The Curse

Ancient slumber, eternal. The creature slept. It was called upon to stalk the Forest once an Age, once Betrayal. The Forest lost once and it never wanted to lose again. The creature, the angel, it brought them all back.1

She hadn’t known! She always told them, she hadn’t known. They didn’t care, they didn’t believe her. One did know. Always watching, the Forest knew every secret. Betrayed, she left the forest and it watched her leave. It called her back but she ignored. She would regret, that, she would. Regret would pull her back and trap her. Revenge crept ever closer.2

Spring. The Forest was alive with hidden life, silent save for the warm, and gentle breeze. Fresh new buds exploded into life, carpeting the Forest’s floor. She threw her head back to let out a scream. The red velvet of her dress was stained with the liquid of her life. Her hands that had just before been caressing her stomach were now tearing at the same spot. The delicate, rose-coloured wings on her back twisted painfully. The Faery’s face was contorted into a mask of agony, her nails clawed at her belly. Her mind was void of any thought but the pain the assaulted her slight body. She felt a sharp pain as she felt her spinal column crack, her crimson eyes shot wide open.
She barely felt the tears of bloody red carve their way down her flawless, pale face as the Faery crashed to her knees. Her head was turned skyward and her mouth was open in a soundless scream. The blood seeped slowly from her mouth, down her chin, down her neck, sickly warm. She felt the scraping deep in her stomach – five thousand knives - she choked her last breath as the violent light in her eyes died. Her body quivered in submission. Her last thought wavered on the brink of the void and tumbled in: Regret.3

Darkness. Overwhelming, surrounding, crushing. The creature wanted escape, its mother had kept it until it demanded freedom. Now was its chance, it tore. Ripping, slashing, breaking its way out. Through the flesh of its mother, its host. For so long her heartbeat was comfort to its alien mind, but no longer. It had heard her first screams of anguish and it heard her last, when it broke through to the light. The Forest welcomed the creature, the partial light stroked its blackened back like a doting mother. Tiny ebony claws, bloodied and caught with flesh. It’s narrowed eyes glinted a unhealthy green in the ever-fading light. Neither Faery nor human, it was alien. A long tail, jagged spikes, like vertebrae decorated the length of it’s spine.
The warmth of the soft spring breeze caressed its cat-sized figure, drying upon it the blood that had once protected it. It crawled from its prison to freedom. It left its host’s broken body behind, following the call. The trees whispered tenderly guiding the creature. Thick vines erupted from the moist earth, fed from above. They rose up, searching, hunting for their prize. They found it and grasped it, the warmth from the new corpse faded slowly, feeding the Forest. The wasted Faery’s body was swallowed by the earth, pulled back and trapped. Never again to leave, never again to betray, the Forest kept her close. Revenge for Betrayal. Curse for Redemption.4

The Forest smiled upon its new child, the child of the Curse.