Forest

It was a dark and dense forest, people said it was haunted, not a single living creature existed there. Not even birds flew in that direction, it was evil. Filled with tall huge trees, the air was filled with the smell of the dead and decaying animals, leaves and grass. It was not a pleasant sight either, carcasses of animals were strewn across, who had made the biggest mistake of venturing in that direction.

Deep, deep inside the forest, there were some sounds...not very clear. On moving closer, it sounded like screams, a woman's screams, but it was not only that, there was also some other fast humming kind of sound, which had a rhythm to it.

She kept on moving ahead, and the noise grew louder. The screams were intermittent but the humming was continuous, it gave her a creepy feeling. The humming was hurting her ears, it wasn't loud still it forced her to clasp her hands on her ears, it was the rhythm and the way it sounded that was piercing her ears. She couldn't recognise the sound, she kept moving ahead, her mind working fast and her ears listening hard, despite the torture. The sound started becoming clearer and sharper, yes, she recognised it, it was some sort of chanting. Suddenly, she saw smoke, she broke into a light run, as she advanced towards the smoke, twigs snapping beneath her feet.

It was so dark in this part of the forest, it looked as though it was night fall. The only source of light was the fire, from which the smoke was emanating. She could see a figure seated, next to the fire, back towards her, but there was no one else in the sight. The person next to the fire was the one who was chanting, but the screams, where were the screams coming from. She started looking around but could see no one, when suddenly she heard another scream and looked up. Her eyes popped out of their sockets at the sight and quickly she placed her hand on her mouth, just in time to conceal her shriek. She shut her eyes tight and bit her finger, so as to release the pain which the sight caused her.

After a while she turned again to look, there was a woman, suspended by her hair from a branch of a tree, right above the fire. Her hands and legs were tied, there were deep gashes on her body, from which blood was trickling, the flames seemed to be relishing each drop of blood, it appeared as though the fire was thriving on it. The woman seemed stupefied for a while, when suddenly, the person below started some new chants, which made her scream all the more in pain, as the intensity of the chants grew so did her frequency of screams.

The figure rose from the ground, she peered hard to see, it was a man. He started circling the fire, her eyes fell on a beheaded goat, lying in a pool of blood. There was also a cock, with a twisted neck, lying lifeless on the ground.

The man was old, his beard reached his chest, most of his face was covered in hair. But what was about to happen, she couldn't have imagined. He picked up a sickle from the floor and cut his wrist, and offered his blood to the flames. The flames bacame more intense and rose higher!

He went to the tree where the rope, which suspended the woman, was tied. He untied it and started lowering the woman. She started screaming, as her feet were almost in the fire by now. He lifted his hand, which held the sickle and aimed at the woman, he took a deep breath, chanted a few verses and threw the sickle at her. A blood curdling scream!




She got up, panting! She was sweating profusely. She could feel droplets of sweat forming on her forehead, and slowly trickling down her temple. She looked around, there was no fire, no man, no woman, no trees, no forest. She was in her bed, she sighed with relief. She lit the table lamp, reached for the bottle, and drank water, she was feeling exhausted. Even though she was feeling relieved, she felt a funny uneasiness, she decided to ignore it. She looked outside the window of the hut, there in the distance at the foot of the hill, she could see the forest. She wiped her brow with a finger, but there was something wrong, she stretched her hand, so that the light from the lamp fell on her hands, it was not sweat, it was blood!