The rustling of nearby bushes motivates you. Your loves hand begins to slip, sweat rushing down your jaw, boots crushing everything beneath it. The black walnuts within the forest kept you turning constantly through the forest. Don’t look back, don’t look back. The forest is at a finish; you face a stone wall the size of two of you. The huntress directly above, gazing down on you, weeping. Your love takes a step back, pressing against the stone, watching the shadowy forest hidden from the huntress. You saw the sun rising before, you can no longer see him though, the brother doesn’t show his face in this part of the forest. The rustling from the Ox is near. It’s here. Your love places her palm on the center of your back. Steel extends from the follower’s hand, poking across the light, six inches long and shines blue under the huntress.

“Leave my love alone!” You shout into the forest, to the follower. The follower didn’t move. Didn’t say a single word, just staying outside of the moons reach.

“She didn’t do anything to you!” Your love said. Placing your hand across your love, wanting her to keep her mouth shut. Not wanting to get a rise out of the follower.

“Please. Don’t kill her! She couldn’t have saved you!” Your love continued. Confusion is the dominating feeling now. Turning your back to the follower,

“Save who? Who are you talking about?”

“My friend. She’s my best friend.”

“What friend? What are you talking about?” Your loves eyes wandering over the follower again, and your eyes follow to see, still, the steel.

“They are all guilty.” Swiftly gliding towards you, the follower and steel floats past the moon and threw your abdomen. Blood filling your mouth, unable to say a word in your defense.

Sweet grapes overload your sense as you draw near to the origin. Trees are rough against your palms, guiding your stride, they have become your eyes. The brisk breeze pulls you deeper into the center of the forest. The ravens chorus chasing you, stalking you, they are hunting you. The trees have syrup applied to their bark; this is a new feel and without optics to tell what, this is alarming. The crushing of walnuts beneath your boots is still the same however. Trees have led you into a sticky trap, your arms are restricting, tightens as you contest. The binding is solid, substantial since your entire body is succumbing slowly, and the adhesive is callous and unforgiving. Fighting only makes the adhesive stronger, it’s a thief, stealing your will to fight. The forest began clicking. This isn’t the forest. The clicking was deafening and enclosing. Thick liquid drips down your face from above; the undisclosed liquid travels slowly down your cheek and across your lips. The clicking is right against your ears; the clicker is sucking in air profusely. The clickers limbs explore your body. Two, three, five, six, seven, eight. Eight limbs. The tips of the clickers limbs are needle sharp at the tip, carving up your clothes gently. The legs are shaggy; the hair makes your body twitch as the legs weave up and down. The clicker began wrapping you entirely in the adhesive. The clicker works hastily, never wasting a single movement, until your body is completely being encase. The adhesive is soft against your lips like silk. The blood in your head rushes as your body flips upside down suddenly. Dangling side to side as the clicking returns. It sounds, happy. The clickers drool drops across your jaw again and slides off your brow. Rustling in the leaves and it fades slowly away. Trying to use the momentum of the swing proven to be futile, the adhesive is just to secure. The blood rushing to your head is making you dizzy, and drowsy. I’m sorry love, I’m not going to make it.

The torch flickers in the wind as you approach the cave. The sconce is shining under the lambent torch. You notice a small heart sticker on the scone. The icy breeze forces you into the cave just to avoid the frost any further.  The back of the cave is perfectly visible under the will of the torch. You immediately are taken back by the markings on the wall. A tally mark counter is carved into the stone; there are hundreds of tallies. Next to the tallies, a worn stuffed bear with an eye missing. A torn picture rested next to the bear, the picture was tattered yet you can make out the faces. Smiling girl resting her arm around your love, happy, much different than the missing person profile. I didn’t know they were friends. A sudden pinch pricks your back; the pinch was sharp and quick. Your love is maximized. Your love is the only person you can think of. The day you met your love. The way you felt when your love holds you and tells you that they love you. The good and the bad, your love is always there to tell you it will be okay. A second prick pinches in the same spot; no pain follows this pinch. Love reconstructs into aversion. Why am I here? The dangers of the Ox are all you can think about like the screech through the marsh. Love crumbles in your mind, you cannot even think about your love, all you want to do is escape.

Departing the cave, sprinting past the marshes, and past the damp poster. The street is barren, street lamps flickering like the torch from the cave, the chill follows you still. The streets are long before any civilization, you have to run, run as fast as you can. The Ox fades behind you. I can’t go back. Your cul-de-sac is nearing, gasping for air, the cold is invading your lungs. Houses pass as blurs, the wind pushing against your skin, stopping is not an option. The key under your mat glistening under the moonlight. You pass by the picture frame without even a glance. Finally, relaxing on your couch, hoping to catch the end of Johnny Carson.

The marshes are dank and cold. The water is high to your knees and thick as honey. Your ears bleeding, dripping slowly, sore and the hum conquers all other noises the forest produces. The icy zephyr creates ripples in the water as if there was an invisible hand skidding across. Moonlight reveals the cloudy mud infested water, filth comes up, knees reaching your torso with each step. Shimmering light shines into your eyes, reflecting the huntress, reflecting you. Mirror shards clutter the underside of the marsh: your boot crushes a large mirror, producing these shards. A tight grip takes custody of your right thigh. The constrict has a shroud of brown marsh and undetectable in the shards. The tightness is present and increasing with each passing moment, narrowing subsides, and your unable to feel your right leg. Paddling to the exit, trying to leave the thick marshes, regretting traveling deeper into the tears of the forest. Sharp agony impales your abdomen. A brown sleek serpent attached to your belly like a limb. Your body adds a red tint to the cloudy marshes. You began feeling tight, fingers becoming unresponsive, losing feeling in your left leg, perception of your surroundings vanishing. Your scream is stolen by the forest, marshes taking over. Peering towards the exit, a third serpent emerges. This one is larger than the other two, same sleekness, with a sage body. The eyes. The serpent’s eyes were magnificent. The large emeralds, white sclera encloses tightly around, circular like a solemnly human. Cracks across the sclera construct black straight hard turning lines that have remanence of ruins. No longer able to move your lower half of your body, out reaching toward the eyes. Your hand began gradually turning into stone. Trying to move your fingers, like you have before, and nothing. Forearm commencing the process as the stone disease takes your body. The eyes never leave yours. A lonely tear travels from your disease-free eye as the emerald ones do the same.