Archive of Our Own ^beta

If you find these papers, please keep them safe and in order, these might be my last words in this world. Last traces of my existence because it knows that I am here, as much as I did not understand it before, it knows that you are here too.

I did not have any exposure to other people, but I hope that you will be able to read me, that we speak the same language, most importantly that you are well, because this message is as much my story as it is a warning for you and those who will come after you.

I came here against the will of our wise elders. A storm had taken place in our sky, clouding the air and our minds. In the midst of chaos, we had found shelter beneath the village, in between roots and brown clay, the galleries that had always been used by my grandmother and her grandmother before her.

This village was all I knew, it was my home, my family and my life.

And yet when I realized that she wasn’t with us, that amongst all those faces, hers was missing I felt the ground swallow me until nothing was left.

Of course I pleaded, I cried, I begged for us to go look for her, to at least try to find her, even if the gods were fighting above our heads. But their solemn eyes told me that her life was not worth the risk. Her, of all people, their favorite, their blood and flesh, the child they did not birth but they raised into the woman that she is. They wanted me to give up on her, to abandon her to the wilderness, and to pray with them for her safety or her painless death.

As if the gods who were ever so kind to send us that menacing cloud would be compassionate enough to spare her the death of those who face the imminent end of the separation from the group.

Deep down I knew that by going after her, even in those conditions, if I did not come back with her in my arms, I wouldn’t come back at all.

But she would have done the same for me, for anyone really, for every and each of us. The amount of time she helped one of us out her good nature, ended a dispute with words of appeasement. She is the jewel of our village, and somehow, she was out there, alone and afraid.

Before I took off, rushing past my people’ loving and safe embrace to her, I saw her face, her gentle smile, I felt her touch on my scalp, after all she was the only one allowed to braid my hair, only her delicate fingers could undo the knots of my curls without hurting me. I heard her voice, and her laugh, brighter than the day where the sun would greet our fields.

I knew it all too well, and as soon as it was there it wasn’t. Happy memories turned into pure horror as I imagined her out there, hurt, shivering as the rain fell, drenching her bone through the flesh, chased by a beast or stuck somewhere where she couldn’t get out.

So, I ran against all that I knew, through the storm, through the waters pouring from the sky, through the echoing light whipping the ground, I watched powerless as trees became shadows, visions of my nightmares.

There was a reason as to why our people had always kept to ourselves, we had plenty of opportunities to expand our horizons and we knew of others, who lived beyond our swamps, further than our lands. The curse however was our burden to bear…

We were not alone, since the beginning of time, those born here know of those who became one with the swamp, those who live by blood and flesh. They are nothing like us, and the elders told us that they are what remain after our wrongdoing catches up to us. They might have been like us at some point, lived a life to be proud of, but once the transformation finds them, then there is no turning back.

They are the swamp, and the swamp is them, they mix, blend, until their inside becomes mud and sludge.

So, my life was not ideal either but if I had known what I know now, I would have stayed.

That night ended up never ending.

I ran, I knew her chosen path, our village was built in the middle of the canopy, trees everywhere, but all trails start from the village, three direct lines, a triangle which extends toward the wood, our fields, and the last one only taken by the elders, the swamp.

I knew that on that straight line I would find her, and if she wasn’t then I could only pray to the gods and our ancestors that she would be into the woods. It was in no way ideal, but it was better than being where danger was sleeping.

I came back the next morning, alive but alone. Bitter…

I had failed.

I left her there, wherever she was. I called for her, not that it would have changed anything, with the sky pouring a torrent on top of my head. My beating heart in my ears was all I could hear, that, the rain and my own two feet clapping in puddles and dirt.

Shortly after, the reality of my own safety being on the line with me being out there, in a place where no one can hear a thing and see in this curtain shower. It dawned on me as I was in the middle of the woods, surrounded by trees that if I could not see her, I could also not see what I had been taught my whole life to fear, what lurks in those wetlands.

It is a surging emotion, to feel fear, to be conscious of the fact that it’s taking a hold on you.

I got home in one piece, but I also came back angry, a disappointment, again. Something stronger and louder than all the time I had ever been upset at the elders’ inactivity in the face of injustice. That’s why I love her so much because where they would choose their own comfort and tradition, she would choose to fix issues, handle disagreement with an open heart, soothe anger where it takes root.

And while I, at least, had gone after her, a spur of the moment action, but an act nonetheless, they had sat there. On their own accord, she had become dead weight.

Time became a blur of outbursts and screams for me. It was beyond the lingering constant horror that was our neighboring threat, no this time it was against each and every of them for not standing for her, and for this curse which was no blessing, instead we had normalized the violence of it all to make it through another day. How many people had died, how many had gone in the woods and never came back in the midst of the night or during the day, children, sons, daughters, loved ones, friends, family members, lovers…

And this was just another number to add to the list of those we lost and moved on from.

Each day I hoped that she would come back, safe and sound. She would find her way home. Home to me, the only who had not given up, the one they had to restrain to stop from going back out there after the sixth day, the one who still hoped.

I even dreamed of it, of her return.

My resentment turned into boiling fury, my outbursts more and more frequent. In consequence, I became more distant because a part of me understood that there’s safety in denial. However, I was not the black sheep of this village for nothing, it was because this had happened already and then just like now, people just moved on like people disappearing and or getting snatched was normal in the cycle of life.

Me ? I doubted, I questioned, I asked.

Time and time again, years after years, I have borne witness as my people, my little world lost in the woods, my home of wooden houses and a banquet once a month, lost foundations, piece after pieces, people after people. A good year was measured by a low number of deaths or disappearances. Because the fog of the wood was a maze, and the swamps unforgiving.

I was born here, so this was all I knew, but at some point, even I, started to question the longevity of such a lifestyle, where a minimum of one person disappears per year, and dies. Hamlet used to count much more people. Now this was simply heresy to believe that this was sustainable, night isn’t the only danger, it is when the beasts from the deepest part of the swamp go and hunt. These instances happen as long as the sun is hidden, so we were never safe to begin with, although we lived thinking we were.

We all could have left a long time ago or called for help, but somehow contacting outsiders was not right. Leaving meant never seeing our family members again, it also meant to be thrown into a world that we knew so little about. It meant losing our roots and everyone we had never known, who did not follow us out. Of course, some left, some died trying, some died staying, and some are still here.

This had always been made out to be some sort of curse that we were meant to bear just because we were born here. Something in our blood, or ancestry… I don’t know…. Which is why I was so confused as to why those elders which carried the wisdom of their lifetime, and the knowledge of the past, were rendered useless in the face of such a looming threat. Instead, they walked proudly with their head buried in the sand, welcoming anyone who did not feel like being here to leave.

This was no tyranny, no dictatorship, but this was still not equality and certainly not safety.

I would keep sane by thinking of her, by keeping her memories close to me. By going to our favorite place, before the woods is a huge stone which marks the end of the trails leading to the village and the start of the fields. We often ate on top of that rock after coming back from gathering berries. But our secret place was behind it. She told me of special trees, with their inside hollow, and that if your intentions were right or your offering were copious, the tree could take you somewhere else. Her story telling had always been the foundation of our adventures as kids, and as we grew into adults, it became our meeting spot. The hollow tree behind the rock.  

Wherever I went, I held her journal close, that old, ragged book which she used for journaling purposes, diaries purposes, and school material since she started her training with them. It was like a lucky charm because as long as I had it, I would give it back to her, so she had to be well.

And here I was judging them for their denial, but I was no better…

In parallel, it took days to make my way into that tight little circle that was the elders, to get something done for her. It took me putting my pride aside, to ask for forgiveness, to lie and tell them that I was so overwhelmed by everything that I lashed out on everyone and of course, I regret it. Constant pestering, to put on my best show to make those old people’ cold hearts beat enough to receive sympathy.

Sympathy was step one, what I needed was that specific ‘just for you’, this very moment when you break in deep enough for them to consider you like a poor soul who needs a proper goodbye with what was lost. To become that one exception they’ll make to show to the masses that they are good and altruistic, even with the local troublemaker.

Eventually it did happen, in the creation of a search party, in their words “to give me some peace of mind and retrieve what is left, if anything is”. Which was the cherry on top, because why were they assuming that she was dead, that a child of the woods like me, like anyone, did not know the woods enough to find shelter, to avoid the threats. This labyrinth was our map, each tree a precise location point that any of us knew by heart.

But I sucked it up, chugged down the defense that I would have been rightful to express. No, I had played the long game and couldn’t destroy my hard work like this, not this close from actually getting some help.

There was strength in numbers, and we would be searching under the rays of daylight.

That morning, I did not eat, my head was elsewhere, if today was to be a failure like the first time I went out there to find her, I don’t know what I would do with myself.

Best case scenario, she survived, we find her, she’s dehydrated, hungry, tired, probably sick but alive. Worst case scenario, we find her dead, destroyed, butchered from the outside, with her insides out. The memory of my dead mother we had found right in front of our door was clear in my sleepless nights, the splashes of blood everywhere and somehow, I had slept through it not realizing what was happening under my window. Bits of her had been left on the porch to greet me in the morning, and her, gone. Her bloodied necklace now cleaned of blood and around my neck. Another lucky charm. 

Anyway… 

Most likely scenario would have been to find nothing at all.

The search party took people of all ages, both strong and weak, a testimony that even after everything she indeed was loved by all. It gave me hope that perhaps the gods would give her back to me, to us all. We walked in groups, following the tracks and then going deeper, venturing where light struggled to make appearance.

One good thing there is to have been raised in subordination of nature is that nothing is truly foreign. Recognizing the clear evidence of an animal territory, or hallucinogen mushroom, or poisonous berries, this was my childhood, normal life skills, things we all know how to do.

Trees' leaves falling, announcing that winter is coming. The wide range of herbs and bushes slowly withering. It’s easier to walk when they’re not as high as thighs, but it’s also depressing to watch nature go through the cycle of life and death, no exceptions it seems. Everything must come to an end.

Time always goes slow for mundane tasks, walking was no complicated mission, but it’s her I was looking for and as such, how could I not put my focus and the entirety of my energy towards her rescue.

I wish these notes took a happier turn here, but life was never kind to any of her children.

The afternoon came and what used to be a search through the woods turned into a search nearing the swamp, which did nothing to ease the growing anxiety in myself and the rest of the groups. Not that anyone was happy about it, but the debate had been finalized by one of the elders who led a small group towards the wetlands. She was fragilized by time and yet, to keep up with her I was galloping, pushing in the strength left in my legs. While we left the others within the moist soil covered in leaves and branches of the woods, the mud became darker and darker, each step more tiring than the last.

The swamps, the place ricked of evil, like the entire place simply swallowed light. A form of white foam was on the surface of some brown puddles, which was probably home to so many mosquito larvae. The deteriorated state of the place which looked like it was a small port long ago. I guessed that at some point it was connected to the Hamlet River, which now is further east because of a particularly bad flood that happened eight years ago which had moved the riverbed. The place was abandoned, and dark even in the middle of the afternoon, almost like there was nothing beyond a few meters. As far as my eyes could tell, those huge lengthy trees looked like they created a visual barrier with everything.

Regardless, the extreme desolation of the location was definitely not my priority, not when everyone was crouching to avoid catching anything’s attention. We walked in silence, Elder Avanlie in front of us, and only stopped when she did, navigating the swamp was no easy task even with no river water, alligators still roam here, and monsters could be watching us from the safety of the fog.

It smelled but the closer we got from one of the few structures still standing the more attacked our nostrils were and so did the discovery of something so disgusting some of us threw up. The stench of the crime was beyond rotten, the alarming number of maggots and flies, the metallic odor of putrid flesh, all should have been a warning of what we were about to step into. Inside that barely standing wooden shack, inside the cellar laid exposed carcasses of human remains. 

Multiple dead bodies lying on the ground, body parts scattered all around as well as were their innards. Something had happened there, and it was no accident, no encounter with a wild animal, this looked like a fit of rage. There was something nightmarish to look at those corpses, even more so when after some of us threw up their lunch, we discovered the state of those bodies.

That's the word ‘inhuman’ that's what it was, like the image had been burned in my retina, I simply cannot forget the gut turning feeling of utter incomprehension, disgust and lastly fear. In front of my very two eyes were the rest of a violent attack, something filled with rage and animosity had unleashed here.

If I could describe this scene like I saw it, was three things happening at the same time:

One, the swamp which we had been taught our entire lives was home to the monsters looked abandoned except for that shack and from the look of it, basically anything that still had a roof on. There were no traces of the monsters, not a nest or feces to match.

Two, the wrecked boat meters away was probably like the cabin I was in, a place for those activities to take place in, and I would not be surprised to find dead people there too. Chains were still hanging from the wall and the smell and the look alone, I could imagine the horror which happened here. And I knew it was from human hands because animals rarely, actually never take out their preys’ guts out to hand to dry and or consume later, which was what I was looking at and avoiding by lowering my head while walking.

Three, whatever started their rampage here, came from within. It would have not been difficult for an animal to break down those walls and get to them, and while I started to question the exact nature of those activities, it’s not very human-like to just kill so much and feed on innards. 

Organs were tarred into, chunks missing, and everywhere, whatever did this ate about, if not more than four people’ insides. Most were missing and the opened stomachs and broken rib cages showed how easy it was for that thing to use such a strength.

Between those walls ravaged by time and water, in a way it’s like I’m still there. I can still taste how small and vulnerable I felt, which was ironic because as minutes went by, questions rose one after another. Elders after every banquet would go to the swamp and in effort of wishing them luck we would always gather and celebrate their journey to the dangerous and deadly swamps, home to the monsters.

But this was no beasts nest, this was a sanctuary for murder and worst things I could not imagine, and our elders, those we looked up to show us the way, definitively knew. This misaligned everything that I knew of, and as doubt is the deepest seed you can plant in someone, it bloomed in my mind that aside from me and the Elder Avanlie, the four others were men, in good shape who should have been trembling in the face of that massacre but who did not question this.

I was either putting two and two together and they hadn’t…

Or they knew…

And if they did, I was not safe. And if they knew nothing of it, this blind trust in the Elders was still dangerous. Anything could have happened to me here, and their version of the story would be what everyone will believe. If I had voiced my concerns as they came, I could have been dead already. They could also not dirty themselves and simply chain me up here and leave. Or I was going psycho.

I remember a small laugh of desperation escaping me, I had feared those monsters my whole life, and now it turned out that there were monsters among us as well.

But she was still out there, and all I wanted to do was to run away from this, from them but I was frozen. My fight or flight instincts were going at each other. I had come all this way, the night would come eventually, and I couldn’t give up, even with my life in possible danger, more than expected at least.

One thing kept me going in this mess, her absence in the deads, all those bodies and she was not amongst the victims. But something else was on my mind, runes were everywhere, drawn into the wet soil, scratched into the rotten walls, and most importantly on those shredded cadavers.

It could have been nothing, if it was common, but it wasn’t. She had been here, she had to, because only her was their apprentice, at the age of ten, after everything. Thanks to her inclination to kindness even after being traumatized, she had been chosen by them to follow our traditions and learn things that we did not know. They were fond of her and so was she, it had just been normal for her to learn from them. It became clear that the next generation of Elders would start by her, and like most I had been excited. They taught her this, and only her and them knew of these things.

She had drawn runes for me before, to protect me from nightmares, or when I was ill… And I had never seen these triangular runes. To the untrained eye, they were just triangles, and the same at that, but she had told me when she started her training with the elders that to determine the author and the purpose of all those look alike runes, you had to find the starting point. The first engraving is where everything begins, the direction indicates purpose, and most experienced runes users could tell a person’s rune writing style from another.

Again, there were more than a dozen just in the area, and she was nowhere to be found, corpses were left behind, and the woods had given nothing, it was like she had vanished.

Yet, like I had presumed all along, like I knew it would happen, Elder Avanlie was stoic, but below her hoods, her exposed eyes held fear. I was not sure if I wanted to know exactly what could terrify an Elder.

Or I knew all along.

Maybe that’s when I knew, when I realized, that it was her. Because those old fuckers held no respect for life but their own, and their stupid traditions, however she was their student, they were teaching her their ways, their rituals and their fucking runes. I thought they feared the beasts, but they also knew how to avoid confrontation with them, that is how we had survived for so long with our so called monstrous, nocturnal neighbors.

If I had read that dread in her aged eyes right, she had turned and these runes were hers, and that massacre was her doing too, and she was roaming free somewhere, she could still be lurking in the shadows of those woods, observing us, deliberating with what’s left of her consciousness if we were food or friends.

Or I was wrong…

Or I was not…

Could I not be …

I didn’t know…

…

..

.

Maybe this was what broke me.

To you who find my paper, I ask if you have ever felt the dissociating experience of everything falling apart. To feel gravity let go of you, the chillness of the soon to be night not affecting you anymore. Sounds echoing in the background until they become untamed silence.

I did, I felt utterly and truly alone, the presence of a lifetime of grief wasn’t even noticeable anymore in that rush of emotions I could not name. They say you can only feel something if you can name it, because by doing so you can differentiate it from everything else. Well, I was drowning under more than I could swim through. Those newly, flooding sentiments just swirled within, an explosive cocktail of dirt water and a sour taste of loss. The world had died with her in that instance, there was no cure, no medicine, no remedy, nothing that could have fixed my tainted heart, this was no illness, no virus, no infection, this was will, or rather the lack of it.

So, to sum up how disoriented the reality had become in the matter of seconds, I had been taught since I was born that there were monsters out there, they were the literal and direct transformation of a person to some man-eating beast, consequences of our wrongdoing. And if I had read that situation right this is what she had become.

Plus, there were a lot of those outside and they were responsible for the death and disappearance of so many, and so far, we were in their den, the swamp, an evil place and there were no traces of those monsters. No pile of shit, no feathers or fur or scales or anything, to prove this to be the monsters’ den. But there were traces of human killing people, and if those hunting utensils and chained dead bodies with missing flesh like pig meat suspended in our dried meat stock, weren’t clues of cannibalism taking places here then I was going mad.

I cannot tell how long I stayed on my knees after I ran out for some fresh air, staring nowhere in the distance and through a haze like I couldn’t perceive anything with my unfocused eyes, just letting my body take over my brain because I had reached my limits.

Perhaps they stayed or maybe they left with their answers but me, I was still there.

No one had loved her the way I did, no one could understand everything she had gone through, and yet somehow, she was still kind, and full of joy. I had watched it all, my Lisa, the one who made this shitty life worth something, a beacon of light in those fucking swamp.

No one loved me the way she did, all I had left was her. My other half, no family was waiting for me out there, she was my family, the sole drop of happiness in a river of misery. I looked up to her, I looked out for her, and I looked at the future she was building for us. Her vision was my fuel.

This village was no home, not for us, not now at least, this is why our sweet words were whispered, our touch discret, our kisses, hidden. The love of my life, the one who would have changed everything, I love her like no one has ever loved, because she sees me, and I see her. More than people, more than our pain, more than our joy, us. 

The village couldn’t and would have never understood a love that goes against purpose, we wouldn’t continue our line, no everything just like it started would have ended with us. Two lovers or two friends, only one was acceptable, and so we had been best of friends, the greatest, but we loved each other in a way that asks for contact, asks for vulnerability, creates tension, in a way that that dirty place could not sully. 

And now I was alone? And I couldn’t rectify this in any way.

Maybe if I had gone with her that day, it could have been different.

Or at least in her last moment alive I would have been there. We would have gone together, me and her, hand in hand. The ancestors would have carried us to a new home, somewhere better.

I cried silently, uncontrollably, breathlessly, weightless.

So, I did it, consciously or not, absently or not, I was starring in the distance, taking in the scenery before me, those wreck of boats, the shack with a cellar full of chained fleshless dead bodies and an alarming pile of skeletons, the obvious rest of flood, muddy water, the swamp, that huge dock with a lamp still on which was weird and the sludge everywhere. The scent of mother nature feasting on carcasses, the insects seemed to be busy gorging themselves at least.

Maybe it was exhaustion that led me to the hollow tree in the horizon, just like in our childhood. I might have wanted safety somewhere along that thin line of overload and exhaustion. Were the others still there? I honestly could not tell you, but I walked in a straight line, in silence. Without a care in the world, I dragged this heavy body of mine toward that naturally born hole in the core of the tree, it seemed right at the time.

Proud and tall, that tree had seen generations and yet it had made a soft spot for humanity, enough to make room for us, for me.

The inside of the tree was not welcoming, the type of thing where you have to squeeze yourself in, and once inside you are even more uncomfortable, leaves littered ground. There the moon could not cast her loving light, darkness as blanket, it felt right to let myself go here, whether to cry or to make this my coffin.

No one would mourn me but her and now that she was gone, life had no meaning, I would have accepted death with open arms. However, death did not come to my disappointment, or to my approval. I did not deserve such a relieving end, I wanted to hurt, to be in pain, to feel at least an ounce of how she felt. Absently with a stone find underneath me, I wrote her name, then mine, my mother’s name, then my father, my completely gone family.

And for whatever reason, I also carved patterns, her favorite flower, the berries we used to sneak off to eat, the rock where our adventures took place, truly anything that could make me feel even worse, to deserve what I was unconsciously about to do.

I think somewhere I hoped that I would turn too, so we could be monsters together, just us.

I would have followed wherever she went, and here she was out of reach where I could not follow.

Absently or out of will, I carved her symbol, her rune, just there, between her name and mine.

It was faster than a second, I didn’t even have the time to blink, my eyes were still open when the shifting happened. I felt the up and the down, in my stomach. For a split second I knew something had happened, I went down and then up, I could not explain this properly, but it did, I was lowered within the tree, like I melted through the wood. Then, I was put back together, pushed upward in the same position.

I was still in the swamp, nothing had changed and yet I knew deep down that something did, and I knew to run. Why, you would ask… I don’t know but I ran, I hid in some high reeds I found there. Something was telling me that my moment with the tree had altered something, after all, the tree had vanished from underneath me, and the story said it’s the content that moves, not the tree itself but what is inside.

I had accepted death, and I did not want to go back on my word, because I meant them, but something compelled me to actually process things and to process them fast. Especially when I saw someone I had never seen run past me, I watched as the man ran toward the boat, dressed in brown attires covered in blood, his clothes had definitely seen better days, worn out and bloodied was not a good sign either.

My first encounter with a survivor. At that time, like I wrote earlier, I did not have a lot of exposure to others, and by that I also mean that it was my first time seeing a person that was not black, like myself. Hamlet is a small village, but we still know of continents, space and stars. A place which has electricity and running water, just not the ‘Ternet’, whatever that is. Solitude was the price we had to pay to keep the monsters in, but now I realize how stupid this sounds.

Stuck to the ground, studying this person in the most discreet way possible out of fear of being rude, until I remembered what had just happened to me, and the fact that a literal stranger had arrived in Hamlet. I was about to walk to him, to warn him about the danger of the place he was in, and I also thought that maybe this was a sign of the gods to leave with him.

After all, I give up all hopes and in the same moment a stranger arrives in Hamlet, this was more than a sign but an open door. I could start anew where he came from. I saw a sign maybe where I shouldn’t have but also what could anyone expect of me after everything ? To go back, to them ? Out of question !

Anyway, I was about to introduce myself, but I did not take a second step out of my hiding spot, that another person grabbed him from behind. He was working on a machine and this very thin person snatched him, carrying on their shoulder, before kicking the engine. From behind, the figure looked feminine in shape, but so thin to the point of sickness, and yet she possessed the strength to carry an adult man on her shoulder. Even as the man tried to wiggle his way out, she did not let go and was able to keep in there with one hand.

 It had not been two minutes that I was already thrown into another life-threatening situation, because she turned toward me, unwilling to let go of the man, her walk discombobulated as it seem that the orientation of her legs was not right, knees turned toward each other instead of facing straight, which obviously impacted the way she walked.

I could have come and helped, and I would have until I heard the snarls coming from her, some sort of wet groan coming from her throat, as she got closer the noise intensified. It did not feel right in any way, so I just laid as close to the ground as I could manage as she walked past me, her bare toes splotching in the mud.

The scream that I heard right after was bone chilling, a few meters behind me from the corner of my eyes, I saw the man being impaled on a dangling hook, his shoulder pierced as his lungs gave out. His feet not touching the ground, face hanging low, holding the end of the hook with his hands, so the thing wouldn’t slice through deeper.

She took a few steps back from him, drew something into the mud, and melted away in front of him.

I was so confused, frozen, shocked, lost, you name it. For the first time in my life, I did not know a thing. I did the only thing I could do and stood up, after ensuring that she was nowhere to be seen and went after the guy. Luckily someone had come before me and unhooked the man, before they both ran off. He looked in pain and definitively needed some help, especially with an open wound of this size, and he had not complained, not even cried for help, wounded and hurt, he just ran off. The black woman who had helped him as well.

The ugly, defective sound of the engine trying to function was loud and covered my futile attempt at opening the enormous door just a few meters to the side. Out in the open like this, I realized one thing, the walls in which the giant door had been encrusted were going all around the entire area. As far as my eyes could see in this disgusting weather, those walls delimited the zone, too high to be crossed over, perhaps too deep to be dug under, and the highest, ridiculous door I had ever seen.

But I wasn’t laughing, I was frightened beyond repair to be next, and like a desperate animal I followed those walls, hoping that somewhere there would be a hole something big enough so that I could pass through and escape. I clawed at those bricks, trying to distract myself from everything and the tears running down my face and the pained noises I was trying to keep in.

I cried and shook in silence, gently lulling myself. I thought that this must have been the way death came to people, this was just death playing with its food right. I had died in that tree, got there and like those people I was just delaying the inevitable.

Before I knew it my little tantrum had taken me halfway across the map, the delimited zone was bigger than expected, and from my spot of madness, up that little corner I was able to see it all. A landscape that I knew and yet, as I stood higher than I was earlier, I watched in between tall grasses and decaying wood as the woman I thought had a simple defect at birth was not human at all.

In shape she was, but that elongated hand, with two fused fingers, I squinted my eyes to hopefully see better, what I assume to be the middle finger and the ring finger, almost as long as her forearm, the same natural instrument she used to stab a man on his track. She had snarled, like a beast, and it gave me the chance or malediction to see her face more properly.

Colors drained from my face, the small, skinny figure, all teeth and white paints across her face reminded me of my dearest Lisa. Not that I would usually compare my love to this grotesque creature, but the way this very humanoid monster’s hair were styled. I had on occasion laughed or rather teased her on her unorthodox choices, the clothes I could understand, but the antique look of her hairstyle aged her. Nothing wrong with it but what is love if not those moments when you joke around and suddenly you don’t and get lost in each other.

Something outside of my control, like an instinct, wanted to call to her, run to her, my gate of light was right there, just meters below, she could be at arm reach, in my embrace in an instance. I could not tell why I just knew it was her, that thing was her, but I did.I had never seen her this unwell, this monstrous, this malnourished, the complete opposite of the gentle natured woman I knew. The complex details of her features were not clear to me, but I was able to make out how disfigured she was, how predatory the metamorphosis had been, and how drastically different she was from what I knew.

That trial went on and on, minutes after minutes, she took them down one after the other. To the knowledge I was building there were some sort of rules, because she could have killed them all in a fury, but they seemed experienced in avoiding her and her attacks. While one who kept her busy, as she gained speed, others would be on engines, fixing the mechanism within, removing pieces and adding new ones and once the machinery would light up, they would run to another.

One thing that I saw that crossed any doubt I could of have about the identity of the monster is how mid-chase she stopped on her track to place a rune, the same exact type of rune, we had found on those men, and almost carved everywhere in that shack. From where I was, to that angle, the thing had been impossible to miss, it was precise and confident like it was a habit. Triangular in shape, with no beginning and no end, the perfect marking.

On my first trial she killed three people and one of them escaped in a hatch that had appeared out of nowhere. Literally out of nowhere, even the aura of that thing ricocheted off evil. Something like a spider had come down from the sky, darkening the clouds upon entry, to collect the deads. 

My heart caught on my throat as the ground beneath me, the wall around us, the huge door, all started to disappear, but nothing could compare to her because as those insane meeting happened, like her personal stalker, my lingered eyes lost to the new landscapes; foreign worlds, buildings, open field, residential streets, car mechanic…  Mind striked by the new faces I never knew she possessed, she had always been carefree in my memories, close to her heart, generous with her smile. Nonetheless I knew better than to think like most people that she was only joy.

She was all these other things she wouldn’t talk about, she was the child born by taking the life of her mother, she was the little girl who had to watch her father choose to start anew beyond our borders, she was the woman who carried the expectations of an entire village. To me she had shown the pain but to others she held a front, and I never claimed to do more than to hold whatever she was willing to give me.

Moreover, her sorrows were something she hid but here, she looked free, like actually carefree. Not to justify in any way the blood on her hand, and bloodied they were.

The second time I had been sent into another duel with death, just like I had arrived I simply used one of her runes, and exactly like before, in a second I wasn’t in the swamp, I was somewhere full of shades of orange and purple. Everything seemed alive, plants moving to greet me, and the weird appendages coming from the strange creatures had me backing off quickly. A world like I had never seen, submerged by a sky full of pale nuances and a looming planet visible to human eyes.

I had found shelter in a red locker, it just stood out to me as very odd and not where it belonged, in nature with a looming planet on top of my head to find an empty locker. From the slightly open door and the newly found, uncomfortable, closeted, safety of that locker, sceneries unfolded. My Lisa, which I was now questioning if she was still herself, and as such if she was still mine to call and to love.

She chased after people, normal human beings just like myself, and they were scared, just like myself in my red box, bloodied and dirty, also like myself, just without the blood. I heard them scream in the distance, I heard her scream in the distance, pained. It was confusing to make out things with no direct visual, but what I heard then I now know now that it was a pallet being dropped on her head, I still don’t understand the logic behind this being able to stun her enough that she would lose her cool and destroy it.

Logic did not seem to apply in the same way I had always known it here, the more I thought of it, these people were outnumbering her, and they could have tried to fight her off, but instead they were fixing those machines. For fuck sakes, we were on another world with a planet in the sky and yet no one was alarmed by the sight of it, tools in hand, kneeling in front of the very loud machine.

In opposition, she didn’t look particularly pleased but there was intensity and determination in her moves, the way she tracked them was voluntary and the prowess of her will power.

I was lost in her, she looked nothing like what I saw the first time, she looked like a mushroom and a flower and a root system had mixed together, her jaw swollen, her eyes bloated and fused in one yellow pustule. Just like her torso, a part of her back, and one side of her derriere, the glowing yellow pustules match the spore at the end of the anthers. Her head had been parasites and busting out of her skull elongated her forehead, sat a beautiful flower. At least that what she reminded me of, she disappeared in the environment, beautiful as the most deadly plant.

Another time I followed her in a forest, again a new appearance made just to hypnotize me, her broken figure had taken the appearance of a tree, her eyes covered with heaps of branches. Maybe it was a sight I could not forget, how her skin looked like the bark of the trees from our youth. A rag of clothes dangling in front and behind to cover her intimity and a bizarre dream catcher at her side, like a charm.

Native Americans use dream catchers, and while I could have rested my case of the culture surrounding the indicated purpose behind the design, it mirrored my own interest for another part of their mythology, ‘wendigowak’. Born from the human consumption of another human, a punishment, making the person forever hungry no matter how much they eat, and of course, a deep insatiable craving for human flesh.

Much like my Lisa, but their appearance was described to me to be more of a wolfish, elkish, thin and tall creature, capable of imitating human voices and using those abilities to attack people by calling out for help. She doesn’t call for help however, no she hunts, and her control and knowledge of her preys’ behaviors is what guarantees her success. Plus, it seems that her appearance changes to match her environment, to further add to her killer attributes, she isn’t particularly fast, but the more I watch her, the more I realize how she managed her victims. Sometimes she doesn’t even kill them, just pushes them where she knows she can get them.

I know it seem just glorifying like this but I find it beautiful, not because I want to see people die, but much like I loved watching crows when I was younger and how smart they were, there’s a distinct and coherent intelligence behind her choices, even if I doubt that there is anything left of what she used to be.

To this day, I question why is she playing by the rules ? What is she getting from that big spider in the sky ? That thing that spreads the cloud to go down and steal her trophies from their hooks. Is it like some sort of symbiosis, like they need one another, a partnership ? Or is it this thing, just behind a scavenger and stealing from her as it happens ?

I question it because she doesn’t eat everything she kills, so she still has basic needs and contrary to the wendigo legend she can be satiated. Her hunger is gruesome, the first time I saw it I even doubted that it was her to begin with, she did not look like a version of herself, changed or affected by something. 

A lizard without a tail, that what she was, red big eyes, way bigger than her actual ones and reptilian in appearance. Weeds on her shoulders, and scaly, green skin with yellow undertone with those carnivorous fish teeth in her mouth and dry blood on her chest, her rib cage actually looked like an external skeleton, and sharp claws on both of fingers and toes. 

The details stood out to me because the murder happened right in front of my spot. It was my first time seeing the light of the sun, the open wheat field was swayed by a gentle breeze but the smell of death was everywhere like something sinister had happened here and never left. I was on the rooftop when she threw herself at the defenseless old man, his throat stood no chance against the brutality of her jaws’ raw strength. Blood sprayed each time she tightened her hold on him, he tried to push her off, to breathe for air, but soon after this act of violence was followed by one even more decisive. 

As the poor man was bleeding out, she used her long claw to stab through his stomach and like a butterknife, she opened him up, cutting open his rib cage before reaching within scooping up one of his organs and she teared into it. The whole thing was not the prettiest to watch, it kind of turned my stomach upside down but it also alarmed me of something worrisome. 

All this time spent here and I could not tell you how long had passed. All this time spent and I had not eaten once, there was nothing to eat for starters and nature was not alive here. Plus I was not hungry, actually the only feeling that I could taste and locate in my entire behind was light tiredness, like when you walk the stairs too fast, tiring but not exhausted, just too sudden for the body. When you have grown up in an isolated place like Hamlet nature is basically all you know, the sound of animals going about their business, but everything is silent here. There are no birds aside for those crows, there are no insects aside for the flies. I take this one back, I once got surprised by a cat who was in a locker in a dead ecological zone, where everything was either white or gray. 

Consequently, there is no rain here, no matter which ‘here’ I am in, no weather, there are tempered locations between those outside walls, yes… Snow, forest, fields, jungle, temples, modern streets, night and day. Yet I started to seriously think that there was no outside of ‘here’. Where I am now, and where you are Mister or Miss, we are somewhere where nature has been put on curbed. As if someone had stolen a moment in time and space and just made those gladiator games happening here. One species of bird and  one species of insect is not enough to maintain these environments artificially or not, it’s simply not sustainable.

It also got me wondering about why I had been spared of that twisted faith so far, I am good but I have never been that good. How could a predator just ignored my presence, if not for her, why did the giant spider in the sky did ? 

One time, early on I watched as the doors were opened, all left, except for one she chased after, pushing him always further from both gates, keeping him in the middle. Statues of praying monks would turn and follow their movement upon eye contact. The decor, a reminiscence of Asian culture. Red sculpted structures with intricate design, and green moss on temple stairs. There weren't many places to hide into, both for the people here and myself, and when the countdown of the open gates was up, the spider's legs, which usually descend from the sky, came from below, cracking his bones as it killed him by impaling him.

His spine fractured in two, limbs contorted by the shock, the sound was unmistakable, the horror written on his face had left a mark on my very own. It is difficult to show empathy for any of this when I was so busy surviving and trying to find a way out, both for myself and her. Perhaps for all of those stuck here against their will, as well. 

The white men with a white shirt dyed, she cheered in her own way, a victorious throaty moan, and the landscape shifted. Inked defying gravity coming from the ground to reach higher in an inverse dropped manner, old ruins of the color of bones and sand under my feet. A man had died in front of me once again, but I was not harmed or hurt, the spider had rejected me. There was no way it wasn’t conscious of my presence, it couldn’t ignore a sixth life added to a trial in which this thing had the final say. 

It had been a while now, and as trials were consecutive, there were days or weeks or maybe months… Since I have no reliable way to tell time, no indications from my natural body needs, or by exterior hints. There have been many games, this term also doesn’t feel right to choose, but what else would you call something endless, where participants go against one another, with rules you must follow to succeed. Although none actually win, which leaves me perplexed about a lot.

Despite everything I am still standing, unharmed and alive. I often feel like her shadow, I'm never too far, never too close either, I guess that’s what love does to a person. A connection as deep as ours could not simply be ended. It adapted to me and to her, little by little fights after fights, trials after trials. I stood with her, and in that sense I am complicit in everything she has done, although I don’t know if she could be held accountable in her state and in this game we are playing. Me, on the contrary, I am well physically and mentally, shaken but running. 

There is no excuse for the choice I have made, and maybe there is no redemption either. I am not dead but when the time will come, whether I die from her hand, the thing in the sky or natural causes, will I even get to be with ancestors, to meet those who came before me. Or will I be like her, there must be some humanity left within me, enough so that I am not what she is. Her runes did not turn me, instead it took me to her, and each time it allowed me to follow.

It is by following her that my fear became admiration, if I dare say, it is by watching her relentlessly draw her design through her trials, a path constantly ongoing and seemingly never ending, that I saw beauty. Not in the crimson slaughter but in the act itself, like watching a cat kill a mouse, agility, strength, brutality, and just enough toying with her food to make the experience a performance.  

I doubt it is, however, but I watched more executions that I can count now, and as gory as it might be, the hunger that ravish her fuel her desire for human flesh, is also her instrument, the music that she plays. She is different for sure but she is the woman I love. Through this different lens I see, something that I should hate, something that I used to fear but something that captivates, no marvel but the art of a mad artist.

She is both the painter and the brush, and those people her canvas, she spares no one unless they escape her grasp, she paints red and purple, her paintings are of death, of a deep famine. Everything is raw, just like her, everything about her has been reduced to its most primitive instinct, she doesn’t appear to be able to speak beside her visceral whine. So what do I know about how she feel, maybe there’s bliss in the agony she inflicts, freedom in the lack of complexity of this new life.

There might be love or at least enough trust from her toward me, enough that she trusts the remnant of affection she had for me to not hurt me. I doubt she just isn’t aware of my presence, just choosing to go past me. In my book that’s love. There’s so many maybes and ifs, when I think of her now, maybe she knows exactly who I am and she’s scared of me being disgusted or repulsed. Maybe she hates herself because she kills and eats people and just cannot say it out loud. Maybe she is fighting herself internally to not attack me and that is why she keeps her distance.

And that is because she doesn’t know that I loved her and I love her now. It matters to me if this changeover is not of her will or something she regrets. Because then I will try until it kills me to save her. 

In the same thought, if it is her will then it does not matter to me how much she takes for her own needs. Matter of fact, I will be part of this representation, performing at her side.

As you might have guessed so far, I am trying to survive, just like you are. How much time I have spent here ? I don’t know, but I have seen so much death, it is not my first time, and surely it won’t be my last.

 I wish the situation was different, that maybe we could meet under better circumstances, that I would learn your name and your story. I still don’t know why the thing in the sky just lets me roam around, which by the way I now realize might be more than just a spider, as I have never seen its face, only its legs. f

At this point my beliefs which have been thrown to the ground and stamped on, have left room for my horizon to be expanded and thinking is what I have been doing, questioning, doubting, but more importantly hypothesizing. This thing in the sky has been the new object of my interest, a curiosity I have yet to understand.

I don’t understand what differentiates me from the likes of you, but in that way I am thankful. I can see her, be with her even in that state.

This might sound horrible and terrible to you, because you are on the other hand of the hook, but I must keep an eye on her, keep her well and sound, because I failed her once, and I will not fail her twice. I hope you can understand.

As such I hope that you will forgive me, because as you have spent this time reading these notes, all this time, with my pages in your hands, wherever you are hiding to read these, Lisa has had the time to take down the others.

I’m sorry I don’t think you can understand why I would do that to you, but I must, for her. She is the woman I love, she is the monster I love.

You will come back, again, and again, and each time you will probably wonder what will be my next trick or attempt to aid her in her crusade of death, and the truth is; that I will be where you don’t see me coming. My hands have always been dirty with mud, a bit of blood is nothing on my list. 

Gods are not real but I am starting to think there is something up there that is beyond my comprehension, and I must play a role in whatever it wants and does, otherwise it would have taken me away long ago.

That is what little comfort I can give you for the doom and the pain you will experience once again. That I do what I do out of love and necessity and not out enjoyment, or evil.

I’m sorry.

I love her, more as much as I love myself and more than I love life. I could not let a mere ritual gone-wrong take her away from me, and leave me stranded here.

We are together here, and even if this concept of love is different by definition, it suits me as long as it suits her. And if the price to pay is your life, it’s a price I’ll pay.

May you never meet her in your next life, or me.