A quiet breeze blew across my face, carrying with it the fresh scent of decaying leaves, with the strange undertone of metal. I open my eyes, only to immediately cover them to keep the sun’s rays from blinding me.

“The sun? Wait, where the fuck am I?” I open my eyes to find myself leaning against the trunk of a tree. Staring down into my old friend, the hole that stabbed me in the back. Except the entire bottom of the hole was covered in an inordinate amount of blood, the metallic scent wafting through the wind stronger than before.

It made my stomach turn, and if I hadn’t woken up in the middle of the forest it may have made me consider how I was still alive. However, seeing how I was in the middle of the forest at least a good couple miles from my apartment where I fell asleep, it was not the most pressing matter to attend to.

You are finally awake.

“And you are still in my head.” I was still questioning my own sanity, but was reluctant to think too deeply into it and have another full blown panic attack.

Yes, I will be here from now on. So now that you have at least calmed down, I brought you here to show you who or at the very least what I am.

“Wait, you can control my body? Like whenever you want?”

Yes, although I do not wish to force you to do anything you do not wish too. We are bonded now, and I wish for us to work in symbiosis.

“Great, I have a parasitic mushroom in my brain, able to use me as a dancing meat puppet.”

Being sarcastic will not help your acceptance of the matter at hand. Also, as I mentioned I wish for us to cooperate and unless you wish to kill me then we can do so. But, I already know that you have accepted this arrangement as reality. You know that I do not wish to harm you and I know that you do not wish to harm me.

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“You can control my body and read my thoughts, why would I ever trust you?”

Because our connection does not go just one way, you have as much access to my thoughts as I do to yours. You just have to focus on the memories that are not yours, remember where I came from and how I got here.

“What?”

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Then like a flash I was surrounded by cold dark metal, squished on all sides by my oppressive cage.

I was tired and hungry, I looked around for a way to escape but couldn’t see anything in the oppressive darkness.

Panic setting in, I tried to feel out the sides of my prison but there weren’t even any seams to grab hold of.

Without warning the cage slammed into something, it rocked and twisted before it started to heat up.

The cage burned my skin, but there wasn’t enough room to move to avoid the searing hot metal.

Just when things started to cool down a little, my cage came to an abrupt halt.

Slamming into the ground with such speed I was surprised I had survived.

Luckily my prison did not fare so well, a small crack of light broke through the oppressive darkness.

With an effort that drained the little strength in my body I crawled from the crushing tomb.

Looking around revealed that wherever I was, it was not home.

The trees were small and fighting with each other for dominance, they looked weak and incapable of standing on their own.

There was no one to protect them, to nurture them and allow them to grow to their full potential.

The line of thought stopped when the pain started, hunger pains wracked my body so bad I immediately started dragging myself to the nearest tree.

It wasn’t real food but it was better than nothing, so with what amounted to a desperate crawl I climbed the hill to the nearest source of food.

I slithered up the roots until I found a crack in the bark, it leaked what amounted to less than a gulp of sap.

I dug in to try and bleed the tree more, but all I got was a mouthful of wood chippings.

I was ready to give up and allow the cold embrace of death to waft over me, when a balmy breeze warmed my cold limbs.

The strange animal standing over me was not a four course meal, but it was warm and it made my stomach rumble.

So with what little energy I had left, I took a deep breath in.

Waiting for the perfect moment, my nerves made me shake, if I missed I wouldn’t get a second shot.

As the animal got closer and its warm breath was nearly all encompassing, it reached out and touched me.

Without a second thought I coiled my legs, released my long held breath and jumped at my strange looking savior.

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