A/N: Had this one in the vault for a while. Featuring: friendship, people who are kind of bros when they aren't trying to kill anyone (?) hanging out in the woods like friends do, shaky relation to actual timeline, and a lot of trees.

Warnings for discussion of death (especially drowning), use of medication, stalking, and mental health issues.

Waldeinsamkeit

It's possible she'd died. The idea surfaces sometimes along with the memories; bubbles rising through black water.
She had a life before. Sarah knows she did. She remembers. Life, with school and friends and a warm normal house to sleep in.

All irrelevant now.

Now she lives in the woods. She walks around it by feel, knows every bit of the soft ground in between the tree roots, all the ways out of and into it.

She comes across campers sometimes. She will avoid them at first but remembers the trail to their tents or trailer-vans. Doubles back later when she needs something.
It's easy enough to not seem alarming. Peel off her wool non-face, pull her hair back, use water from a stream to clear off dirt, take off her gloves, wrap her sweater around her waist. Smile. Easy enough to talk them into lending her, a lost fellow hiker, some water and maybe a couple fruit bars. Easy enough to steal things too. Maybe she wouldn't have expected of herself that, before. She doesn't remember enough to say.
Once the campers were two old women who smiled at her and called her a 'darling girl'. The words repeated like a song in her head long after she had walked off down the trail. Darling, darling, darling girl.

The repeats happen a lot. Comforting. They have for a long time. Always one or two or three in a row in her head.
(Never four. Four brings It like dry tinder and lightning bring blazes.)

Sometimes she comes across campers. Mostly she is alone.

The air gets sharper in winter. She sleeps longer and wakes up cold.

Some days her legs cramp up from the cold; shivers come in short bursts of convulsions that shake her whole body, and she can't move except for them. She spends hours on those days laying on the grimy mattress in the building where she's housed herself, staring up at the trees and the birds she can see through the window as she waits for her body to catch up with itself. Annoying. But eventually the fits pass.

Today she wakes up cold and gets up cold, too, but she can get up. She drinks some water, checks around the perimeter of her building once. The sun seems to bright for the white sky. Her hands are made of jagged frozen crystals. (Irrelevant.) She puts on her gloves. There isn't anything to find.

Routine done, she leaves her woods and walks and walks and walks into town. Her camera's permanent weight is heavy inher hand. She keeps the viewscreen closed and the tape running.
By the time she gets to her destination- the library- the sun's normal-bright, and she's warm again. Soft carpet and walls of shelves of books hush any noise. Even here she's surrounded by trees. The librarian doesn't notice her as she walks in so she doesn't need to smile.
She takes a seat at one of the public computers. Slides the attached headphones on. Click click clicks through web pages looking for the scared boy's story. He doesn't understand yet. Annoying.
But the angry boy hasn't found him yet either.
She pulls her camera out of her pocket and connects it into the computer. It's a push she can't explain, this thing she has to do. The need for it's nestled in near the back of her head, in noise more than words or instructions. Make videos that make a path. Fragments of a map. Breadcrumbs to find the trail. Put sound and picture (like the way her thoughts go some days) together, push it out into the system for the scared boy to see. She spends hours doing this.

When her day's work is done, she unhooks her camera and puts it back in her pocket. She leaves the library and then the town, walks and walks and walks back through the sharp air to her building in the woods.

The boy who's like her is sitting on the end of the mattress when she gets back.

(He isn't exactly like her, of course, but he's the only one who knows things like she does. He has since the beginning.
The beginning of what?
Irrelevant. Since they had met.
At first it had been strange to be around him; to not need to lie, to not be alone. Now it's stopped being strange.)
His not-face is held loosely in his hands. He looks up when her shoes crunch on the dead leaves in the doorway. He nods hello.

She returns the nod, pulling off her own not-face and wiping her dark hair away from her eyes so she can see. It had been a while since he'd walked out to the woods to meet her. She doesn't know how much of a while.
(Irrelevant how long. He doesn't live like she does. The other one's awake most of the time- but he's almost irrelevant too. The boy who's like her wakes up when he needs to.)
Her stash of stolen chocolate bars and cold soups and water is in the corner of the small room, between the mattress and the wall. None of the wrappings have been savaged by squirrels while she was away. Good. She sits down and pulls a couple cans up to share with him.
He's also brought things to share with her: a grey blanket, and little white capsules in a little orange bottle. Good too.

They eat and drink and eat.

Afterwards they put on their not-faces and go out hunting.

Something the scared boy doesn't understand: It's faceless, so her and him make themselves faceless too. Camouflage. Mirrors.

Today they track but don't close in. It takes time, and they need time. Frozen water thawed floods everything. Some may drown. Today the two of them don't close in.

When the hunting's done, the two of them take off their not-faces and breathe again. The winter chill makes the air in front of their mouths go grey. She is thankful, again, for her gloves.
He sticks his hands in the pockets of his yellow jacket, looks at the rising smoke from their breath like he's thinking of something. Then he starts down a path different from the one they had been following. Strange. Leaving already? She stands where she is and watches him. About halfway down the path he looks over his shoulder and waves her over, impatiently.
She walks up and keeps pace beside him. Easier not to ask questions at the moment. Small twigs and hard mud crunches under their shoes.

They walk and walk and walk together past the last path and branch, out to the gas station that sits a block down the road from the front entrance to the park.
A mechanical bell sounds when he pushes the door to the station store open. Inside, the floors are scuffed and grimy but the lights are unflickering. The air is warmer too. Rows and rows of brightly wrapped foodstuff sit shiny in their shelves. A cashier standing behind the cracked plastic counter briefly glances at the two of them as they walk in.
As long as they're here, she meanders through the rows, pockets a couple of her favourite granola bars with practiced calm. He walks beside her, waiting for her to be finished. And she is; dangerous to take too much at a time. They make a full circuit around the store until they're at the doors again. She looks at the safety mirrors attached to high corners, and the graffiti scratched onto the ATM in the corner, and then back at him.
He's digging through his jeans pockets. He pulls out some crumpled green bills, goes over to the counter and buys them warm drinks with it. Surprising.
Welcome, though.
They go outside again, sit on the raised curb in front of the station together. The drink is warm in her gloved hands and sweet against the cold taste of air.
The gas station's busy that night for no reason. People stream in and out. The mechanical bell's jingle repeats until it's almost a song. Some of the people going in and out smile at the two of them sitting there. Darling, darling, darling, she thinks. Do those people think they're darling?
(Irrelevant.)

The sun gets lower in the sky. Her and him both look toward it for a while. Their thoughts are the same, but they aren't afraid.

When they finish their drinks they chuck them into the industrial trashcan chained to the ashphalt in front of the gas station, then walk and walk and walk back through the park again. They cut across a wide field to get back into the woods. Keep heading toward her building.

It's late. Trees grow darker and taller around them.

Her and him don't say anything. Only pay attention. Her shoulders are tight with wound-up adrenaline. His are too. Look around. She pulls her not-face out of her sweater's pocket and puts it on. (The wool is thick in front of her mouth.) Beside her, he does the same. Just in case.
The air feels lightning-thick, crackling.

Then- Nothing is there, a hundred feet away to the right.

He spots it first and grabs her shoulder. Warning. She reels and turns on her heel, feeling him do the same beside her. Low branches claw at their faces as they run.

It dissapears and flares back into sight a couple times, sometimes so close to them she can't see for the flare of static. It's trying to separate them so they'll both be lost. Her in the dark and the void of Its place. Him in the deep woods without her to show the way.

They need a way to lose it. Her mind is racing. Images and sounds pouring through. And then she remembers.

At a fork in the path she grabs his arm, pulls him toward a hill, steadying him when the ground's angle changes under their feet. They come to a wide brook and jump over. The water gurgles and spits. They land hard on the other side, loose pieces of bank break off in clumps and crumble away down the slope; and then he stumbles. A howl tears from him.
His leg. Broken months ago. Somehow she'd forgotten. She wavers on the spot she landed, pulled into a half-crouch by her hand still on his arm, and she holds on.
Him on the ground, breath coming in heaves. Her entire spine a string about to snap.
Eyes darting through the trees. Can't leave him. Still have to get out.

Without warning the inside of her chest collapses.

She coughs so hard she lands on the ground. Hands press into leaf mulch and soil, trying to push herself to her feet. Failing. Through eyes blurred with lack of air she looks up.

It stands on the other side of the brook, not-face turned toward them. Its head is tilted. Waiting. Watching.

It has no eyes but it see's them, she knows, in all the forest only them, and dread comes up like water in her lungs. Her arms shake themselves into collapse. Cold soil on her face. Eyes still turned toward Nothing. It stares. Her world burns. Dying-bright. (It's possible she'd died-) |
She can't see. She can't scream. She can't breathe. She can't breathe.

It watches, waits.

Then, with not even a flicker it leaves.

Her breath comes back like breaking through to the surface finally. At first she inhales dirt and dust mites, can barely push herself to roll her face out of the mud; great, heaving gasps through the wool of her not-face. Her arms are numb. She lets go of the boy who's like her and pushes herself up, slowly, staggering. She peels the not-face away from her mouth so she can spit red into the grass.
Beside her, he heaves himself to his feet too. There's tremors going through his arms and shoulders, he's leaning heavy on his not-hurt leg, but he can move. And they need to move. It is gone but they are not safe.

They keep running, pushing through sharp branches and sticking leaves. When they can see sky again they slow down, but only just.
There isn't anything that follows them. They look behind themselves every second still.

Her building's on a hill next to a field that's empty of trees. That helps a little. Her and him both pull their not-faces off fully when they step into the concrete shell.
She checks her pocket while her feet still sting from the run and her head's still blurry enough to barely let her see. Her camera's there. Good. She needs it. A deep-rooted cough shakes inside her ribcage and she closes her throat tight. Starting only makes it worse.
In her small room she grabs two of the white pills from their orange bottle, swallows them down without water, and waits.
Seconds pass. Slowly, the static in her head and in front of her eyes starts to ebb. Her chest loosens.

He is standing in the doorway of the room behind her. She can hear his breathing; loud from the run, too. But he doesn't need the medication.
She waits. When the static disappears completely, she pushes herself up. The last of the shakiness leaves her legs as she stands. She lets out a long breath.
He puts a hand on her shoulder, the same one he'd grabbed. Questioning. She looks over at him and nods. Safety. He exhales too.

Later. They're both slumped on her mattress, backs against the wall or support. The blanket he'd brought is thrown loosely over the both of them. He's sleeping. That had surprised her, in the beginning, that he slept; doesn't now.
She does sleep, but she isn't now. Instead she crosses her arms and bends up her knees to keep warm under the blanket, watching the sky through the broken window and the thin branches.

It's winter. The birds are asleep and the insects are dead.

Had she died?

It's not impossible. She knows. That's part of this problem: there's so much she knows. And she doesn't understand how any of it got there inside her head. The memories don't explain. Much of the knowledge comes in images, in waves. Almost all of it goes out beyond her in all directions, over her head. She's anchored to places and events she can feel but not see. (And ones she can see: the woods themselves.) (People too, the scared boy and the angry one, and him.) It's not impossible, someone who was alive can't know so many things.
Another thing: she's not afraid anymore, of anything. She can feel dread but its not the same. Fear is not useful to her anymore. If she were alive it would be; living things need fear. It keeps them alive.
(A picture bright in her memory: the boy leading his friend around in a basement, then screaming. She blinks. Sometimes it keeps them alive.)

Alone, these thoughts would turn around in her mind like tape through a reel. No way to stop them. No way to solve them. Around and around and around.

But he's here too. And like her. (Except angry, some days. Rage like water headed fast downhill, boiling around rocks. But never towards her.) If she were dead that would make him dead too.
She looks sideways at him through the dark. His not-face is lying on the mattress beside him, removed for the sake of sleep. He's breathing steady and slow.
Dead things didn't breath. She was certain. And dead things didn't have heartbeats either. But he did; she could see the steady pulse in his neck where his head was resting on his shoulder.
She pressed on her wrist. Her heart beat, too.
So she couldn't be dead.

The thought isn't restful. Why would it be?
Irrelevant.

She closes her eyes.
Two hearts in two-beat rhythms. Two and two make four. That should worry her. but worry needs fear behind it. She counts her heart beats and doubles for his until the beats become sound. Repeats in her head and under her fingers. Backwards and forwards. Over and over.
She sleeps.

She isn't sure how long her and him stay together this time. Longer than they have in a while.

In the woods the air stays sharp and cold. She's learned not to mind. Her gloves and hood are thick and she sleeps like a radio shut off. But the new blanket's warmth is good, especially with two of them underneath it. Appreciated.

They keep hunting. The scared boy doesn't find anything new. Or at least he tells no one anything new, just stumbles around with a camera in his hand.
Her and him watch the scared boy. She has her camera in her hand, too, like always. The two of them pass it back and forth. She doesn't forget. He doesn't either. The two of them leave breadcrumbs leading out to the woods. The boy either doesn't see or doesn't understand.
The angry boy, like before, is nowhere. Nothing follows him.
(Neither boy realize that they're the hunted ones. Trapped like hunted things.) (But all of them are trapped.)

Her and him aren't always out hunting though. There are days— quiet—- where they sit in the forest together. Not really waiting for anything. Her hair's gotten long and snags in everything when she takes her hood off, so he takes his knife and cuts it for her. It hangs lankly around her chin. Better. She steals him some strong painkillers from the gas station, since they help his leg. Better too.
Once, after he's stayed for a while, they wake up to heavy clouds that break open like a seam splitting early in the afternoon. The storm is quiet and dark, with none of the flashes of not-fire that some storms bring. (Good.) Her and him stand together out in the field past her building, away from trees and their shadows. Rain rushes down in sheets that are cold and vaguely sweet.

And then there's a day when she walks in from checking out the field, camera in hand, to find him convulsing on the ground of her building. His hands scrape over the concrete, smearing light patterns of red where the skin broke open on the ground. He can't see anything. The sounds he makes are choked-off and gurgling.

She had seen this happen twice before, but less bad than this. There's nothing she can do but wait. She walks around his convulsing body and into her small room, making sure the things are still there and safe.

When she comes back into the main room, he hasn't gotten up. Instead he lays on the floor, eyes closed and limp. Doesn't respond when she shakes him.
She frowns, then gets up, turns and kicks at a wall. Her shoe makes a loud crack against the concrete. She kicks it again, anger and sadness twisting her face and making her clench her fists.
Should have expected it. This always happens. This time it took longer, but this always comes.
He wakes up when he has to but eventually the other one wakes up instead. Mostly, when that happens, it looks like this.
Maybe she judged wrong; he'll wake up, like he did those times before, and still know things like she knows and remembers. She hopes she's wrong.
The other one is mostly useless and not like her at all. But if she's right, she can't let the other one know where she is.

She wastes some daylight waiting for him to wake up. Takes her camera around the perimeter of her building (doesn't find anything). Eats a candy bar sitting beside him in case he opens his eyes. Hides the pills in their bottle deep in the bones of the walls.

Then, finally, when she can't waste any longer, she takes his not-face off of the floor in her small room and carries it dangling off her arm, and she pulls the boy who isn't like her out of the building by the shoulders of his shirt. She drags the boy down the dirt path a while (easy enough, the path slopes and is mostly smooth). In a grassy clearing she lets him down, leaving his not-face on the ground close by. She stands back.

She waits, her camera eye pointed through the branches, close enough that she can still see him and the boy who's like her will be able to her still see her if she was wrong.

But is the other one who wakes up a couple minutes later and throws up into the grass. The other one who stands shaking, looking around with wide eyes.
(Looks right toward her but doesn't even see her in the trees. While he would have spotted her in a second. She knows.)
The other one catches sight of the painted not-face in the grass; he picks it up in one hand, unbelieving. Then drops it, shakes his head like he's trying to clear the cobwebs and clutches his hair, muttering that this isn't happening for a minute or two as though that will change anything. He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a couple less bills than he had before, some crumpled chocolate bar wrappers, and finally his phone; he turns it on and looks like he's going to be sick again.

She stays in the tree. Eventually, the boy turns and leaves through the woods on the other side of the clearing, stumbling slightly on the roots, clutching the phone and his not-face in opposite hands. Unfinished.

She goes back then, letting the camera swing from her hand at her hip and catch blurry lines of the ground and trees behind her as she walked.
When she gets to her building she sets the camera down on the floor, lies on her mattress and bunches the blanket up under her head. She stares listlessly at the ceiling and the cracks in the walls. The forests' humming silence surrounds her.

Frustrating. To be alone.

/

fin.

-
(Additional author's note: Fuck this 'no dividers except lines' bullshit, seriously.)