The Watching Woods

The first time I laid eyes on the flowers, the forest spread out before me, the breeze in my hair, I knew it would be my home.  I could smell the fragrance of roses and lilacs, the spring carried the scent through the valley and up to the blooming cliffs.

It all hid a dark secret.  Below lay a cursed land, once at war with itself.

But over the months I was able to unravel it.  Bring it to light, pull out the color, turn it to something different, wonderful, and perhaps a little tragic.

And the world bloomed, thrived, and honestly didn't need me any more.

I felt sad for it, leaving everything behind, but the fall came to move to the next world, a new beginning and perhaps a new curse, a new monster, or something mysterious.

I set foot in the new world, with a new outfit, a new perspective and climbed that cliff face, looking for the flowers I had before.  The meadows were beautiful here, the birch forests lush with yellow.

I built a small home on the edge of the ocean, a white and pink barn with flowers everywhere, under those birch trees and surrounded by beauty.  But I was alone, and not sure why none of the others had come.  So I went in search of them.

But that's when I found it for the first time.  The Gray.

It wasn't like the previous curse.  This was something new, something alive and watching.  I shivered even on the warm summer day, and set foot into that bleak forest that had been wiped of any color.  Or so I thought.

As darkness fell, the grayest flowers opened wide, showing a vibrant orange within.  The color was HERE, it was fighting back against the gray.

But something else was here too.  I could feel it watching me as well.  My heart racing, I stepped back away from the trees, eyes darting as they picked up the slightest movement, a leaf falling, a twig breaking... behind me.

"Uhh hmmm," a cough and deepest voice, a creaking of a crossbow being drawn back... Five of them, skin drained of all color but for the gray around me.  I turned, fled into the watchful woods, not sure whether to worry about what could be seen versus what could not.

They pursued, arrows whizzed by my head, hit my leg and I went down.  "Oh crap..." I struggled to my feet, kept going into the trees, but I was hearing sounds I had never heard before.  The Gray had awoken, it was following us even as I went deeper into the woods.

The pursuit ceased, the arrows all but stopped but for one that hit me in the shoulder.  I slammed into a tree, and turned to see where the gray ones had gone.

They turned the other way, running from, the trees?  I didn't know how to explain it but they stood between us now, and the gray men fled.

Bleeding, I dropped to the ground, momentarily dropping my eyes from the trees, looking at the red soaked dirt.  I would need to rest, heal, eat, but I had nothing with me, I'd only gone looking for flowers...

When I looked up again those THINGS were barely a meter from me, staring down at me with three orange eyes, the same color as those of the flowers.

This was it, wasn't it?  The solution to the curse, not that the gray needed defeated, but that these creatures who could withstand it, could keep it at bay, would keep people protected from it by being a horror that would scare them away.

Weakly, I closed my eyes, it wouldn't be long now, other monsters would get me if these didn't.  I felt a rough branch smack my shoulder, my eyes snapped open and reflexively I struck back.

A tree lit up in orange nearby.

That was it... They kept the color within them.  That kept them from the curse of the gray.

"I don't blame you for wanting me gone," I whispered to the creature that was mere inches from me now, although not moving as I looked at it.  "You just want to keep your trees alive and the gray at bay...but it's too late for me."

With what small energy I had left, I took my blood and spelled it out on the tree, while keepong an eye on the creature.  "Find the color."

I blinked: SMACK

I lifted my hand once more "Light..."

My hand dropped, "SMACK"

My eyes must have closed.  I looked up at the glowing orbs before me.

"Your trees will grow well with me as fertilizer I guess... Keep them protected."

I felt the final blow.

I was somewhere else now.  I heard a voice I remembered from the flower forest.

"I didn't think you'd come so soon.  But they will find you just like you once found me." 

"Sophia..." I whispered, and fell into the light. "I hope my message got through."