I then threw myself forward upon waking. I sat still, frozen for the moment I needed to process what I witnessed. Words couldn’t come out of me from how shaken up I was. Even thinking was a choppy process. Did I really need to see all of that?

I was sitting with my back to a rusted, cadmium-yellow gate. It had a single arm that looked like it could normally go up and down. A few chains lay beside it, hooked on one of the edges. If that gate was meant to keep people out, it didn’t work. It was half my height at the most. It did, however, serve as a valuable marker, as it rested in the middle of a dirt path in a large, otherwise natural forest. No matter how far I went, I could see the loud neon yellow through the muted olive-colored forest.

After steadily getting my footing, I was off to the races. By races, I mean I walked along the path very quickly. There really weren't any notable details or anything particularly awe-striking about the forest. If anything, every tree appeared to be spaced evenly with every other tree.

I passed by a few steel rails almost buried in the ground. They cut through my path, specifically by making a gradual turn through. If some mud-covered relic was the only other notable marker, this forest had to be alive. Metaphorically- not literally, there’s no way an entire forest could be one big predator with its jaws open and me putzing around on its tongue.

Brushing against the trees makes them rustle. They swayed and echoed their movement after I had passed by them. Endless rows of trees stretched beyond my vision, dissolving into one color. And as I couldn’t see any tangibly moving being, nothing else disturbed the forest from what I could hear, either.

But what trees give off did not align with what I thought I smelled. Neither dew, nor pine, nor wood, nor sap was what invaded my attention. It was something stale. It hit me like a foam wall. It was a lingering smell that coated more of me as I proceeded along the path. What was it? Trees don’t smell like this.

Upon complete distraction, the smell became like a mist. It was too thick to avoid. Metallic taste. More iron than sulfur. Can’t avoid it. I began to stumble, nearly hitting tree to tree. My concentration broke, accidentally scraping my hands upon a tree leaking sap. Juices that congealed nearly instantly, putting one finger to the other and like glue, made a ripping feeling between the two. My hand grazed a bush. My attention shifted to my now uncleanable hand. No matter how much I tried to rub the feeling onto my clothing, I only made it worse.

Hold up. Pause. Cutting my disgust short, I looked up and ahead. I gave ample time to analyze what I had missed. The trees began to form more of an organized path. Hills gave elevation to an equal number of trees spread from above and below. They nearly hunched over me, some of which even twisted to face me. Were twisted, not to twist, to my understanding. If they were to twist, then I would at least know something other than myself existed with any degree of awareness.

Crossing what felt like miles, I finally found flowers: something that was meant to be viewed. I began to focus on their stems, and thought of the strung out guts I witnessed.

It would be strange to believe I was looking at myself in that trance. That’s not me. Sure, maybe I have it in me to harm. I’m sure there are plenty of situations where someone would say it’d make sense if they had to hurt someone else. On top of that, I know I’m not the perfect guy, I mean that’d be crazy to say. But the kind of viciousness I saw looked like an intention of its own. The targets I saw, the movements and lack of hesitation they had, the velocity of carnage all pointed to being something else. I don’t know.

I moved on from mindlessly appreciating the trumpet-shaped flower. The moment of concentration dissolved away. It was the smell that caught the majority of my attention. Nothing could possibly prepare me to identify the source of it. For all I knew, it was everywhere. Or, it could be just how I smelled. But I can’t smell like that. Nothing about me could suggest I was the source, nor was the outfit I wore. Examining what I could of myself, I barely even had anything which could produce an out-of-place smell. I had my clothing, and I had me. None of my clothing was particularly damp, chalky, sticky, or stiff.

Maybe the flora. What few flowers there were gave off nothing- the smell lingered more while I stood straight up. Was it the leaves? It couldn’t be them either. As I continued to walk, the smell neither strengthened or weakened.

There was a certain point that I attempted to accept it. If I didn’t think about it, possibly I could ignore it. Minutes of walking went by. I couldn’t ignore it. Nothing I could do avoided the cold, poisonous taste in my mouth. Every step I made wrapped more layers of my exposed skin to musty, spider-web-like air. There has to be a source.

Other notable details- light was more ambient than coming from any particular direction. Leaves were more open, delicate, a brighter shade of green, and looked like they could sprout an occasional fruit. I could pick a leaf off if I wanted to or hang on a branch if I wanted to stop walking. No pinecones on the ground. No acorns on the ground. There’s no fruit, either.

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But that smell. There has to be something that can take my mind off of it. My surroundings are all the same- there’s nothing else to focus on. There are no mushrooms on the ground. There are no actual cobwebs. No ants. No birds. No chipmunks. There’s only a partially set dirt path that twists a little the further out I look. The forest isn’t even dark. There’s plenty that I can see. What I can see are the exact same tree, duplicated hundreds of times, sometimes in neat, organized single-file lines.

Time isn’t even passing. Honestly, I just don’t believe time is passing. I see trees, dirt, and grass. That is it. This is a forest. This is what I’m led to believe is a forest. Every step I make is just the same - well, feels like the same - point in space. No progress, too much progress, all the negatives, and none of the positives.

In some sense, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be progressing towards. Progress…that was a part of what ideas were trying to fill my head during that trance. I guess I don’t have any direction that I was supposed to go toward. But I guess if there was any direction I’m supposed to go in, it’d be to be myself. What harms me and what numbs me, surely they would help indicate what I should be doing. Maybe I don’t know who exactly I am, but I can vaguely guess that if my body is reacting violently to something, I’m probably not that something. That’s not to say what my body has adapted to or what I’ve trained myself to endure would become a part of myself. Maybe if my body was already inviting to it- something I could ingest only a small bit of at a time, that might be considered a part of myself. What interactions I have, what tasks I could handle could all be considered somethings as much as any physical thing.

That smell…I know I can’t be that. Whatever it is, whatever is causing it isn’t me. It’s painful. My skin crawls every moment I’m exposed to it. I feel like it tries to fight my internals, not to assimilate with me but replace me. Every single fiber in my body shrieks in shocking agony as it is being turned into something it isn’t. Something foreign. No matter if what I am being turned into or how I am being controlled is benevolent or malicious, I simply cannot exist if I am not me. After all, if I become something other than me, I am not me.

Some sort of figure danced along my vision in the trees. Although I welcomed a change in my environment, moving figures in my mind didn’t appear docile or willing to co-exist with me. As if I was a moving lamp, and they were shadows, they moved far more urgently than I did. My first instinct was to try and identify them. No luck on that. My now conscious, less instinctual action was to move at a faster pace.

If greeting me wasn’t an option, these figures had different business. Were they on all fours or just twos? What did their heads look like? Did they have tails? Although I caught another glimpse, I just couldn’t tell. Not even the colors. Concerning- but what could I do? Was I supposed to call out? Nothing worked; nothing changed my situation. Breaking out into a sprint would surely give them the chance and reason to pounce. Stopping would be stopping. So I pressed on.

Maybe they were the source of the smell. But it wasn’t any stronger now than before. It didn’t help. In fact, I felt labored to breathe. I called out and attempted to ask. Maybe they were irritated by the smell? No answer.

The trees began to catch on me more often. Or, as I should responsibly say, I clumsily hit branches more often. Cuts, lacerations, brushes, everything appeared as I pressed on. My environment fought with me- the dirt changed elevation constantly, sometimes making little mounds all over the place. I couldn’t move as quickly as I would have wished.

I saw one closer. I still couldn’t make out what it was, but it appeared to have quite a bit of clothing. It didn’t breathe. At the very least, I was breathing noticeably more heavily than them. The only noise it did make was from its heavy robes. One of them bumped into a tree, making a knocking noise.

Out of any change of pace, being chased is not the change that I preferred. Although my jogging was controlled enough to see what environment passed by, I knew I was going to lose something- my belongings, my thoughts, or my life.

I believe the first time I looked back was now. I saw for a brief moment one of those things scuttle by. It was a hunched over set of robes with hands hooked in front of them. Two hands, two feet. Maybe it was a person?

As I was being closed in upon, I worked on my pace, from jog to run. Ambient light became natural light. The trail widened and the trees gave way as if they began to open curtains. Was I to wake from this nightmare? Monotony, confusion, then urgency, will this chapter come to a close? I wanted to leap out. I wanted to claw my way into the open air. And with one big, violent breath, I embraced what blinding sunshine enveloped me afterward.

Many people overestimate how much it’d take to knock them down. Slight hills don’t make people tumble. Taking one wrong step doesn’t lead to a dramatic fall. Even being attacked doesn’t instantly make you lose your footing. On the other hand, when you’re running, sliding down a hill, and can’t remember for the life of you the last time you ran, staying upright is a little harder. I would like to suggest I stayed on my feet for longer than I did, but I believe it was about halfway down the hill. It was the patches of grass that got me. Molehills, snakehills, you know how it goes. My head. I had to focus on my head. When falling, I believe I need to focus on making sure my head doesn’t get hurt.

A branch in the ground told me otherwise. My shirt snagged on it, and although not ripping, I did change directions and lost all control of myself. It took until the ground was literally flat again to move by my own command. Scanning around, turning around, and swiveling all over, I didn’t spot a single pursuer. From what I saw above, not a single soul had followed or loomed over in the shade of the forest.