From The Grey Forest - Teaser

Well, here’s an oddly pleasant surprise. Finally, I see something shifting in the small clearing just a short distant ahead. I try to tread gently over in my heavy combat boots. A few leaves and twigs crunch under the sheer weight of them, but luckily the sound doesn’t catch the attention of the thing nearby. With some less than graceful manoeuvring I shamble behind one of the rotting trees on the edge of the clearing. I place my gloved hands upon it. Even without the roughness of my grip some of the bark flimsily snaps off just by brushing against it. Luckily I’m not one to flinch easily so I steel myself to peer around the tree.

My head moves less than an inch before I’m paralysed by a flash of images needling the back of my mind. Every scratch, the lack of breath, the smell of decay conjures up a distorted image of…something.

Against my own judgement I’ve gotten accustomed to my boring, dare I say, ‘normal’ life in Mistwell. Normally you couldn’t stop my behaviour but give a rebel nothing to rebel against and they’ll find themselves settling down eventually. I’d briefly forgotten about all my craziness. All my schemes and judgement became briefly clouded.

Fuck, I hate this town.

But still, I wonder if I should have broken that one rule they did have. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into the forest.

Every dull sound rings like a crack through my skull. The bumps in the wood against my arm feel like bugs crawling their way over my jacket sleeve, seeking out the skin. I want to scratch it. I want to cover my ears. I want to breath and breath and breath but I can’t. I can’t do any of it if I don’t want to draw attention. Is that thing the reason the rule exists?

It has to be. Why am I here?

I should just go home. Back home to what though?

…

Screw it, I’m Chrysalis fucking Cole. Nothing does or will ever stop me.

A sense of stubbornness suddenly overwhelming the brief bout of fear, I peer my head around the curve of the tree to see what nightmare lurks just out of vision.

I am unsure about whether what I see matches or disappoints my expectations. Compared to the mystery terror I’d built in my head, I’m rather unfazed by the young man dressed in a Halloween skeleton costume huddled in the middle of the clearing. He appears to be tending to something in front of him, seemingly oblivious to my presence. Now the threat level has dropped I shrug to myself and gingerly move a little closer to get a better view.

He’s so…pale. Like, deathly white. Does he even have blood?

He must be so cold, not even thinking about the mist. I’d be tempted to believe he’s a ghost, but then that wouldn’t explain everything else about him. His hair also lacks pigment but those eyes; they’re completely black. Not only that, they look like they’re bleeding. An ink like liquid is dripping out of the sockets, trickling down his cheeks. Drip, drip, drip onto the grass, staining it black.

He lightly cocks his head for a moment at the thing he’s examining. The inky liquid alters its course with it. He raises one hand, its bones exposed…no, wait it seems to just be a tattoo. I know one when I see one. It seems oddly normal, if it weren’t so realistic. He lifts the skeletal hand to scratch his…antlers?

White, deer like antlers which unlike his hands look as though they could be actual exposed bone. I squint but I don’t see some sort of headband or clip nestled into his hair. It’s pretty freaky. These days though I’ll take freaky.