I had promised myself that I would never make this experience public, but I’m out of options now and I sincerely need to know if there’s someone out there who has the answers I require…
Everything started in the rainy season of 2014, I live in Colombia, and despite what the image immediately conjured in your mind might tell you, there are plenty of pine forests lying around, particularly in zones that are high in relation to sea level, such as the area in which my parents and I lived back then.
My memory regarding the context fails me, but I have never been popular among my peers, so there was this kid named Adán, and his friends whose names I never bothered to learn… to me, they were nothing but nightmares that made the otherwise comforting woods into a place I regarded with care.
They were older than me, for I was only 11 at the time, but that didn’t stop them from bullying me relentlessly. It was 11 of November, around 3:00 PM when I was chased about like a game fox through the woods by Adán and his crew… If I know the exact date and hour, it’s because I still keep with me the newspaper that mentions the events that transpired that evening.
After being chased around, and punched to the floor every time one of the kids would find me, I discovered that they were far too fast for me, so this time, when they gave me room to flee, I decided to hide inside a big and hollowed out willow tree that was nearby, rotting with age.
At first… it seemed to work, every single one of those kids ran past the old tree and lost track… but then… I heard their footsteps turn around…
I flinched and trembled…
I was so afraid…
But then, that thing showed up.
It wasn’t any bigger than I, it was sitting in the opposite corner from me, in the darkness, yet illuminated by some sort of mystical greenish shimmer…
Its eyes were the first thing to call my attention, puppy-like, front-facing and analyzing me as if I were as alien to it as it was to me. Its skin was a mint tone that sparkled as if illuminated by dim sunlight coming from who knows where… Its hair hung heavy with dirt as if it had not been washed in centuries… and it had dried and putrid willow leaves where clothes would be.
I felt a scream coming up to my throat, but then it placed one of its fingers upon its lips and shushed me with a worried expression… its fingers were too long to be human, and its fangs seemed ready to tear through flesh.
-If they find you, they’ll hurt you again human…
Said the creature… its tone was motherly and its voice was the softest and sweetest I have ever heard in my life, it was like a mermaid’s song, instantly lowering all of my defences.
I instantly felt as if I was with an old friend, and after the creature noticed that my panic had subsided enough, it spoke again.
-Listen… you can’t stay in my willow all night, they will find you eventually… but I know of something you can do.
Its worried expression then turned into a quick, easy smile as it got up close and placed one of its bony hands on my shoulder. I heard those damned teenagers getting even closer and could feel that, whatever the creature offered, would be better than being beaten again… So I nodded.
-If you give me your name, I promise you’ll never have to see anyone that hurts you again…
I stuttered for a moment, looking at its fangs as it spoke… I didn’t want to discover what they could do to a human, so, I quickly responded with a chill in my spine.
-Okay, But you must promise not to hurt them…
My words hardly left my throat, my mouth was dry. The creature nodded responsibly, still with such a serene expression that just begged to be trusted. And so I did… I told my name to the creature.
The creature didn’t speak a word after I told it my name, it only nodded again and stepped out of the willow, quickly fading to become invisible once the sunlight entrapped its figure.
I don’t remember how much time I waited after that, but I do remember that the faint footstep stopped altogether after the creature left. When the sunlight started to fade, I decided to lift myself and try to find my way home…
…The trails were difficult to find in the woods and when I finally got to the the one that I somewhat recognized, it was already dark out…
When my fear of what the shadows were hiding started to pry at my will to keep walking, I saw a familiar presence… the creature that took my tormentors away came up to me from the woods, its natural glimmer taking away my fear in an instant.
…We talked as we walked, I’ve got to admit I did most of the talking, I wasn’t accustomed to having someone with whom to share my daily thoughts… But I did listen enough to learn something, this creature that now I considered a friend, was a fae.
I didn’t know what that entailed when I was a child… I was blinded by my youth, and that hideous monster was so beautifully bright with magic.
Once we reached the town, and the yellow lights that illuminated the streets cut through the ghastly mist, the fae disappeared… yet I knew it was still there with me… I could hear it breathing.
I walked along in silence until I reached home.
My mother has always been a cold woman, never quick to emotion, but that day she hugged me while crying, concerned beyond what simple words could express, I vividly remember feeling her wet hands against my back, and fearing I had done something to upset her… the next few weeks are a blur in my mind, I remember being told that I would never play in the woods ever again.
At the time, and even now, the warfare groups would kidnap children from the mountains to add to their armies… the adults all believed that to be the case… and so, the newspaper appeared the next week, after everything was said and done, reading:
“Five children under the age of fifteen went missing on the eleventh of November 2014, they were last seen playing in the woods surrounding the town of Sain Elena”
I would not be made aware of the fact that Adán and his friends had died that night for several years after that. And so, my friendship with the strange creature continued… now my constant solitude was almost entirely spent looking for corners and hiding places dark enough so that the fae’s skin would not react to the light.
…The more I talked to the creature, the more I noticed changes. But I didn’t care, I was also changing, its hair became cleaner, revealing light shades of gold beneath the dirt, and the leaves that covered its nudity became livelier, greener… we also grew a lot during the many years we spent together.
We slowly became the closest of friends, the fae became fascinated by anything I would tell about the world of humans, and so too I became entranced by its tales of the whereabouts of the other invisible inhabitants of the forest.
The next incident transpired in early October 2019, I was 17 at the time.
As a teenager with a misguided sense of shame, I tried to keep my conversations with an entity only I could perceive to a minimum… but I also wanted to draw distance between us, for I was finally beginning to question the honesty of my childhood saviour… I could still see the missing posters all through the town, of Adán and his friends, and Saint Elena’s forest never recovered to be the lively place filled with children ever again.
Any questions about what exactly had happened to Adán and his group were met with a silent smile that wouldn’t go any further than that nor allow me to move the subject further.
Spending less time in the shadows allowed me to create a tiny group of friends to call my own, I had even allowed myself to fall ensnared by one most human of urges, and I fell in love…
His name was Andrés, his hair was raven black and his eyes as deep as the ones of a dead shark, traits I fonded over every night as his image stole my sleep, my longing was as profound as the sea… as indescribable and powerful… I would never again, from this point onward, feel something so passionate about any other human, ever again.
Alas, he was another guy. In a small town with conservative roots, it would’ve been social suicide to even hint at how head over heels I had fallen for him. So… I suffered in silence.
…We became really good friends, and I was forced to sit idly by as he told me about his crush on this girl, Elisabeth… and they didn’t take even a month after he told me that to get together. They were the perfect couple… and I knew that even back then.
Nowadays, I would really have liked it if they had been happy together… but I was stupid, and damaged beyond what anyone could ever know.
So that night, when I heard the fae’s faint breathing in the light of my room, I ceased my crying and turned the lights off, to see it standing there, with a preoccupied expression. Somehow, having the fae there made my heart less heavy.
-You are hurt human… who did this to you?!
its tone was so deeply sorrowful as if he could understand every second of my grief, as if it knew what it meant to wish the impossible so fervently that you can’t even continue living after it’s ripped off from your life.
Believe me, if I had known what was the real destiny that befell Adán and his friends, I wouldn’t have told the fae what had been happening…
But I needed someone to talk to, someone who wouldn’t judge me or mock me for how much it pained me to lose something that was never mine. I didn’t realise the severity of my mistake until I turned to face the Fae, with my tears already dried in my cheeks, and it had vanished without leaving a trace.
I cried myself to sleep that night, I remember the dread that my heart was feeling.
The next day, what was meant to happen, happened… and neither Andrés nor Elisabeth ever showed up to school… their parents were called, and the police were involved. Whereas Andrés was a five-star student, Elisabeth had somewhat of a reputation as someone who would flee from home if given the chance… so that was the theory everyone went with.
“Today, a teenage couple went missing, it is believed that they fled home and their parents are worried, if you see them, please inform the local Saint Elena department”
Such was the text written underneath every missing poster that now littered the street, Andrés parents were quite rich, as such, the funds invested in tracking him down surprised me greatly… that was the first time I ever saw a police helicopter in my life.
I knew they were never going to find him… that night, when the fae appeared again, with more of its golden hair showing, and slight flower blubs growing on its body, I shouted for it to leave me alone.
It turned on the lights… so its figure vanished… but I could still hear it, I heard it all night long as if touting me with malice. I knew it was my fault, even back then, the fae was like a wild animal one that I couldn’t control if my emotions went unchecked.
…From that day onward I’ve been living in voluntary social deprivation… I started working a virtual job and only interacted with other people in the most bare-minimum ways. I knew it wouldn’t last, I knew the opportunity would come up again and I needed to resist the urge to talk to the fae.
…The final incident, and the one that brought me to writing this… happened on the 9th of October this year, during my 21st birthday. I planned it to be another normal work day, I even prepared my three meals the day before, to encourage the rest of the household to simply leave me alone.
My father wasn’t amused, after his glares and cold shoulder didn’t deliver the message that he expected, he busted into my room in the middle of a fit of anger, being followed by my mother who desperately begged him to simply drop it and leave me alone.
I’ve never heard my father use as colourful a language as the one he used when he ripped the computer’s cable and told me I would quit my job and put my life together… I knew he meant well… but I couldn’t possibly explain what the reason was behind my isolation… when my silent answer didn’t appear to please him… he slapped me to the floor… as a lumberjack, he has always had a strong hand.
…I lifted myself from the floor, and when I looked in the direction my parents were meant to be… they had bot banished…
…Panic filled my body when I discovered a strange object in my arm, a kitchen knife, plunged into my skin from the front… I recognized it as the one my mother had in her hand when she entered the room but… I didn’t recall the pain.
I lifted myself and struggled for 15 minutes to find the first aid kid to patch myself up… then I realized something… my time perception was quite shaken, I was about to enter a meeting, at 12:00 PM, but when I looked at the clock, it was already 6:35 PM.
…
Then I understood it.
…
I walked into the closet I used to talk to the fae as a child, covered the door and turned off the lights… I wasn’t surprised to see it standing there with me… with flowers growing all over its body and its golden hair in full show.
-Where are my parents?!
I asked with an incriminating tone… the fae smiled calmly, as it did when I was younger, but I wasn’t about to drop it.
-Where are they?! Where did you hide them?!
My scream came out with such strength, that I still feel a sore throat… that seemed to make the fae concede, as it took my hand and started to nudge me outside the closet… I was a mess, and hadn’t been outside the house in a couple of months, still, I walked outside, wanting to know the answer the fae had for me.
…As usual, once the faint light of the fading sunlight hit its body, it disappeared, but I could still feel its hand pulling on me to follow…
I walked through the old faded paths, and was able to see the face again, placed there by many town folks that feared their children would go out and play in that damned place…
I walked through the old faded paths, and was able to see the fae again, as the darkness swallowed us, as an expecting yet dormant monster… as I walked, I saw something glittering in the darkness in front of us, something almost ghost-like, urging us to keep walking.
And then I saw it…
I remembered it by the shape alone, it was the same old willow that once helped me hide from Adán and his friends, but whereas back then it was dried and putrid, it was now blooming with the same intensity as the fae itself.
…When we were close enough to touch the mystical-looking willow, the fae opened a small door in the trunk of the tree, one with the same glimmering light coming from within it… and I followed with both curiosity and fear I could only describe as primal.
…
When I got to the root of the tree, the smell of fermented death invaded my nose with an intensity I would compare to being punched in the face… I had to force myself to keep the vomit in… but my stomach failed my mind when I saw where the smell was coming from…
There were bodies there, two of them were fresh and the rest were mere skeletons, every single one was surrounded by flowers that seemed to feed on their remaining flesh… when I recovered my constitution and tried to run, I was stopped by the image of the fae, standing on the door.
-Y-you… You told me you wouldn’t hurt them! They are dead!
The fae seemed confounded, as it pointed to itself and then unceremoniously pointed at me… placing its long finger on my forehead.
-Human… you were the one that brought them here…
As when one wakes up from a long dream, I was suddenly flooded by memories, I remember lifting myself from the dried willow earlier than when I left the forest, I remember leaving my room the night I cried endlessly, and I remember attacking my father in front of my crying mother, with the same cable he ripped from the computer.
I could suddenly feel the pain that the knife she stabbed me with left behind, I could remember their faces full of pain… every single one, begging, struggling without understanding why I would attack them.
I started crying and fell to my knees… how would I be able to do so much evil? Why? And then, I looked at the fae, comforting yet preoccupied, caressing my face with its long fingers as if trying to bring me back.
I knew it then, the fae had used me, it had used my name to use my hand in these horrible acts, I pushed it and fled from the forest as fast as my feet could carry me…
I took what little money and clothing I could and left for the nearest city, I didn’t care, I wanted to be away from the woods, away from people… but especially… away from that hideous monster…
I am writing from a hotel room in the city of Medellin…
I can still hear the fae breathing…
I have yet to turn the lights off and I’m not planning on doing so…
Please, if someone knows a way to get rid of it forever, just tell me…