The Forest: a work by (CheeseDealer)
It was a cold night, with not a star to be seen and wolves baying when Tommy Pickles was born. Perhaps this was the reason he became so evil… perhaps it was something altogether more sinister, but whatever the cause, the fact remained: Tommy Pickles was evil!
He and his parents lived deep in the thick woods of Aktachan; his father would chop down trees and hunt, and his Mother would sew and cook. It was obvious from an early age that there was something untoward about Tommy Pickles. Whenever the moon was full, he would sit on the window ledge, and stare. He didn't seem to be staring at anything particular; not his transparent reflection in the glass, nor the darkness, but his eyes where fixed on the moon. Indeed, he would bitterly cry and throw the wooden toys his father had made for him if he couldn't see the bitter moon. Even when the wolves of the forest where howling, or a storm passed over-head and lightning raped the sky, Tommy would watch. It was something that frightened his mother so.
One day, whilst Tommy was playing outside, with his toys, a bear plundered through the woods. The creature took one look at Tommy and scampered off into the woods. This was more than Mrs. Pickles could take. That night, she told her husband to take Tommy into the woods, and abandon him. Stew didn't want to; they both argued until morning, but Dee was adamant that Tommy had to go. And so, the next night, Stew took Tommy into the deepest, darkest part of the woods, and left him. Neither Stew nor Dee slept that night; the wolves of the forest where louder And more violent than usual, and the moon shone brightly even through closed curtains.
By the morning, Stew was dead. Dee hadn't witnessed how this had happened, but she saw the results… Drew had been messily decapitated by the axe he used to fell trees. The axe itself was propped up against the wooden walls of the hut, splattered with gore. Upon leaving the room, Dee saw that Tommy was sleeping soundly on the floor, a smile embedded on his face. She ran from the hut, ran into the forest, and didn't stop running until she came across a stream three miles from her home. Here, she wept for a minute, then washed her eyes. She drank deeply the waters of the river, but soon found that she was not alone… somehow, Tommy had followed her. Dee was so terrified that she slipped and fell into the stream, drowning.
Later that day, a friendly woodcutter happened upon Tommy; he had found his mothers dead body downstream. Being good-natured, he took him home with him, to a cabin six miles North of the stream, where he lived with his wife and his two children. Of course, his wife was hesitant about accepting a child from the wilderness. She said that the Child's father must be somewhere, and that he must be worried. She said that the person may not have been his mother. What she didn't say was that whenever she looked at Tommy, she had a strange feeling about the self-orphaned child. But she was not cold-hearted; she would never turn a child out into the darkness and danger of the forest. Soon though, she began to regret that she hadn't. Tommy was a strange child, in many ways; not least the way he would sit on the window ledge, every full moon, whether the night be clear or marred with storm, and stare at nothing in particular.
