Dead Tree on Barrow Hill

An unfortunate, nameless explorer comes upon a tree on a hill.

On a hidden hill stood a bald birch, old and gnarled with twisted roots slithering on the ground like a nest of snakes. The scent of rot hovered around it, forming a thick blanket around which clouds of flies made their home. It should have been the most repulsive of places, one to avoid the moment that first waft of death reached one's nose and nausea began to rise from one's gut.

In a strange twist, I found it almost impossible to resist. It was not curiosity, for nothing could make me lose that faster than the taste of bile on my tongue as insects made themselves at home on my skin, eating me alive. It was not some sense of obligation or other duty which kept me going. I simply...wanted to see it. To enter the lair which I knew would wait beneath its rot-blackened, dying roots. How I knew remained a mystery, as if something forbid me from asking the very question.

Tiredness washed over me, stronger with each step I took, and by the time I had climbed on top of the hill and stood in front of the looming entrance the shape of a rabbit's nest in any normal wood, only large enough to fit a person. I wanted to enter, so I did. I stumbled down the narrow cavern, feet first as my hands attempted to regulate the speed at which I found myself falling into the depths.

I do not remember falling asleep, but I must have at some point. For when I woke up, I stood in darkness. Light from the entrance reached me barely, fading long before the earthen wall behind me. It was brighter, I thought at first, but then realized it was only whiter. The shadows around me lacked color, as if something had sucked them out of the world. What used to be muddy brown and shades of green were now gray and dull.

I should get back up. Get out. I began to climb with haste. My body ached to remain, but my mind—now cleared of the exhaustion which had taken over—urged me to escape this trap. But the closer I should have gotten to that speck of light, the further away it stayed. Always the same distance away, whether I rushed or climbed with care, I could never reach it.

Finally I stopped trying, letting myself flow back down to the chamber. The way back was nowhere near as long as it should have been, and far too soon I found myself back in the center of that barely lit cave beneath the tree.

As I waited, watching in the dark, shadows began to dance as obscure shapes around my sight. At first I thought them illusions, and maybe they were, but soon after I began to make out faint shapes on the rounded walls of dirt around me. In the distance I spotted a way forward, deeper into the caverns.

I followed blindly along the corridor, picking without reason whenever it split into two or crossed with another tunnel from elsewhere. My heart drummed, but not from fear—it was as if something was keeping that from me, blocking it, almost. No, my heart beat not from fear but excitement, as if my body knew where my road was going to end while my mind was merely pulled along.

A long time, or perhaps a heartbeat later I sprang out of the tunnels and into a room. The chamber, of similar shape and size as the one I had first slipped into, had in its heart a deep, roughly round chasm about the width of two people. Something told me if I tried to throw something within its depths, I would not hear even a sound for how long the fall would be.

On instinct I took a step toward it. Something rustled beneath my foot. Bones. I gasped, stumbling backward. My head itched, pain surfacing to block the questions because I could not look, I must no look. Do not look. My eyes began to close, the memory of bone-littered floor faded.

Hands on my eyelids, now, forcing them open. Forcing them to look. To see. The thing I must not know. White, worn bones, picked bare of skin and flesh and sinew. Hollow eyes, grinning mouths. Human. Animal. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer and so many others. Fire erupted in my heart. Hate, anger. Starving. I might have screamed, or someone did. I ran forward, blindly, as if the chasm before me was my only salvation.

I do not remember falling asleep, but I must have at some point. For when I woke up, I stood in darkness. Light from the entrance reached me barely, fading long before the earthen wall behind me. It was brighter, I thought at first, but then realized it was only whiter. The shadows around me lacked color, as if something had sucked them out of the world. What used to be muddy brown and shades of green were now gray and dull.

I should get back up. Get out. I began to climb with haste. My body ached to remain, but my mind—now cleared of the exhaustion which had taken over—urged me to escape this trap.