Lone Wendy: The Girl and the Forest of the Gods (8 page)

A cold wind blows softly through the dead forest,
blustering the remnant leaves along the ground as I think and
gather wood. I spent the last few days digging out a meager shelter
in the side of a hill, and assessing my food. I have enough left
for weeks if I go easy, and the hole might keep me warm and dry,
but I'm still woefully under prepared for winter. And I can't
ignore that I’m still lost.

In the back of my mind, I feel I should have gone
back. In the village I actually considered it. Staring into the
night, the forest dark, the sounds haunting. I felt like a sailor
in the stories, who gazed upon deep water and felt the storm. I
wondered. Was I the brave sailor who took to sea despite knowing of
my doom? Or was I the coward who walked away, and lived a long and
boring life?

But by the village it was too late. I had been
through too much to simply turn back. When I got attacked by
bandits. That's when I should have gone back. Or after the river
when I was starving. Or when I held that dagger in my hand, my
anchor. Was I crazy, or cursed to continue? I must be crazy, I
mean, I know I am. A trait of myself that I have always admired.
Crazy courageous. Blind leaps, and no sense of status or standing
to keep me from challenging someone. That was always fine, at home.
Out here I’m alone. One underestimate after another. Impatience
fueling procrastination and denial. A fair share of bad
decisions.

And then there's that thing. When I first saw it, I
thought It might be a man. Then I saw the metal limbs and face, and
I thought it was a mecha. But when I encountered him, face to face
outside, and stared into him, I felt a consciousness stare back. An
eerie feeling. A disconnect. As if starring into eyes behind a
mask. It might be armor but I definitely heard machine sounds. What
is it doing out here anyway? The old priest said the other Gods had
no followers. Even scarier than that thing, is whatever it keeps
behind those doors. Beyond its teeth, its eyes like a look into the
void, had an evil feeling. A hollow as well. Fear and sadness
filling it. It's all too strange for me, this kennel master and his
monsters.

I can only hope to survive winter, get my bearings,
and find the shard in spring.

I sometimes find myself wondering about this little
charm around my neck. A pebble drilled to accept a loop of leather
through it. It's a forgettable and unattractive thing, no different
from a stone you might find on the road. Thinking of it you
wouldn't think anything at all. But when I stare at it, I feel
myself mesmerized. Like staring through a hole in a wall at night.
A fear and uncertainty pulling at me.

I feel like the charm hinders the powers of the
creatures here. I rarely see any beasts, and when I do, they look
through me as though I don't even exist. And when the Kennel Master
was chasing me he was slower until I got far enough away, and then
suddenly he moved much faster than I ever could. It feels like
nothing more than a stone on a string, with a few nonsensical
carvings, but it's the only thing I can think of to reason my luck
and lack of encounters in this vast forgotten world.

-Wendy

Among the white, a whispered song, a smell so sweet,
the air so cold. The fog like soft hands gently cupping your face.
Another bleak day.

Everyday the same. I wake from a dream and forage in
the snow. My hands shake with chill and my mind wanders. I think of
home to stay warm, and those I love to stay alive. Despite the
delay, my vigilant work paid off. My shelter was done in time with
first snowfall. Piled up logs and sticks with snow to cover the
cracks. It's ugly, but it just might work.

Returning in the late day from collecting wood, I
walk back through the snow. A great howling pierces the air as I
wander. Another thing howls back near me as I throw myself behind
an embankment of snow. I can hear crunching in the snow just ahead
of me. As I peer over the embankment a white wolfs head rises with
mine. It bears its teeth seemingly at me as I raise my spear. We
circle each other for a moment before I realize that its teeth are
meant for another. The ground begins to shake when out of nowhere
something huge leaps over the snowy hill behind me. The wolf begins
to run but is taken up in the mouth of the thing. The whelping and
snarls silenced with a loud and terrifying crunch. As the giant
thing turns its head towards me, the wolfs blood dribbling from its
slobbering jaws, I recognize it as one of the monsters kept behind
the metal doors.

Its massive and grotesque body like the skin of a
flayed hound stretched over the frame of a giant boar. Tall, with
dark hairless wrinkled skin, and no neck. Eyes as big as fists, and
a large wide mouth that could swallow a man whole. Its growls not
only loud, but felt as well.

It drops the mangled wolf corpse to the ground and
leaps for me. Shocked, I slash my spear and try to flee at the same
time. Its massive paw bats against me and sends me flying. I land
hard, the air knocked out of me. Choking and struggling to breathe
I try to get up but can only squirm in the snow. It tenses about to
leap upon me when a pack of wolves jump it. It fights to tear them
off, more annoyed by them than injured. The ground shakes again as
more of the hounds join the fray. Their howl ear shattering,
drowning out the screams of the dying wolves.

I pull myself up, leaning on my spear, and limp
through the icy forest numb to the commotion. Blood pouring from a
wound in my gut from the hounds paw. The world darkens as the
sunsets. I make it back to my shelter only to find it burning. I
can see the Kennel Master, a torch in his hand, the flames
mirroring against his metal face. He locks his gaze with mine for a
moment. Empty sockets stare deeply into me, with a knowing of both
a monster and a man. His body, flesh and steel, covered in leathers
and chains. A living myth, a mecha of flesh and blood.

I keep expecting him to move, to come for me, but he
just stands there staring through me like I'm dead already.

As the last light retreats from the sky I pull myself
together and quickly make for the dark and frozen woods. Briefly
looking back, the grey ash filling the sky as the flames of my
shelter smolder in melted snow. My last hope burning away as the
cold winds of winter chill me to the bone.

If I died out here, I knew that there would be those
who laughed with a crooked smirk, and would say-

“silly girl, what else could she expect”

I knew also, that there would be those who would dim
their faces, and mutter-

“the poor girl”

And there I’d be, dead, with some scoffing at my
stupidity, and others pitying me for it.

“poor, stupid, girl”

These thoughts filled me with rage, that some would
remember me that way. But the one thought that made my heart sink,
was that if I died out here, most would not remember, 'me', at
all.

-Wendy

Wandering in a swirling dream, macabre tone, and grim
palette. A world of cold death, intensity, and emptiness. Driving
wind among skeleton trees. Eerie and silent. A dead world, full of
nothing. The unlucky flash frozen as they were in the night.

The snow is up to my waist, the drudged sky spitting
more. I trudge through like fighting the tide of the sea, strained
and stumbling. Chilled to the bone, fingers numb, and face skin
frozen like a porcelain mask. My delirious mind fading in and out
of awareness, fighting against my own body to continue. Marble eyes
open wide, staring into the silhouette of death, with each frozen
breath. My situation is meaningless though, my insides welling with
sadness. I find myself lost to despair, and regret.

I can't stop seeing it. My mother collapsed in the
road, sobbing, begging. Helpless and unable to go on. Watching
everything her life meant to her walk away. I don't think I knew
just how much I hurt her. I considered the sacrifices that she went
through to keep me, and I thought I was doing the same. Breaking
her heart to save her life. But now she might already be dead. And
things aren't looking good for me. Her last memory of me will be
sadness and pain. I was sure I would see her again. I didn't think
it would end this way. But Wil did.

William Duave, a kind of hero to me. A mentor, and
the only friend that I ever truly had. My mother is a beautiful
woman, if it weren't for having me outside of marriage, she would
have been considered one of the most desirable in the kingdom, but
no one saw past my mothers stigma, no one except Wil. She was the
love of his life. A love that wouldn't even talk to him when they
were alone in a room together. She acted like he didn't exist and
wouldn't even respond to him, except to lash out over something
that I talked him into. She had to raise me was the excuse. But I
think she was afraid. My 'father' betrayed her, and she feared that
it might happen again. But Wil never stopped. That's how we became
friends, he was always showing up at the lodge.

I remember, when I first read of the God Slayer, and
thought about leaving to find it. Sitting in his sadly empty house,
he chuckled at the idea.

“I'll save you the pain kid.” he said. “I had an idea
like yours, go on a big adventure, be a big hero, show them what
you're worth. I left home early, and I never made it back. Everyone
I loved, dead. Everything I knew, gone. I was lucky to have lived
at all.” he paused a moment to stare into his whisky “And well,
look at me now”

I didn't think that I would regret this. I didn't
think that I would fail. I blocked out every word of warning, and
went headlong into the unknown. Now the ghosts of winter haunt my
every step. My frame but a husk, slowly emptying of me. I should
have listened.

***

Days have passed, a dream in white. I lay here
against the dark sky, too cold to move. The moon bright, as I
freeze. The shadow of the forest rising as it always has,
majestically toward the sky.

It's alright, I tell myself. I've lived a full life.
If I die ... It's fine. No need to go on, no need to suffer.

Ice forms around my lips. My eyes, of glass, glaring
into the beyond. What a feeling. To live so long. To fight
everyday. And to be so fine, in the moment, to slip away. As if
you're not even truly there to witness it. Gone already, and left
yourself to die.

I hold myself in pause, bracing for the inevitable,
but don't go. A repressed voice echoes in my head, almost screaming
to stay, and in my final defense, succeeds. A certain kind of
destiny, I suppose. That something doesn't want me to die. Not a
choice of my own. I feel a strange mix of gladness and sorrow as I
twitch one finger, and slowly pull myself from the freezing earth.
It's a feeling I can't describe. I'm alive, a joyous thing, but I
hate it. It's as if another decides when I can die. My body, an
empty vessel, filling with the will of something else.

The days and nights are all dark, freezing,...., fire
draws things worse than a demons nightmares--- be quick,...., I’m
fading...

- W

I wandered aimlessly into the mountains, black rises
capped in white peaks. The feeling of doom followed behind me. My
dreams filled by a dark hand driving evil things. The days shorter,
the nightmares long. The end of me becoming evermore real.

The sun set eons ago, and has never again risen.
Either my sense of time is lost, or this night has gone on too
long. Something was circling my campsite earlier in the night.
Unlike the animals, it wasn't afraid of my fire. Suddenly its
shadow appeared. Though I felt out of breath with fear, I slowly
slunk my way out, crawling into the darkness. I took my torch, but
it has long since burnt out.

There is no moon, no light, no torch, no fire. In
this black, an entire sense is missing. As though the world has
vanished. My balance is gone. It's like being an infant learning to
walk again. Every sound thunders. Every touch incredible. The
sensation of falling takes over every step. I walk slowly,
carefully, like I’m on a tightrope. My hands outstretched like
feelers searching the air for substance.

My toes slink along, feet slowly inching forward,
until I feel an edge. A slope? A cliff? It's all darkness to me,
and I don't feel like chancing it. It just means that I have to
move slower, be more careful.

Descending now, the wind rises over my feet as
pebbles crunch below. I think I can hear howling echoing out in the
void, or maybe I’m just crazy. I have to fight back the fear, so
overwhelming, as I’m blinded. I just want to scream, but I know
what will happen. I am in the shadow of a God and its world. A
world that is not kind. A thing that is not forgiving. Moving
forward at some pace again, I can't help but wonder if I might
misstep, and be cascaded to my doom.

***

The sun has never risen. In blackness I stumbled,
fire my only sight. But these things, very specific, different from
beasts, are drawn to the light. It wasn't long before they came for
me from the black. A huge thing from the night, shaking the earth,
so large it snapped the trees like twigs. I ran from my camp, the
world breaking behind me, until I stumbled. The fall my salvation.
Freed from imminent danger, I rejoiced.