The Forest: A Flash Fiction
By
Serena Mossgraves
They will tell you that you are safe in the world, and you are sometimes. The cities have only people to worry about. Though they can be frightening…it’s the least frightening thing that I know of in this world. The truth is the things that watch you from the forest, that you can never see are more frightening than anything that exists in humanity. Some of them used to be human. They have fallen from who they were to become something else.
The swamps and rain forests have their own life, their own creatures…and those are tales for another time and place. I want to talk to you about the forest, and the things that should not be. The things that watch you…that you never see. In trying to find peace, so many venture out into the forgotten places. This leads to so many deaths.
People have no idea what awaits them in the trees. It is better that way. Those of us that await amongst the foliage enjoy the ignorance…I once was human. Now I feed upon the stupid. I eat those who come out thinking the woods to be a safe place. The foolish ones. There are those who know about me. So much so that they have made even speaking of me taboo.
I am what they fear that they will become. They feel the possibility as they come closer to where I make my home. The smart ones retreat back to their cities. They understand that the evil man does to each other is nothing compared to what the forest can bring them.
Then there is the ones who have the touch of fae to them. They fear nothing in the wood, for they understand not to challenge what they cannot see. There is rules after all. We can only feed on the ones that come looking. Those we can take freely. The divine will not protect the stupid.
Sometimes, being eaten is a kindness…I went looking to see what was looking at me in the woods outside my cabin nearly two hundred years ago now. Transformation was educational. Now I teach those who come seeking…
Pattimouse 