Mortifeo

The howling wind carries a haunting melody that tills amidst the rustling foliage of the towering trees reaching for the dark night sky. Thin mist bathes the forest, barely veiling the hurried footsteps that disturb the sleeping grounds.

A ragged breathing joins the chorus of the eerie whistling and the distant sound of the woods as wide, frenzied eyes survey the darkness ahead—the winding path dissolving through the thick and curling tree branches, the glowing eyes belonging to whatever rests beyond the normal vision can perceive, and the fog rising to kiss the clouds enveloping the moon.

There are no stars tonight.

A drumming trill rises, echoing among the trees and vibrating against the misty grounds and meeting the cacophony of flapping wings and high-pitched squeaks of the cloud of bats passing overhead. Their calls travel through the forest, shaking the boughs of trees that seemed to grow larger and move about—tricking and misleading the senses—awakening a darker, older evil resting and lurking amongst the shadows. The trees make a crackling sound as they shuffle on their roots, skittering around like tiny bugs seeking shelter from the storm. Except there is none despite the dark clouds above.

Then it stirs as the trees stand still.

He continues to run, occasionally stumbling upon outcropping rocks and roots while desperately trying to find his way out of the forest. His arms are outstretched, groping the air as if searching for something that will lead him somewhere, but his fingertips only meet the forest’s chilling breath as the trees blur in his peripheral vision.

He swears he’s ran this way before, but there is no certainty—not when the trees look similar to one another; not when he cannot trace his own footsteps; not when everything appears the same no matter which direction he faces.

The man thinks he’s somehow cursed, or maybe drugged and something in his system makes all of his senses go haywire, but he feels no different at all other than the unsettling stirring in the pit of his stomach. His lungs are burning—he does not know how long he has been running—and his thin sweater does nothing to warm his freezing skin. The tatters and dirt on his once bleached pants and white shoes tell him it’s been days, maybe weeks, or months, but he is sure it’s only been hours since that person started chasing him.

If he is completely honest, he is not even sure he can call that being a person. He remembers that face: the jagged slash on their forehead that somehow looks fresh and rotting at the same time, the half-done stitching on their left cheek that barely holds the chunks of skin and flesh together, the bloodshot eyes nearly jutting completely out of their sockets, the sunken nose, and the knitted lips. Those features appear out of place on a strikingly tall and hulking body that he continues to wonder if that’s simply a mask: like the ones children wear during Halloween.

He wonders what date it is now. He cannot remember the last time he’s been and seen the outside. Ever since waking up in a dark and dank cabin, tied to a wooden chair and nursing a dizzying throbbing on the back of his skull, all he can recall is that person moving about the small room, tinkering on the various tools that lay scattered on top of a rickety table in the corner, and bringing him meagre meals in a small and dirty bowl beside a cup of water he doubted was even potable or uncontaminated.

Sometimes, the person will press a knife against his neck, or the tip of an electric drill on the side of his head, humming a strange tune that sounded like an old nursery rhyme or a folk song that has been forgotten over time. Sometimes, they will just stand on one corner, watching as he struggled against his bonds.

Once, they have thrown a newspaper at his feet, with his own face smiling up at him from the news section, glaring with the headline:

SEARCH FOR MISSING LIGHTHOUSE COLUMNIST CONTINUES.

His black-and-white photo shows him wearing a suit and tie during one of the newspaper’s yuletide balls. It captures him as he’s walking through the doors of the function hall, head turned towards the camera and a hand raised in a small wave.

The rather foreboding lead continues in bold,

“Authorities continue their search and rescue operations days after the accident and disappearance of Lighthouse Columnist Colton Ackroyd along Aldrich Cliff, a treacherous road winding around the uncharted region of Golgotha Forest in Wickersham.”

That is a couple of weeks ago, or so he believes, and without any way to tell the time, he slipped further into the darkness surrounding him. The only thing that helped him count his descent into madness is the routine meals he received.

He thinks about the articles he has written, and decides that he must have made an enemy or two from some of them, if not most. He thinks about each name he has revealed to be involved with an extremist cult that existed and haunted the town two decades ago, and wonders if the wraiths said to be wandering the decaying halls of the fallen coven finally caught up on him. He hopes that is not the matter.

He has only escaped recently, and he certainly does not want to be dragged into anything sinister or eerie as a cult—dissolved or not. He can still feel the ghost of the rope through the angry burns around his wrist and ankles, his blistered and bloodstained fingers continue to sting as a reminder of his countless attempts freeing himself from its tight grip on his skin.

Yet, with the chilling breeze creeping up around his bones, he wonders if he will be free from it—he believes he will not, not when he really is where the papers tell. He knows about the stories surrounding the forest by heart, knows about its disturbing mysteries like the veins on the back of his hand.

The man wishes he also knows the way out of here, but he has witnessed people come here and never leave. That thought alone causes him to lose his footing, and he tumbles down a shallow slope, rolling along dried leaves and broken twigs. He grunts and lets out a cry of pain when he feels sharp fragments bite on his exposed skin.

Reacting on pure instinct, he pulls his knees to his chin and covers his head with his arms, then he stops rolling just as his face is about to come into contact with a sharp, splintered branch of a fallen tree. He gulps and stops breathing for a moment, staring wide-eyed at what could have been his doom through the space between his arms. It glares back at him mockingly, the jagged tip tickling the skin between his eyes.

He lets out a shaky laugh and shuffles backwards, ignoring his palms stinging with new wounds as splinters cut his skin. He can hear his own heartbeat and blood rushing to his ears as he heaves heavily, breath hitching as he glances behind him over his shoulders.

It dawns on him that his pursuer is nowhere to be seen, but he cannot waste any moment.

A shrill screech from way up ahead sends a jolt of panic and hysteria flashing across his features, and his head snaps toward its direction so swiftly that it leaves his neck aching. He squints in the darkness, studying the sudden silence that envelopes the woods and trying to still his breathing. He dares not to make a move in fear that he will alarm what lies beyond. Colton keeps his position for a solid minute before a shuffling nose to his right sends another series of shivers down his spine.

Then he is running as fast as his aching legs can carry him. He runs past shrubs and through low-lying twigs, swiping at them blindly and holding on to trees to keep his balance. He has accepted that he is lost deep in the woods, but he cannot give up now.

Something silver whistles past his ears. His instincts push him to dodge and he stares in horror a few seconds later as a glinting knife sinks in the trunk of a tree he has been leaning on earlier. Then an eerie laughter follows, seemingly echoing around his pitch-black surroundings. “You can’t hide from your Fate, little Colton,” a raspy voice whispers right by his ear.

He spins around, his heels digging through the dirt that makes him almost slip again, but finds nothing there. “What?” he mumbles, his voice sounding almost too foreign like it isn’t coming from his own mouth. He continues looking around, as if he’ll find whatever he is searching for by doing so—and he does, or it finds him instead. For there, on his sixth spin, he sees himself watching him with a wicked grin etched on his bloody face.

A surprised scream rips from his throat and he halts, staring at the now empty spot as he shakily takes a few steps back while his eyes become more frenzied and manic laughter reverberates and shakes the trees around him.

“It– this is not real,” he mumbles to himself, his voice quaking, “you’re only hallucinating.” He repeats this like a prayer, as if he is trying to convince himself.

He suppresses a shudder as he bolts, abandoning the direction he is going to earlier in favour of moving towards the thinner copse to his left where the moonlight seems to shine brighter. This time, however, he can hear what sounds like hundreds other footsteps thundering after him. He does not dare look back as a cacophony of whispers call out to him, rising above the silence along with the fog that dulls his senses.

Colton breathes deeply, hoping it will ease his mind but it only makes him cough and claw at his neck. He falls down on his knees, wheezing and choking while his vision begins to blacken around the edges. He presses a palm against the cold forest floor while his other hand remains wrapped around his neck. The voices are growing louder by each second, and by each passing second, he feels the air leaving his body, his lungs collapsing inwards, and his heartbeat skyrocketing.

He can also feel sharp and long nails digging all over his body, keeping him rooted on his spot. They press upon his skin hard enough to draw blood and pierce his clothes. He feels them upon his face and sees them hovering over his eyes, dripping with crimson liquid. There is a presence that comes with them, stirring inside of him: within his bones and along his veins.

Then they force his mouth open so suddenly that he hears his jawbones snapping just as a pallid face—with wide, pure black eyes, equally dark lips, and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth—pops up in front of him and pours a black, gooey substance down his throat.

He gurgles in terror, and in a rush of adrenaline, breaks free from the haze that ensnared him. He crawls forward, still on his knees, and greedily inhales air, coughing every now and then as if he is expecting himself to expel the dark liquid thrusted upon him. There is none. His mouth feels dry, like sandpaper. Maybe he’ll get a real drink when he comes out of here alive, or if he even leaves this place.

Colton huffs a laugh, which comes out more as a wheeze as he shuffles to his feet. He thinks that he’s probably gone crazy or that the forest is slowly consuming him—and sooner or later, he will be one of those who went in and never left. He hopes it’s the former.

With his heart still pounding against his ribcage, he stares at the darkness as he wipes the leaves off his clothes. His pursuer remains unseen and he questions if they somehow got lost or if there even is a possibility of that happening because he believes that they know their way around here since it is where they kept him. He is certain of this because even in daylight, he knows it’s hard to navigate the eternally dark woods, especially if he stands deep within the unmapped area of Golgotha Forest.

There is a saying among the residents of Crowdensvale that you are closest to Death inside Golgotha Forest than to any other living humans. His younger self will only question it and say it’s a silly superstition—something parents will tell their children to scare them and make them go to bed early—but he now knows better.

Not only is he close to Death in here, but the forest also makes him see, hear, and feel things that are not there. His only fear is confirming whether they are a product of his mind or if it’s the forest breathing with him.

Colton startles and pushes the thought out of his mind. No, he thinks. I have to get out of here. He balls his hands into fists and clenches his jaw as he sets his mind firmly in believing he will make it out of this forest, alive or barely breathing.

Then the trees move at the same time he turns around, and suddenly, he’s staring right where he came from earlier. He quivers in disbelief, eyes glued to the same, ramshackle and eerie cabin that served as his prison for as long as he can remember. Its exterior is as gloomy as its interior, with rotting wood planks nailed to the windows and moss covering most of the weathered walls and the rusty roof a storm away from caving in.

He sees more than he smells the decay surrounding the cabin—the skeletal remains of whatever poor, unfortunate creature stumbled upon it, the withered plants and trees that seem to give off smoke and ashes that rain down around their dead roots, and the sinister rune symbols made of dark-coloured twigs hanging from the roof eaves.

Flashes of what he has suffered while he’s within the confines of the cabin play before his eyes. It’s like he is looking through an old film camera and the images play in a grainy, sepia tone. Along with them, the sensations come, too: the fear that gripped his heart, the pain from every bite of the rope that only tightened with his every move. He vividly remembers the sound of the drill and its vibration against the side of his head, the coldness of the tip of the knife against his neck, the heat from the boiling water that burned the soles of his feet.

Colton clutches his hair as a guttural sob escapes his lips. “No, no, no, no,” he whispers almost desperately. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. It’s all in your head,” he continues as he lowers himself to the ground. His surroundings disappear as he tries to convince himself that he is simply hallucinating. He has not slept and eaten properly and his mind is only playing tricks on him.

“I can’t be back here, it’s impossible,” he shakes his head. “How is this possible?”

He blinks rapidly and tries to focus on one spot on the ground, but the darkness all blurs in and all he can feel is the damp forest floor caving in below his feet. Instead of falling, he finds himself on his back, staring at the ominous treetops and coughing as his ribs painfully squeeze his lungs.

The nearly catatonic man has no time to gather his bearings before a strong grip grab both of his wrists and begins dragging him back towards the cabin.

The motion slowly snaps him out of his stupor. He groans and stares at the treetops momentarily before he begins trying to free his limbs from the paralyzing hold. Through his struggling and shouts of protest, he catches a glimpse of another figure tucked away in the trees, watching and humming the same strange tune his captor murmured under their breath whenever they visit him.

The figure strikes him as eerily strange, not because he cannot see their face, but because of the plague doctor costume they wear—complete from the leather hat to the boots. They follow at a sedate pace, like a predator stalking its prey, and he is the latter. Through it, Colton wonders with an almost morbid fascination how their feet never make even the tiniest sound despite the dried leaves and twigs covering the ground.

Instead, the woods precipitously rise with the chorus of distant drums and chants as the trees spin endlessly around him, swallowing the figure and then plunging him into complete, debilitating, utter darkness.

The last thing Colton vividly remembers is the figure suddenly appearing a hair’s breadth beside him and whispering in a deep, raspy voice, “Everything is possible here, dear Colton. Sleep well.”

Then he is screaming.

The sound reverberates chillingly through the forest, brushing the tree tops and dancing with the flitting breeze. All around, the calls of various animals reverberate, answering the tortured wails that disturb their sleep. Then, a hush descends and everything abruptly stills as if nothing sinister stirred. The trees have calmed and the fog has thinned and, slowly, the gentle forest song comes to life.

Several kilometres from the derelict cabin, blue and red police lights blink, and a low chatter breaks the silence of the stretch of the slippery road winding around the woods. Dark eyes watch the uniformed men move about, discussing their findings—or lack of it, rather—before they hop into their respective patrol cars.

The figure smirks behind their mask. It’s another dead end for the borough police. They have been in and out of Golgotha countless times now, following a trace that has long gone cold in hopes of finding a mere, pathetic man alive. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you a piece of clue sooner.” They watch the cars drive away, their blinking lights dissolving in the distance. “I’m sure you’ll find it... adequate.”

Laughter blooms from their lips as they walk back deep in the woods, blending perfectly with the darkness as the trees swallow and mirror the sound. Above, clouds quickly blanket the starless skies, thunder rumbles, and distant lightning flashes. Soon, it is pouring, washing away the signs of struggle and the scent of fresh blood staining the forest floor.

Outside the cabin, the person appears and stops by a patch of dirt and picks up a silver necklace, brushing the dirt off the ornate cross pendant with their thumb before tucking it in the folds of their robes.

A hand will suffice.

Two days later, a man awakens to loud knocking on his front door.

He opens his eyes and squints at the darkness that greets him. His room is cold, he registers, as his body trembles slightly under the blankets wrapped around him. The lamp on his nightstand has extinguished and there is a faint smell of oil clinging in the air. His slightly parted curtains confirm that it is still dark out, but the glowing hands of the analogue clock beside the lamp reads that it is fifteen past five. He wrinkles his eyebrows and decides it might be one of those days where Crowdensvale drowns in darkness until quarter past six.

He grumbles as more knocking follow, this time louder, more urgent. He is not expecting anyone today, and no one in the town will disturb anyone this early in the morning. He fights the urge to simply succumb back to sleep, and instead forces himself to leave the warmth of his bed, slips on his robes, and puts on his slippers. “Just a sec,” he grunts groggily, blindly reaching for his glasses from the nightstand. He shuffles outside his bedroom, hissing from his aching back and screaming joints.

Old age is never really kind to him.

He navigates the hallway toward the living room in darkness, registering that the knocking has stopped. He briefly wonders if it’s just some kid playing a practical joke on him. He thinks about going back to his room but shrugs the thought off his mind as he switches the lights on.

Decades of memories greet him in monochrome and coloured images on tables and walls. Years old photographs capture the story of his family, mostly his late wife and their only child—smiling, laughing, dancing. There are sad ones as well, from a funeral or two, or maybe more than that before the photographs stopped.

There are no more memories to capture.

Still, everything continues to remind him of what he’s lost and all that’s left, from the antique accent table by a reading nook on one corner to the old and worn carpet beneath the equally old furniture set on the centre of the room, threadbare and once a beautiful Robin Egg Blue.

He wonders how many years has it been—years that he counts down along his remaining time—and how he feels like he is back to counting more years since he last saw his son who is reported missing six weeks ago.

He is still looking, still not giving up. He cannot stop until he reconciles with him.

He thinks that Colton is only avoiding him and must have gone somewhere, likely hitched a ride from someone driving out of town after his accident. He thinks that he simply avoided his calls and evaded the search for him out of spite, and that he’ll be back soon.

Or perhaps—

Hope suddenly flickers inside his chest; hope that it is his son knocking on the door. He is walking faster now, heart thudding against his ribs. “Colton? Is that you?” he asks as he reaches for both the deadbolt and the door knob.

He receives no response, but he proceeds to unlock them with anticipation rising to a crescendo against his ears. “My boy,” he begins, but stops when all that meets him is the dark, the howling wind, and his shadow extending from his feet before him.

The smile leaves his face as he stares at the empty space for a moment. The excitement in his heart is replaced by overwhelming dismay, and he almost slumps down against the doorframe. Instead, he gulps, looks around, and breathes shakily.

He thinks that maybe his son is not yet ready to talk, or maybe he is still angry from their last conversation which ended horribly, or maybe both. He sniffs, swallowing a sob, and happens to look down.

There, on his feet, is a singular, oddly-wrapped gift box tied with a black ribbon.

Still on the same spot, he examines the package curiously, his eyebrows knitting together, looks around once more, picks the box, and takes it inside, locking the door behind him. He then walks toward the kitchen, sets the box down the table, and pulls himself a seat. It strikes him as strange, as why someone will knock on the door only to leave a box—a gift, perhaps—by his doorstep. It’s as if they want him to receive it immediately, but why not wait?

Maybe it’s from his son? Some sort of peace offering.

A part of him knows it isn’t, because Alvise knows that Colton is not one to give or send gifts. His son will rather be upfront about his feelings rather than try covering it up with presents.

With this question playing repeatedly inside his mind, he tugs on the ribbon, tears the wrapping off the box, and opens it. Immediately, a foul stench hits his nose and he gags and coughs, running toward the sink where he proceeds to hack. He feels bile rising to his throat and soon he throws up last night’s dinner.

He turns and glares at the box, considering throwing it out at this very second, but something stops him. He is curious, that is certain; yet it’s the sinking feeling on the pit of his stomach that churns on him—a kind of fear that gnaws on his bones, permeates in his marrows, and remains there like an itch he cannot reach. He slowly approaches, but not before grabbing a knife which he uses to lift the flaps of the box.

He warily peeks inside, and what he sees makes him stumble backwards, drop the knife, and slide down the counter screaming and sobbing hysterically. For there, resting on a small bed of earth and decaying matter, is the severed hand of Colton Ackroyd.

The hand still looks fresh—albeit obviously stiff—with some dirt sticking under the nails and deep cuts marring the pale skin of the palm. Chunks of flesh and carpal bones peek from the wrist, which is cut with a surgical precision, and the fingers appear broken, like they have been snapped and twisted horribly even before the limb is severed from the forearm. They clutch an achingly familiar, silver-plated necklace with snake bone chain and a ruby-embellished cross pendant with onyx vines twisting around it like a thorny cage slick and dripping with blood.

Outside, a murder of crows perches on the branches of a bare tree, singing, trilling, cawing.

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abyssus abyssum invocat