The Woods Are Dark and Deep

by Blue Jeans

Chapter 12

The first thing I felt was the breeze, soft and warm on my cheeks. Someone is calling my name. There is laughter in that voice and so much happiness I could feel it seep into me, filling me with joy. My face is smiling. Smiling.

I am so happy.

There is a field spread out before me, covered in tiny, beautiful flowers. My hands want to reach out and gather them up into my arms. I wanted to make a bouquet and then as many wreathes as possible. I think, maybe four? I wanted to make something beautiful and put it on my head... on the heads of the ones I love.

I live in a small house, hidden away from the rest of the world. It is warm and safe. I am loved and cared for. All the faces around me are smiling. Life is happy and peaceful. Every day is full of laughter and games, friends and loved ones. I... remember? I remember these days fondly...

I am looking into familiar eyes... laughing, caring eyes that are the same as my own. Then a feeling comes over me. The sky overhead suddenly turns red.

Someone is calling my name again. Someone important, I know this. This time, the voice is not filled with love and joy but fear. It is so foreign in that familiar voice that I felt the wrongness of it to my very bones.

A horrible scream pierces the air and rings in my ears. There's a person in front of me... Who are they? Should I know them?

Someone I love leaps between us, their arms held wide. This is someone I love, I know this person's back. But I can't remember who it belongs to.

Everything smells like blood. I'm covered in something. It's red and slick and my cheeks are wet...

I...

Now, someone is holding me tight. It was so tight every breath is a little bit of agony. I can hear them panting and I can feel their heart racing beneath my ear. We're running away from my house.

I don't want to go. I'm terrified, but I don't want to go! Somehow I know we are leaving behind something terribly important.

Somewhere inside of me, a tiny, despairing voice says that those quiet, happy, peaceful days will never come again. What it says hurts so much. It hurts so much more than the steel arms around me, more than the smell of blood that I can't escape. I am crying now, as my home grows farther and farther away.

"Damn them..." The person carrying me is talking. His voice is familiar but his tone is not. He sounds angry, but... is he crying too? "All we ever wanted was to live in peace... But I guess the humans couldn't even let us have that."

There is so much bitterness. So much blood. I wanted the sunlit fields and the tiny flowers. I wanted smiles and laughter and to feel warm and safe again.

I know that what I want will never be possible.

My sobbing mingles with the voice of the person carrying me, two sides of the same miserable coin. Someone who understands me. Someone who knows what we have lost this day...

"Bastards... I hate them! I hate them..." he chants. The angry thumping heart next to my ear grows louder and louder. I can feel hatred wrap its searing tendrils around my heart in response to his own. I clutch at the material of his shirt, his feelings vibrating so clearly through me that I felt like we were the same person sharing the same, overwhelming hatred...

"I hate them..." I echo so fiercely that the feeling wakes me up.

To be continued...