When I was a kid, Dad told me to never go into the woods near our house.
Of course, I always asked why. But Dad didn’t seem to want to talk about it. And he always stopped every one of my siblings from going in there too. I’m the oldest of seven siblings – from oldest to youngest, there’s me (Diego) and then there’s Silvana, Sebastian, Carlos, Inez, Romina, and Alejandro. And all of us are forbidden from going in the woods.
All of them always protest – especially Inez. She’s really been getting into a bunch of witchcraft stuff recently and wants to go in the woods to do who knows what.
But I found out firsthand when I was sixteen why Dad didn’t want us in the woods. People went into the woods all the time and came out okay. (I used to live in Blackthorne, Ohio, and the woods and my childhood house are near the border of town.)
I was walking by the woods when, more curious than ever, I decided to go in and see what Dad was making such a huge fuss about.
I walked around, going deeper in, and found nothing. I laughed at Dad and was about to head straight back out when I found an old well in a clearing.
I don’t know what compelled me to look into it, but I did. And all I saw on the bottom was a bunch of dirty, slimy water and other gunk.
I leaned a little too far over, though…and I fell in.
I screamed all the way down before landing with a sick splash.
Luckily, I survived the fall, landing on my butt. I sat at the bottom of the well and screamed, when…something I couldn’t explain, at least not then, happened.
The slime and gunk began to move…eventually shaping itself into an almost humanoid shape. It towered over me.
I tried to scream again, but nothing came out.
There was a small plastic purple figurine of a superhero in the well with us. The slime creature reached out and grabbed it, passing it to me.
I held it, still scared and unsure of what this creature wanted to do to me.
But nothing happened for a while. Eventually I started absent-mindedly playing with the toy.
And that’s when the creature took it from me, whooshing it around its head, pretending the toy was flying.
I gulped. I was starting to suspect the impossible…that this creature just wanted to play with me.
And so, I indulged the slimy monster. For about a week.
We mainly played with the superhero figurine and sometimes assorted clapping games. We tried playing tag once, but there wasn’t any room in the well.
And eventually, the police found me in the well and got me out.
I told them I had fallen in the well and been unable to get out until they rescued me. For whatever reason, I didn’t tell them about the creature.
Mom and Dad were mad at me for ages, but especially Dad.
And I bring it up now because of my recent re-encounter with the creature.
I came back home for a visit recently, and to visit some of my other siblings – Carlos, Inez, Romina and Alejandro still live at my childhood home. And especially Alejandro will live there for a while. He’s just a baby, after all.
And for a third reason – to revisit the woods. To see that creature again.
And when nobody was looking, I walked off into the woods and found the well again.
I looked into it, looking for the creature, and this time, the slime and muck rose out of the well to see me, pulling me forward in a hug. It still had the superhero figurine.
It was really tight though…I tried to struggle out of its grasp and failed. I worried it was going to just kidnap me in the well forever…I regretted every decision that had led to this point.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me, turning around to see Dad. I started panicking, but he spoke first:
“Th- Theo?”
I was confused. Theo? The creature had a name? And how did Dad know it?
Just then, Dad pulled a matching superhero figurine out of his pocket and showed it to the creature.
The creature took it and started making the two superheroes fly together.
And then Dad explained everything to me.
When he was four, he and his best friend Theo had gone to play in the woods with their favourite superhero toys, pretending they were flying. But Theo hadn’t seen the well, and he had fallen down and broken his neck.
And now apparently…he had been resurrected as this slimy creature and was still mentally four.
These days, we’ve come to an arrangement with him. Either me or Dad comes and plays with him for a while, at least twice every week. And of course, not actually in the well, but still in the woods.
It’s a bit strange babysitting a giant slime monster with the brain of an average four-year-old…