I remember wondering why anyone would end their own life, I was young, happy, full of life and surrounded by friends and lovers, starting each day with a smile on my face. I’m not exactly glad when saying that I finally know now, how a seemingly normal person could reach the point of wanting to kill themselves.
Chapter 1: Deathmarch
I couldn’t tell whether the tears in my eyes were due to sadness, or long strands of my hair touching my eyeballs as I stared up into the starry night sky. My body was there, tired, and dirty, my scruffy beard and unkempt hair itching, as I lied inside my sleeping bag, alone, away from everything and everyone, beneath the awe-inspiring pines. My mind definitely wasn’t there. No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed able to silence these god-damn thoughts. Thoughts of my friends, thoughts of my family and thoughts of her… Thoughts of times when life was good. I can only wish there was an antagonist, a pure evil entity in my story which I could blame for taking everything from me, sadly though, real life usually isn’t like that. I guess I only had myself to blame, myself and every decision I had ever taken. Distancing myself from my parents, moving abroad chasing thrills while leaving my friends behind, and clinging to what few people I had a connection with a bit too hard. Losing her may have been the straw that broke the camels back, but it was far from the only thing that weighed heavy on my mind. I could hardly recall my last genuine interaction with a human being, the entirety of last year was all hazy memories of “One black coffee, please”, “Yes boss, all the boxes have been accounted for” and “Tonight’s celebrity drama”. Every memory I’ve ever had meshing together in one big pointless blur, and in every instance of that blur she would pop up, the only person that I had ever really loved, the one who had gotten away, vanishing overnight, and leaving nothing behind… I couldn’t blame her though, how was she supposed to put up with me when I was never satisfied, always demanding her to feel the void in my life. I just wish she had at least said goodbye.
These sporadic and disorganized thoughts racing through my head are what had led me here, alone in the pine forest, during a warm summer night, away from everything and everyone. It would be a lie to say that the location was random though, see, this particular forest was widely known as a no-go during the summer, due to a whole slew of animal attacks, disappearances and mangled corpses turning up during the hotter months. It should be apparent by this point that I’m not exactly satisfied with my life and as such have been fantasizing about suicide a lot lately, there is one small issue though. I’m also a big fuckin coward, I don’t have the balls to stare down the barrel of a gun, or the take the plunge from a Highrise rooftop. With these things considered, the pines are a pretty good place to look for an easy way out… maybe mauled by a bear, or devoured by a pack of wolves, whatever to take the pain away, whatever it takes for me to just disappear. It all sounded like the greatest idea ever when I was planning my trip, but as the thoughts of each different scenario became more vivid and animated, chills begun running down my spine. A sudden noise snapped me out of my suicidal pondering, as a flock of birds raced overhead, chirping like their life depended on it, with the rustling of leaves following close behind them. With my train of thought interrupted I finally had the clarity to take in my surroundings.
Chapter 2: You sure?
I had spent my whole life living in big cities, so noise was never a thing to stand out to me, every little sound would usually just blend into white noise as I went on about my days, that is precisely why a few minutes after entering the forest I had stopped registering all the little noises of nature, streams running, the wind blowing through the trees, the sound of insects buzzing their tiny wings had all faded into the background of my mind. Right now, though, it was different. An overwhelming lack of noise filled my ears, right after the bird flock had passed, it was as if time itself had stood still. My blood immediately run cold as beads of sweat started forming on my hair-covered forehead. I knew what the silence meant… biomes like these are only really quiet when the apex predator is around. The absolute silence quickly gave into a steady rhythmic sound, as if rock was pounding on rock, slowly getting louder as the source approached, it was footsteps. I tried to stay as still as possible, bending my knees and bringing my hands up to my waist. My eyes darted around like crazy, looking for any sign of motion. The beauty of the tall, majestic pine trees had quickly become unsettling, as in the dark of the night they obscured everything beyond the small clearing in which I had set up camp, the pale moonlight was intense, but the millions of pine needles hardly let any of it pass through. My boots were almost dug into the rocky dirt under my feet, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice.
That’s when I saw it, two pale-greenish dots just on the edge of the tree line, looking straight through me, they must have been about 3 meters off the ground, meaning that in front of me stood either a moose or a bear, with both being quite lethal for an un-armed man. All that talk about killing myself instantly turned into fluff as soon as I noticed the eyes, as my instincts took over. I darted into a mad sprint away from the creature, moving faster than I ever had in my life, as tears and snot were streaming down from my dirty face. As pathetic and pitiful as I may have been, the thought of such a vein death left no room for me to question if I wanted to run away, I kept up my sprint while shouting from the top of my lungs “I WANT TO LIVE, IM SORRY”. I’m not sure who I was apologizing to, maybe it was my parents, maybe it was myself, or maybe it was the cruel man up in the sky, in the off chance that there was one.
A single phrase reverberated through the pines, and that phrase was the only thing in the world that could make me turn my head and stop running. “Marco… Don’t leave…”. My legs smashed against the ground, anchoring me into place, as my expression became twisted with horror and sorrow. It was her voice, distorted and hellish beyond belief, but it was a voice I could never forget… a voice that could make me turn back even in the face of certain death. I slowly turned towards the creature, for the first time in a while I felt a sliver of hope somewhere deep inside me, if I could lay my eyes upon her for one last time, I could die a happy man.
Chapter 3: Contact
That final sliver of hope was quickly wiped out as soon as I laid eyes on the creature. My entire body went stiff at the sight of the unholy abomination, now standing below the grim moonlight, in the middle of the clearing. Its lanky, decaying body seemed even larger up close, its ghastly arms stretching all the way into the ground, ending in long, twisting claws that could tear flesh apart it seconds. Its thin legs were hooved and stood at an odd angle, connecting to the beast’s furry abdomen. As my gaze kept climbing up, past its half-exposed ribcage and malnourished upper body I finally met its eyes. Two milky, pale green eyeballs stuck to me, waiting for the smallest sign of movement. The eerie eyes were deep inside the sockets of what looked like a deer’s withered skull, complete with magnificent antlers spreading up towards the sky like the roots of an inverted tree.
The stench of death and rot was burning my nostrils, as I felt my mouth salivating heavily, preparing itself for vomit. My mind was near its breaking point, with one thought prevailing over all… “I don’t want to die”, pretty ironic considering why I had visited the pines in the first place. In stark contrast to my racing mind, my body was frozen solid, I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, I wanted the thing to disappear from my sight, but my aching muscles refused to co-operate, as I felt my stomach tying up in a knot. All I could do was watch in horror as the thing slowly approached, the rumbling of its hooves shaking the forest in its wake.
It couldn’t have been more than 2 steps away from me when it, once again, opened its gaping maw, revealing a row of yellowish, jagged teeth as sound climbed up from its throat “We… finally… together” it said, letting me hear the distorted voice of my former lover for one last time. As if on cue, my body finally snapped out of its trance, as I fell backwards on my tailbone, frantically kicking the dirt under me in an attempt to gain distance from the approaching horror.
I was lifted into the air by a single arm, as I felt the cold, dead touch of claws wrapping around my torso. I could feel my ribs crack behind the vice grip, and as I looked down, I saw blood gushing from multiple parts of my body, with a sharp cutting pain sinking deeper into my flesh. In that moment, I felt truly alive for the first time in years, I finally had a scapegoat to blame for all my problems and failures, a pure evil in front of me, something to focus all my anger on. I finally remembered that there were other emotions besides sadness and apathy, as my whole pitiful existence boiled over into a deep, burning wrath. I felt my body getting hotter and hotter, as steam visibly came from my reddened flesh, all the negativity culminating into this one moment.
A mighty shout left my mouth, my vocal cords tearing and rupturing as they uttered the words “FUCK YOU”, as instinctual action took over and I smashed my clenched fist into the creature’s skull. The beast recoiled in pain and its grip loosened, dropping me to the ground. My vision was hazy from blood loss and pain, but I could clearly see the cracks in its skull, at the spot which I had struck, as well as half of its right antler missing. A shearing pain suddenly seized my body, I looked onto my arm, identifying the source. Broken beyond repair, fractured bone sticking out from my skin, fingers twisted in unnatural angles and pieces of antler lodged into my hand and forearm. I tried to stand back up, I tried as hard as I could, but my body refused to move, the vapor of sweat slowly fading as I struggled to keep my eyes open.
The last few moments of consciousness I had were barely enough to watch the monster slowly limping towards me while growling in a hellish, high-pitched tone. “Guess that’s it…” I thought, “Pitiful and pointless to the end”. The hotness of tears and blood was moving down my cheeks as my eyes flooded with them, barely allowing me enough clarity to notice a second, humanoid, shadowy figure darting around with incredible quickness behind the beast. Struggling to remain awake as the abomination’s claws were nearly upon me, the last thing I could see was the creature’s skull exploding into a thousand small pieces of gore, as an electrical blue light passed clean through it, a deafening thud following right after. From that point on, consciousness came in waves, all I remember is flashes of the stars above me, obscured by the dancing pine needles, the corpse of the half-human monster laying next to me, my body bloodied and mangled against the rocky ground of the forest… and a pair of red, night vision goggles staring at me, inches away from my face… as the sound of a human voice lulled me to sleep.. “Got him. Over.”