In the Woods

In the woods, where the sky remains ever grey, and the moon lights only the barren holes of brush. In these woods, where creatures roam, a monster lies stirring.

It’s gnarly teeth and snarling, sleeping growls ward off naive predators, and often, meek prey.  

This monster is starving, it cannot feed as it is chained by either wrist to cave and cavern walls high enough to suffocate any mortal man from the thinness of the oxygen. These chains are abundant, heavy and thick, meant to keep this monster in, away from anything outside these woods. This monster is chained at the wrists, the ankles, the neck even. And there are marks and scars and permanent discoloration from where the creatures blood hath spilt from the way these shackles gouged into its flesh. But all of these chains and shackles seem useless, the monster is feeble, starving, wasting away inside this gloriously empty cavern, but alas, it cannot die.

All the same, it cannot be let free. The last instance, a mortal mistook this Great Evil Beast for a victim and set it free, hell was unleashed upon the world. Just how these mortals ventured into these woods is be beyond any who tells the tale, what they say is but a figment of their own twisted vision. For, no being lived past this war, this battle, this end of all life, this extermination. None, save for time himself.

He watched for centuries as his monster plagued the world, his sweet, his love, his Death. He loved her with all of his eternal being, but as he watched her roam their world, he noticed much. He witnessed how his Death began to transform. The more she killed, the more she stole, the more she died as well, the more she decayed inside.

Surely this was not the creature he had promised to himself and her to be with, and cherish for all of eternity and time, till Inevitable did them both part? But it was, it was his bride, his beauty, his love, and his heart encased in a Bone Carved Locket engraved with a clock on its face, the words - ‘My Heart be With You Always, Sweet Death’ - embossed along the back. He had hers as well, they had both been so forthright when they had offered them to one another. Yes, he kept her heart as well, though it slowly blackened like coal and ash as she slew her way through the world.

He could not let this monster continue, could not let it destroy her and all inside her that he had once loved - it had taken up the cavity that once housed her heart. So he took her to the woods, whilst she slept. She did appear so peaceful as it rained, appearing to have lost her bloody, battle wary expressions, anger having dissipated. She was radiant, glowing, the most to beautiful have ever walked the world.

He lay her upon the cavern floor, formerly white dress since stained black billowing around her thin, gray form. He shackled her wrists, bound her hands, and with on last, dying kiss, they did part.

“My heart be with you always, my love, my life, my death”

When this monster did awake she screamed, screeching loud enough to burst the skull of any mortal man the instant it ventured past his ears. Such pain her wails did cause, Time’s chest did heave with aches and pains as his love cried.

After millennia had passed, she quieted, to weak as much as utter another sob, and eyes too dry to water, she had cried away all the tears she had left. She does still drink from time to time, the sinful blood of forest creatures after they have done her bidding. But it is never enough, a tiny rat   every century or so is not enough to quench the undeniable hunger she feels, or the undisputable anger she wields against her heart’s keeper.

‘Tis what happened when she broke free. Death’s rampage lasted another millenia, hatred fueling each action as she waged war upon her love. Upon their final meeting on the battlefield, Time stared at her so heartbrokenly, eyes gleaming as they glanced over the locket that rested around her neck.

The bountiful rage that encapsulated her being seemed to dissipate as she watched him clutch her heart, “It is time to go back, My dear.”

She felt weakly into his skeletal arms, comfortable in this lovers embrace. He held her face as he rebound her limbs, face and body unaged as she had been unbothered by Times affect. He kissed her, softly, a lasting action as a message goodbye.

“My heart be with you -”

Her sweet, longing voice matched his, “Always, my love, my undoing, My Time.”

He still visits her from time to time, and she reignites her inner nature, her anger for just a moment before it blows out. And she calms, sitting, imagining, ominously, deep, deep, inside the woods.