You wake up lying on your side atop a leaf-covered forest floor. The sun has set and darkness is gradually falling around you, like a soft veil.

You don't remember how you got here. What were you doing before? Who was with you? You lift your head, look around at the endless sea of trees that surrounds you. Panic sets in, as you realize you have no sense of direction and very little time till it's dark. Even if someone is searching for you, how will they see you in the dark?

"Hello?", you call out, in case someone is nearby. Your feeble voice can't be heard far. You try again, louder. You end up screaming, your palms are sweating.

The flight instinct is the only one rising in you at the sight of the darkening forest. It seems you aren't somebody who is experienced with such situations.

Even if you were, would you remember it? Who are you, anyways? Your mind is drawing a total blank. You rise to your feet slowly, your muscles feel a little sore, maybe from lying on the forest floor.

You decide to stay where you are, hoping someone is looking for you.

You look around and see a hollow in a tree. You approach and see it is populated by spiders and other bugs. Despite its current inhabitants, this hollow looks welcoming to you. You use leaves and your bare hands to shake most of the bugs away.

The tree bark is harder than you had thought and the hollow is smaller than it looked. You manage to curl up inside it and start watching the forest around you.

Moonlight is shed on your surroundings. It is a full moon today. It's good thing you found shelter, you would be easy to notice for a predator.

Time goes by, the forest has grown quiet and nothing seems to move. The moonshine calms you down a bit. You try to stay vigilant, preferring to look around you, worried that some predatory animal may see or smell you. You try not to, and the occasional bug visits or nightbird chirps help, but you're feeing exhausted and you fall asleep eventually.

A loud noise wakes you up. You jump in surprise and hit your head against the tree. Out of instinct, you cuss.

You raise a hand to your mouth, realizing where you are

and that you shouldn't make a noise. Unless someone who can help you is here…

You hear a subtle crushing of leaves a little way behind the tree you sit in. You want to sneak a peek to find what is there. You carefully step outside the hollow, so you can raise your head and see what is behind you.

You look around, but see nothing. But you are sure you heard something… You decide to get up and take a better look around you. Your curiosity takes the better of you as you rise up, shaking the webs that stuck to you and watch intensely around you for any signs of movement.

You see nothing. It must have been the night breeze rustling the leaves on the forest floor. You take a good look around, then go back into the hollow.

You hear the rustling again. This time you don't get up, just wait. You stay there, hidden, trying not to breathe or make any noise. But the rustling gets closer.

It's coming from next to you now. You look at the edge of the hollow, and your eyes follow the movement of a tentacle, glistening in the moonlight. It traces a circular movement around the tree trunk, reaching close to your foot. You pull your foot closer. It slows down, but keeps crawling to you.

You stare in horror, as your mind cannot register what it is you're looking at. You wonder whether this is still a dream or a game your eyes are playing. Indeed, something about the tentacle doesn't look right. Everything looks desaturated in the moonlight, but its surface looks unnatural. It's as if the slimy flesh has no specific set light reflection, it looks almost aethereal, as each movement is making it abruptly darker or brighter, it looks like a glitch.

The tentacle is within an inch of your foot. Your instincts kick in and you push the tentacle away with your hand, get up and run away frantically.

The instant your hand makes contact with the slimy being your vision flashes. When it comes back to you, you realize that you don't see that well. It's not a simple vision blur or the buzzing feeling that comes with feeling faint. Are your eyes playing you again? Now the entire forest looks like the creature from before, with its strange contrast of light and dark. It flashes before you uncontrollably.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

You try to keep walking, but what's happening with your vision doesn’t let you perceive exactly what is in front of you on the forest floor. You misstep and fall hard on the ground. The leaves next to your face are also affected by the change in your vision. You hear another rustling of leaves.

Horrified, you want to get up and run. Something is grabbing your foot though, and you trip on your face again.

Your vision is having a party. Your foot feels like it has been stung by a jellyfish. An electric twinge goes through your leg. You pull away frantically, but this thing is too strong. Another tentacle wraps around your calf. Your right leg is downright burning.

You are using your entire body to pull yourself away but can't move even an inch, it's like this thing is ten times stronger than you. The burning is climbing up your thigh. You are crying and yelling for help and for it to stop. As you do, you turn your head around…

Outlined in the moolight you can discern a large cluster of tentacles, some long and thin, others shorter and more muscular, all of them glowing. A lot of the glow is reflected from the moon on the slimy surface of the tentacles, but a good part of it comes from the fluorescent suckers that spawn on it. These are giving off an otherworldly cyan glow to the rest of the creature and the surrounding environment also, which twists to magenta and black tones with every flash in your vision. The glow travels beneath some patches of the creature's skin as well, like shiny veins.

The creature is moving closer. It isn't walking, it has no legs; neither floating. It looks unaffected by gravity, its movement isn't following any physical laws and the creature isn't colliding with anything in the environment; just going through it.

As if by magic, the leaves around the being are floating and swirling around it, like an aura. All these objects flashing constantly in your vision are giving you a headache. And then you see it: the leaves are no mere leaves; you see through them into what they really are now—the moonlight is connected to the leaf veins and travelling through them to the being.

Wait, no... These aren't leaves. They are part of the creature. Yes, they are part of its "body". More like, part of its existence. It is them and they are it. The lack of logic in what you are perceiving is making your head hurt. But you know this to be true. You can see it! You now see clearly, it's obvious this is true. Just like the fact that you, and this forest, are part of the creature. Hmm, not creature. This is a god. It has to be. Feels like it.

So magnificent, so beautiful, so bright… The moon has created a being, that roams the earth on such brilliant nights. You could even say... the being is the moon itself.

The creature has wrapped both your legs and is coming closer and closer. A glowing tentacle with an eye on its top approaches your head. You look at it and it looks back. So pretty... You stare at it in awe.

It stings around your waist now, but it is more like a pleasant warmth. You relax in it and let a slight smile sit on your lips. The tentacle with the eye, its suckers oozing slime, radiating with the fluorescent glow, gets closer to your head. You look at it and you know. You know that it has to happen. It's ok.

It reaches your head and goes through it like it's butter. It gets to your brain. Electricity surges through your entire body and it feels as though you are on fire. You have no more control of yourself. You only feel what comes.

Your consciousness has been invaded and now also replaced by the creature's. Thoughts and images surge through your brain that aren't yours. It's impossible to make sense of what's going through your mind; even if you had the ability to understand all the paradoxical and illogical information, the sheer amount of it makes it impossible even to discern one thought from another. Rather than trains of thought, these are entire interconnected networks, with no end in sight. Images of other worlds with unknown flora and fauna come to your mind, where time plays no role in the existence, colors that aren't perceivable by human eyes, and entire cities of creatures like this one.

After enough of these thoughts, you discern the uniqueness of the creature behind them. Though not making sense, you recognize that they make up a coherent whole. Before you are completely absorbed into the beast before you, you hear a booming voice in your head say the words:

"Choose, mortal, for we have chosen,

and now you may choose as well;

The life of darkness stands before you;

10 seconds will judge what you will have"

Through a thought it is communicated to you that your three options are forest, tree and world. Rather than a conscious choice, you feel compelled to reply: “World”. The voice rises again:

"Only a human could hope

the world to choose and to have;

we hold no rope

to the ones that don't deserve.

The ones who do things right

get it without trying;

the ones who ask for it

will die about it crying."

Your body is returned to you; you are human and can go on with your life; you see the exit of the woods right ahead and the creature is nowhere to be seen. However, you will never be whole again. From now on, you must live with the memory of all that happened.

You cannot explain what happened with logic or anything worldly. After the creature leaves you alone, your thoughts make no sense anymore.

You go insane.

- The End -