Trial of Awareness
The forest has changed.
Mist crawls along the roots, dense and low, swallowing your steps. The trees are not quite trees anymore; their trunks are too smooth, too pale, like the underside of flesh. They lean inward as you pass, creaking softly, as though craning to hear your breath.
The lantern’s glow wavers in your hand.
It flickers. And the forest flickers with it.
Everywhere the light touches, something shifts. The bark ripples, the soil stirs, and the mist folds back like a curtain. And there - within the grain of the wood, in the puddles between the roots - you see a faint glimmer.
An eye.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Hundreds in an instant.
Some wide, some narrow, some human, some not. All open in silence, their pupils dilating toward you. Some are vast and distant as stars; others small and trembling, pressed against an invisible glass like trapped souls seeking warmth.
Each blink births another gaze until you are surrounded: a sphere of attention.
Each reflects a fragment of you: a gesture, a regret, a fleeting thought you never voiced.
They do not judge. They witness.
The forest is no longer a place; it is the inside of a gaze, and you are both the watcher and the watched.
You move and they follow. In perfect syncronization.
Their gaze slides across your skin like a slow caress, peeling awareness from bone. The forest breathes mimicking the rhythm of your heartbeat. A hidden pulse behind your own.
The more you look, the more eyes awaken.
You are no longer sure which side of the lantern you’re on.
The flame swells, eager. You sense its hunger: a chance to blind them, to drive this watching horror back into shadow.But a smaller voice stirs beneath your thoughts; older, alien and ever-patient:
"I am the gaze between thought and breath,
the watcher of what stirs beneath.
Carry me gently, wanderer, through the dark,
for the blind flame consumes its own spark."
The forest awaits your answer.
You lower the lantern until its light barely grazes the ground. The eyes draw near to study you. They blink - in unison for the first time - and the movement ripples outward like rain across still water.
The trees cease their leaning. The mist stills.
Their gaze no longer seeks to devour; it wants to understand.
You feel something open behind your eyes; a quiet thread of thought that is not entirely yours. The forest sees through you now, and you see through it. You walk, and hundreds of unseen feet walk with you.
When you finally look down at your hands, faint pupils gleam beneath your skin, mirroring the lantern’s glow. The watchers are gone, but their sight remains.
This path is not yet open.
If this was your choice, make sure to come back again to check it out!
You raise the lantern high. The light bursts outward, violent and sharp.
The forest contracts within itself; eyes burst, trees scream without mouths. The mist howls as it burns. You force the light higher, desperate to erase the watchers. And it works.
The forest is gone.
The gaze is gone.
You are gone.
The lantern’s glass is empty, yet something still stares from within; a hollow reflection that does not belong to you.
You try to look away, but there is nothing left to look with and nothing left to see.
You have burned away even your own image.
The eyes did not vanish.
You simply joined them: blind, voiceless, watching nothing forever.
Your journey ends here.
All written content is original, drawn from myth, memory, and madness.
All images are generated via Midjourney using custom prompts by the author, unless otherwise stated.
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