagon. We can come and get it tomorrow, just follow my voice and I'll lead you out of the forest and back to Mother. She's been worried sick about you since you were expected to be home by now."
Heinrich stopped for a second, unsure of what to do. 'If I leave the wagon, it's possible someone else could come along and take all of the wood I gathered. But, if Maria really is this worried about me, I guess it would be best for me to go to her.' He pressed on in the forward, following his son's voice. Unknown to him, the small black creature from earlier was sitting behind a nearby tree, using its powers to emulate his son's voice, smiling gleefully to itself as it did so.
Heinrich traveled for days and weeks in that forest, continuing to be implored by his son's voice to keep moving as Pelhaven's exit was only a mile or less away. The woodcutter never left the forest, and his wife Maria was forced to have her baby at home, with only Gabriel to assist in the delivery; he was able to work through her complications and she and the baby lived peacefully and happily. She implored the local militia to send out search parties for Heinrich, although they were all unsuccessful and gave up after two month's time. It is still said that if you dare venture into Pelhaven Forest you can still hear Heinrich begging his son to lead him out of the woods, as well as hear the ghostly voice saying that the exit is only feet away.