[WIP] Forest

Things were not right. His teachers had told him to look inside, to find His forest. All of us have a forest, or a place where a forest should be they had said; and though You might find young trees, old trees, oaks, fens or pine trees, there always was one main tree, queen of the forest: sitting beneath it You will meet a part of You that rarely leaves that place, old and wise.

Seeking solace and peace, a momentary escape from the weight of His tasks, He had opened up and searched for His forest. What He had found, however, was very much different from what He expected. Oh there was a forest all right, full of oaks and ash trees. But they were dark and twisted, thick and old, covered in sickly moss. With an ominous feeling He had walked along the winding path that led deep in the twilight brought by the overarching branches, until He finally reached a clearing, at the center of which a vast oak lay. It’s bare, gnarled branches reached far across the clearing and twisted up into the night sky, hanging over a thick trunk that split into vine-like roots, thick enough to sit on.

A pair of red almond-shaped eyes shone in the dark, and a figure clad in gray rose up from where it had been sitting cross-legged amongst the roots. It walked towards him, flashing him a deathly smile, and suddenly lunged and plunged a knife into His chest. Having reflexively looked down to His wound, His eyes followed the hands that held the leather-covered hilt, up the arms to finally stare in disbelief at the eyes that cruelly looked into His: for the face they lighted was His own.

The pain hit, and the world fell away in darkness…