The forest canopy does not allow any light to get to the forest floors. It was hard to tell the difference between night and day when you walk into these forest. There are a lot of unexpected things that could take place in the forest. It could a hungry predator or something else entirely. Nobody really knows what’s happening once you step into the darkness of the forest.
There was a path that leads somewhere deep into the forest. Few people tried to follow the path in hopes of getting out of the forest alive. But even fewer still managed to get back out through the path, and most of them were scared to recall what happened there.
Mang Kulas was an exemption. He would tell anybody who would listen how he managed to get out of the forest alive. But no one dares to believe him. What he tells were too impossible to be true. The locals labeled him as crazy just so they can get back to their daily lives, but his story would continue to persist that some tourists would listen to him as some form of entertainment.
When Mang Kulas was young, he was different. People could still remember the days when he was an innocent young lad. He would stay by the edge of the forest every afternoon and talk to himself for hours. At first, they waved it off as nothing, he was a child and children do talk to themselves for hours on end. But as he got older and went to school, people began to worry about his sanity. Every after class, he would run to the forest and stay there until twilight, when he would start walking home.
Kulas was not an exceptional kid, but he was not dumb either. He would fit in among the intelligent kids but he was not smart. He would help around the house during the weekends and study every night. But his habit of always staying by the forest would trouble some of the adults. In addition, he would refuse to speak on what he does at the edge of the forest.
An old priest used to all him a devil’s pawn because despite his parents’ devotion to the Christian religion, Kulas remain impassive towards the church. He was not disrespectful, but he rejects their practices. He refuses to go to church, despite his mother’s insistence. He refuses to pray, even though his father would sometimes punish him for not doing so.
The most troubling of them all was that Kulas used to claim of having a lot of friends that he spent his afternoons with. Which is partly true. But the friends he refers to are the friends that he would spend his afternoon after class. He would talk about them so much, but people brush it off as something someone with an active imagination would think about.
However, Kulas used to insist that he has friends and those friends are real. Like all kids, Kulas learned that his friends are not as real as he believed them to be. He got older and the talk about his friends in the forest became sparse, until slowly, it became nonexistent. Kulas became involved in sports when he got to high school. His visits to the forest became less, until one day he realized that it has been a year since he visited the forest.
Since his focus was no longer on the forest, Kulas began to notice a lot about the people he used to see go in the forest. They were usually the people who would not enter the forest without asking permission from the trees. They would bring small goods to the forest and they would leave without those goods. Kulas became curious about those offerings. What could those offerings possibly be?
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After his high school graduation, Kulas decided to help in his family farm. Every planting season, he would wrap up some fruit and offer them to his friends at the forest to ask for some help in the farm. Their harvest became even more bountiful, but Kulas was curious about the offerings that some people would bring inside the forest. In his curiosity, he decided to follow the path inside the forest. But since he does not know what to offer, Kulas just hoped his friends would protect him.
As he followed the path, he noticed that it was getting darker so fast. He looked up and noticed that no sunlight ever touched the forest floor. He decided to go back the next day and bring some light with him. However, it rained exceptionally hard the next day. Then the following weeks were busy for him in the farm for it was harvest time. After another bountiful harvest, Mang Kulas brought some of his harvest to his forest friends and brought with him an old flashlight to help him see through darkness that shrouded the forest.
As he walked into the forest, he noticed his friends hovering in the back. They were whispering amongst themselves. But as he gets further into the forest, as the darkness began to envelope him, his friends began whispering right at his ear. He could not understand the language they were speaking. But he felt the compulsion to leave the forest. He began to feel unsafe.
He felt eyes on him. But his friends don’t have eyes. His friends never made him feel unsafe. It was too late for him to notice that he was no longer on the path. The meager light of the flashlight made it difficult to see where the path was again. Kulas stumbled a few times before he realized that he was lost in the dark forest. He continued to struggle to find the path, to leave, and to stay alive.
In his panic, he did not notice that his friends had already abandoned him. He was alone in the darkness, with nothing but his meager light. He has no idea how to get out. He has to find the path again. It is the only way for him to get out. He tried to walk back but he only seemed to go in circles. He began to find marks that could tell him if he is back where he came from, but each time, his marker would disappear.
He tried to trace back his steps but he had the dreaded feeling that he is only going deeper into the forest. Kulas was losing track of the time. As his light began to flicker, Kulas realized that there might be no way out of the forest. His feet hurt as he persisted to walk back to the path. When his light died, Kulas continued walking. He was determined to get out of this cursed, dark forest.
He did not know how but he began to hear the sound of children playing. He decided to follow the sound. If there are children playing, then the end of the forest must be nearby. He stumbled several times before he saw the daylight again. He found himself back home, even without the path. But he didn’t see the source of his salvation. There was no child within the vicinity.
Kulas never went back to the forest. Every time he wants to bring his offerings, he would just stay at the edge, just like before. He would give his offering and he would go home. He still does not know what those people offer into the forest, but he dreaded the thought of trying to find out what they try to visit inside.
The leaves of the forest trees were so thick and dense, it would cover the entire forest floor and no light would reach inside. The small path that into the forest slowly disappeared as the cases of people going missing began to grow. Soon, the path was just a memory in Mang Kulas’ mind. It was a path that led him to a dreadful memory, but it was a path that taught him a lot.