The Void

The autumn air is nice and crisp. The leaves crunch under her feet as she makes her way back home. Although it smells as if it may have rained recently, all of the leaves around seem to be bone dry.  

Crunch, crunch, crunch, squish, crunch.  

She froze. Her left foot did not meet the same fate as her right. A mildew smell fills the air as she looks down.  

Just mud. She exhaled as unexpected relief within her escaped. It did rain at some point after all, it's just the dead leaves just kept the layers underneath wet as they soaked up all the drying benefits of the sun instead.  

As she continued her walk home through the woods she pondered how crazy yet typical that something that does not even need the sun anymore, withheld it from the soil underneath, which could have used the benefits from the sun's rays.   

Dusk creeps in fast as she starts to fear she is not close to home. She did not enjoy the dark, and she wanted to make sure the blanket of black void did not cover her in the same unsettling eeriness that she was never able to shake off easily. As the dark enveloped the woods further, her gentle stroll became a brisk walk.  

The squirrels in the leaves in trees that made her smile before in the afternoon, now make her head shoot in every direction to ensure she knew the source of each rustling.  

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, squish, crunch, crunch, crunch…  

She spun around. This time it was not her that stepped in the mud but something further back. 

She turned back to the direction of home and kept walking.  

SQUISH.  

She froze. The smell of mildew and wet leaves filled her nose. She couldn’t walk any further as buzzing filled her ears, and hot tears fell from her eyes as she looked down. 

She only looked for a second before running. There was no way to tell fully what it was she stepped on before fleeing, but it was dead, small, and full of maggots and flies. The smell of rot made her gag as she lifted her foot for escape. 

Rot, rot, rot…

It was all she could smell. 

Her legs burned as she kept running. Running from the maggots, running from the smell, running from the rot.  

Her head felt hot and as if it was throbbing. She struggled to catch her breath as she continued to run through the tunnel left within her panicked vision.  

Her memory of those woods was always so vague. Most of the time, she would have a wave of emotion that reminded her of various times she spent in the woods, instead of clear memories.  

Although she could never fully recall the last time she was there, or how many times she has visited.   

She did not even know where she was in the woods in relation to her house. Just the direction she always felt her house should be. Her gut was usually her life compass anyway. 

She set the photo frame back down on the nightstand by the bed as she went to lay down for the night.

When she woke up, laying in a small ditch of leaves and sticks where her body fell, dusk had fled and the night had fully settled in its place.  

She reaches for her phone only to realize it's no longer in her pocket. She frantically searched the ground, tossing leaves, sticks, and miscellaneous forest foliage decay for the items she had when she left. Although in the panic, she could not even recall if she brought her bag, her phone, any water. 

She stood up, covered in the rot of foliage, reeking of mildew. Seeing nothing but trees and the shadows beyond them until it all became nothing but void.  

After brushing off what she could with her hands, she began walking forward. Not entirely sure what that direction may bring her, just hope for a road, or someone with a phone.  

The quiet of nightfall made her uneasy. Although most wildlife activity had ceased for the night, the few that were active could only be heard between the beats of her pounding heart.  

The panic sets in. Unless she possessed some form of echo-location, she would not truly know where the source is coming from or what it may be without more visual clues.  

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…

She focused on the sounds of the leaves shattering under her feet. The smell of damp foliage hidden underneath breaks through with every step.  

She was so focused on her feet, she was not quite sure when the screaming started.  

"YOU. NEED. TO. GET. HELP" 

It was the never-ending conversation she would hear from her mom. At this point she just let her speak her piece just to get it over with.  

" I am not joking. You left your partner, you moved into some studio apartment without telling anyone-- You work from home! Your office does not EVEN SEE YOU and they called ME---I AM NOT EVEN YOUR EMERGENCY CONTACT—BECAUSE THEY ARE WORRIED ABOUT YOU AND THEY DON'T EVEN SEE YOU! Do you REALIZE you only STILL HAVE A JOB because you SOMEHOW turn all of your projects in before the deadlines? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?" 

She was listening. She just had nothing to add as her mom interrupted herself to interject more items into the subject of her point: Something is wrong but no one knows what or how to help. Just that something is not okay. 

But she felt okay.  

"OKAY SO WHERE ARE YOU GOING NOW?" 

She was not too sure. Her legs were moving before she could even process. As her hand grabs the doorknob, a voice calls out to her mother. "I just need a walk to cool off. "  

Before she could process who even said the last sentence she was off, watching each leaf as it crumples underneath each step.  

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…

She could not even see the grass under the autumn rainbow of fallen leaves. Although brown was the base layer and color due to the rain, leaves of red, yellow, orange, green littered the ground like– 

Rot, rot, rot, rot, rot, rot… 

The smell permeated her nose, so violently she took a step back. When she finally looked up, she was met with a voice, but its owner was out of view. 

"You cannot keep showing up here like this"  

She knew the voice and scrambled to get up and spin around.  

"I cannot keep doing this for you. What is this even from?" 

"A fight," which is becoming an obvious lie at this point. 

"Well then let's hope you did not kill the other guy, or that this is from multiple people?" 

"It's what pays the bills." Another lie, spoken without any thought. They have always worked from home. This was just a hobby that brought in extra money she did not even need. 

"Find another way."

She has always had another way. This was just too much fun to pass up. She just could not tell her partner that.   

"I will, my love." The response felt alien. The air in the apartment felt suffocating. Her partner's face, absent of all features, not as they were not there, but more as she could not make them out. As if her eyes have not fully loaded the area being explored in a game, or a sneak peak into a locked skin for a mod. 

They came in for a hug but even that felt abstract. The warmth was there and absent. Their smell intoxicated her lungs but what it resembled could only be described as tv static.  

"I will see you soon. Please do not make me do this again." 

She already knew that the next time seeing them would be the last if everything played out right. They just did not know that yet.   

She released the clasp her arms had around their willing hostage. As she pulled away she felt the bark of a tree tug at her sweatshirt. A metallic scent creeped in as her skin began to burn from the friction of the bark through the fabric. 

She rushed past the tree before all her senses processed the input from her surroundings. The smell didn’t pass. It lingered as her face went hot and limbs went numb. Everything was pure autopilot. The brisk steps, the hot tears, and the sweater sleeved arm that went to wipe them.  

She stopped and collapsed into a sitting position on the ground.  

Her eye? Her eye burned! The sensation caused the outflow of magma for tears to spill more intensely as she withheld attempting another wipe of her face. 

The cool breeze brushed past her and made the dampness on her sweater run cold. She does not look, just pulls her knees to her face and screams. No noise comes out but the power behind it destroys her throat.  

She just wants to leave.  

she rolls to her side, then her hands and knees. 

Crunch, crunch, crunch… 

The fight was never in them…

Crunch, crunch, crunch… 

She was never going to get help… 

Crunch, crunch, crunch… 

Everyone thinks she needs help… 

Crunch, crunch, crunch…

She does not want their help…

Crunch, crunch, squish…

She does not deserve it anymore…

Squish, squish, squish…

She finally collapses…

Rot, rot, rot…

she cannot keep going  

Rot, rot, rot…

The smell fills her nose, burns her already hot, wet, eyes…

Rot, rot, rot… 

Maybe she just needs to close them for a minute…

Rot, rot, rot…

She shuts her eyes, settling into the wet ground by her.

CRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCHCRUNCH

Beams of light start to pour in. 

An overwhelming static buzz fills her ears, and she cannot make out what is going on around her.

The lights burn behind her eyelids and she squeezes them tighter, as if her mindset shifted to a child trying to avoid the monsters under their bed.

The buzzing gets unbearably loud and her eyelids burn from the various sources of light. There was no escape. It is now time.

The flashbang of light from opening the curtains to her retinas forced her to slam her eyes shut again, then to frantically blinking in order to adjust to the biblical levels of light.  

"I told you you needed to get help. We are lucky we even found you the other day." 

She looked at the photo next to them. A couple in the woods, but their faces were hard to perceive. 

"They still cannot find…anything you…know …" The words slipped in and out of her ears as she turned to face the source.  

Mom.

Her eyes closed. She is okay. She doesn't need the help.