“Who dares burn my forest!? Cut down my trees!? Become enemies of nature!? My enemies!” Her voice, full of anger and threat, resonated through the forest.
Close to a ravine, a father frantically searched for his missing children. “Joseph! Marian! Where are you? Gods... please...” His oldest son joined in, shouting their names into the dense foliage. “Joseph! Marian!” Again and again.
The father and son's cries pierced the eerie stillness of the forest. In their desperation, they didn’t notice the forest’s silence. Not a single chirp, squeak, nor chatter; only their coarse shouts echoed back to them.
After a tense search, the father found his daughter, Marian, standing still with outstretched arms as if holding invisible firewood. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, looking for her missing wood. Blood stained her clothes and skin, and it took all of her will to take a step, trembling, then another.
“Marian!” shouted her father.
She stood frozen, unable to take one more step. Tears fell down her delicate face, mixing with fresh blood splattered on her skin and staining her blue dress.
The father rushed to her, embracing her small frame. "Marian! What happened? Where's your brother?"
“We... I... she.... he...,” she stammered. Her words couldn’t keep up with reality. A terrible shock had taken hold of her mind, and in her disturbed state, logic broke down. Bloodied tears streamed down her face as she shook uncontrollably in her father's embrace, a muted cry escaped her lips.
“Bryan,” the father spoke to his eldest son while he picked up his daughter. “Take your sister back home and protect her and your mother.”
“B-but father...,” stuttered Bryan. His dry mouth threatened to choke him, speaking hurt his nerves more than his throat. He did not want his father to stay behind, he wanted them to return home, away from what his instincts warned him lurked behind every tree.
The father continued, "Take her. I must find your brother. If I don't return by dawn, go to Kargraz and speak to the guards—"
Before he could entrust his daughter to Bryan, a sudden gust of wind whipped through the dark corners of the forest, sowing dread in its wake.
A vicious being with a crooked smile and a confident gait, prideful and inhuman, made its appearance.
"Sons of men, daughters of women," said the female creature, her sweet and gentle voice enveloping them as she raised her head. "What have you done to my forest?"
“What the...?!” Bryan's eyes itched at the sight of her, while his father remembered a similar encounter from his youth. "Dryad," he spoke, his voice cracking. "Did... did... you take my son?"
“Oh, no no, poor farmer, I only watch the forest, my forest, and its well-being. I do no more nor less to your kind than you all... deserve. I am a dryad, protector of nature, and if you did nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.” Her words rang with a somber tone, a veiled warning hidden under a soothing voice. However, the father had no time to contemplate her nuanced actions.
“Have you seen Joseph?” asked the father.
“Joseph?” the dryad repeated his intonation.
“Yes... my boy, this tall, brown hair—”
“Ah! I remember.... I saw him earlier, crushing a flower to apply its irreplaceable remains on a cut he had.” The voice coming from her insides turned less sweet with each word, weaving anxiety and doubt into their weary spirits.
“A-and... is he alright?” questioned the father, his voice trembling.
“You can ask him yourself.” Her smirk vanished, replaced by a dreadful semblance that bound them in place.
“Oh my... Gods be praised! Joseph...” The father's face lit up with a cautious smile. Her daughter hid her head against his chest, trying to forget about the dryad’s presence and foreboding figure.
The father continued his restrained celebration, “I told you, Bryan, everything would be alright. The Gods provide for those who love them.”
However, Bryan, the eldest son, had doubt in the back of his mind where a desire grew stronger—to run away fast, very fast.
“Why?” The dryad’s intonation of the spoken word took a complete turn. It carried rough, commanding vibrations.
“Eh? What—?” It caught the father by surprise.
"Burn my plants?"
“It’s the start of—”
“Cut down my trees?” She looked down at a group of flowers, then lifted her gaze with blazing eyes “Crush my flowers?” She pierced their souls with each utterance, forgoing language for guttural articulations. “Mine.”
The father stuttered, "I... but... the forest... farming... our family..."
“I know what you mean, don’t worry, none of you are misunderstood. I understood too well. Like the little boy I saw earlier, he likes to crush flowers, doesn’t he...? Doesn’t he!?” She finished one frequency away from shouting. Her voice, raised to a tearing pitch, left them paralyzed. “I’ll bring your boy, so you can ask him yourself why.”
A rising riot burst behind her. Several vines moved to her whim, manipulating the outgrowth of her ribs as she brought those green appendages forward. But those didn’t come alone. She delivered the family an arm, a partial leg still attached to a single buttock, some organs, a foot, one eye, and half the head of the boy called Joseph. Their hearts plummeted, paused in time, unable to reconcile reality with a hope that had long passed its expiration date. They denied their eyes’ horrid visions. Unbelievers.
The dryad contrived a malignant voice, taking on a sinister, childish lilt as she puppeteered Joseph's detached jaw. "Why, dryad? Why did you crush me?" she taunted, before returning to her own voice. "Because I am nature’s guardian, you little shit! And I'll kill anyone who hurts my forest!" With a flick of her wrist, her vines sent Joseph's remains flying towards the terrified family. Guts landed over farther and daughter. Marian let out a blood-curdling shriek, bringing everyone back into horrible reality.
The family members took off in a mad dash back to their farmhouse, guided by the flames of their burning fields. The dryad smiled, flashing her blood-stained teeth at her escaping prey. She spat out a chunk of brain stuck in one of her molars and disappeared behind the ‘fleeing pieces of shit’.
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Back at the farm, the mother stood at the edge of their property, anxiously awaiting their return. Three figures stumbled out of the bushes—her husband, daughter, and eldest son—their clothes and faces stained with blood. The sight of their broken expressions and gore-covered clothing crushed the mother's spirit.
"What happened?" asked the mother, voice cracking with fear.
No reply came as the father and son struggled to catch their breath, and the daughter clung to her dad, eyes blank and body trembling.
"Where's Joseph?" repeated the mother, desperation growing with each unanswered question.
"Keep running," wheezed the father. "Take Marian and keep running. I'll—"
"You'll what, farmer?" a cold, menacing voice interrupted. "Burn more forest? Cut more trees? Crush more flowers?"
The three family members shuddered, dread closing in on their already frayed nerves. Fear threatened to squash the three escaped family members’ last bit of sanity they had. The mother's gaze landed on the source of such an evil voice, and she gasped, recognizing the dryad from the bedtime stories told to her as a child. They were rare creatures, shrouded in mystery—the stuff of legends.
However, the mother only searched for one answer. "Mark, where's Joseph?" she asked again.
"We're sorry!" pleaded the father. "I swear my family will never do it again! We'll leave, today! Please don’t—"
The dryad didn't show mercy. Her vines slithered towards the father and daughter, slicing through their bodies. Their combined cries of agony enveloped the haunting forest.
The father fell in three pieces. A vine cut through his left shoulder, all the way down, exiting at his right thigh, while another vine entered through his right kneecap, in an upward motion, lopping half his leg off. With his head spared, pain, shock, and terror awaited his final moments. Alongside her father, Marian had her legs and both arms severed. She dropped in pieces followed by a dry thud.
The mother's heart-wrenching shriek thundered through the forest as she watched in horror.
A symphony of screams perturbed the night. The inferno on the fields waned as dense smoke rose, vanishing in the darkness engulfing them.
"Ahhh! Marian! Mark!" The aghast mother’s shrieks could break glass and hearts alike. But not hers, not the dryad’s. Unfazed and sick of the woman’s screeches, she sliced off her head through her mandible.
A spatter of blood sprayed onto the eldest son's face, staining his world red and knocking him back. He frantically wiped his mother’s blood from his eyes and saw the dryad advancing towards him. The young man tried to crawl away, but a searing pain in his right arm halted him. Turning around, Bryan gaped in horror as he saw that his limb was missing. He writhed in agony, clutching at his bleeding wound, and tumbled into a nearby ravine. The dryad stood tall, her fiendish eyes gleaming in the darkness as she gazed down at him.
*
“And I ran and ran!” Bryan sobbed the whole time while recounting what happened to his family.
X peered into the young man’s emotional state and asked the question that had been bugging him since the start, “What’s a dryad?” Certainly, it was another kind of beast, a freak creature. But this one seemed really demented, the elf needed more information.
Lost deep within his own thoughts, the altered human male couldn’t hear anything or anyone but his own consciousness. “I'm a coward! I left my family behind and ran! But what else could I do!?”
“You're right, you're a coward. But alive.”
“You, friend... please, help me, take me to Kargraz.”
The redheaded elf had a full plate of problems to deal with, and those were more than enough for him. He wanted more information about the creature but didn’t want to associate himself further with the young man.
“What’s your name?” inquired X.
“Bryan,” the young man answered in a less agitated state.
“First, you need to rest. I don’t think you can make it far in your current state.” The elf observed Bryan’s arm, he had applied a paste on his wound which stopped the bleeding, but his pale complexion betrayed a life living on borrowed time. “And it sounds like you incurred something’s wrath.”
X wanted him gone, out of sight, out of mind. Every second he spent near this distraught man was a second to many. The elf realized the demented creature could be not far behind, following the human’s trail. Worse, Bryan was too unstable. And X knew unstable, he knew it too well to leave it to chance. Even with the young man’s mind half gone, one-handed and hurt, his weak self would be no match for him.
“Look—” began the elf before Bryan cut him off.
“I don’t understand what we did wrong... We did the exact same thing as last year when nothing happened. We’re modest folk, don’t dwell on wants or haves longer than the next fellow. My family got that piece of land from a distant relative, all legal... I didn’t want to move away from Kargraz... Clarisa, my love... Is she still waiting? I told her to wait. Damn! Maybe she already married Jean. I swear if she did, they’re going to feel my wrath!” Bryan spewed a flurry of words with no other purpose than to numb his mind from reality.
“Your family’s death... and your gal mating with that other better-looking fella... is the least of your problems.”
[Such tact. I’m beginning to remember why I went away.]
The specter appeared sitting among them.
Then go and stay there.
“What did you say?” challenged Bryan, his eyes wide with growing anger.
“Well, obviously, I don’t think she’s going to choose you anymore. Not that I think she is even waiting. Bitc— Piece of mind snatchers don’t wait. I certainly wouldn’t.”
“Clarisa wouldn’t do that! She is pure and isn’t a— Is this a joke to you!?” Bryan’s grasp on reality receded piece by piece.
“It is funny. Your family just got murdered in a brutal way, you’re missing one arm, and here you are, getting all worked up about forgone pussy.”
Bryan's exhaled fury in each breath. "What the hell did you say?" He stood up.
“Oh, but I’m laughing with you, not at you. That mind you have... still has its uses. If you only had your other arm... Are you a lefty or a righty?”
“What?! Why?”
“You see... for beginners, it’s difficult to rub one out with their non-dominant hand. Look at it this way: when you see your... girl again, tell her your sobbing story about how you can’t wank off to your full potential. What girl doesn’t like tear-jerking stories?”
[You just don’t know when to shut up.]
And his perennial shadow, the voice he couldn't quiet down, spoke truth. X used to get carried away until someone’s face ended broken, sometimes his, other times not his. However, back then at least he backed his mouth with his fists.
Bryan exploded, lunging at him.
X couldn’t put any serious resistance. Like a doll fashioned for abuse, his attacker pinned him down, flailing his remaining arm wildly at his face. It didn’t look like a fight at all; it resembled a scene of two deranged bums fighting over the last can of soda after being under a blistering summer sun for days on end. A sight to behold.
“Why... you!? Is my pain a joke to you?!” screamed the young man.
Blood from Bryan's reopened wound dripped onto X, who struggled to protect himself. But alas, he couldn’t do much. In this enchanting time, they didn’t hear the steps nor the plants murmuring in the wind.
Just as the chaos was about to reach its peak, a voice interrupted their fight. "What a ruckus! If you wanted to hide, you did a terrible job of it!”
Both males turned to see the crazed creature before them.
She was here. She had come.