As I step into the forest, everything becomes dark. I see black souls rushing in one direction. One of the souls spot me and stop. They start looking at me with curiosity. Wondering where I came from and if I’m still human or not. As it comes closer towards me two more follow, slowly three more. The number gradually increases as the souls glance at me. Then they are in a circle, surrounding me. They push and shove each other to get their hands on me. It was hard for them to decide who would eat me, so I was safe, for the time being. As I look around me, I see a soul that signifies the identity of a faceless man, with no eyes, ears or nose. But with a significantly large mouth
As soon as the souls realize I was still there, they rush towards me once again, with hunger and desperation. But this time, it wasn’t about deciding who will consume me, it was everybody trying to attempt consumption. I lose hope, and welcome the death that was upon me. A few seconds later, I assume I was dead, but I wasn’t! I checked my pulse and my body parts, they were still there. I was still alive, as I look around I see a white bear, staring at me with elegant eyes, with a color as blue as the ocean. The bear approaches me slowly, he comes so close, that tears begin to come out of my eyes. I was stunned by this bear, because it was indeed the work of mother nature’s beauty, which seemed dormant in the forest up until now.
All of a sudden, he disappears right in front of my eyes, leaving me alone in the darkness. I look around the filthy place and smell the scent of the rotting souls. The air of death is around me. I relax myself and become careless of my surroundings, thinking about the white bear. It felt as if it was telling me to go somewhere, so I followed it.
This lead me to the black river, with the stench of the bad souls, and viscosity as that of blood, it was a danger to be here. At the same time, I was here for a reason, it was the bear that brought me up to this point.
On the other side of this river, surprisingly, I spotted a bear cub! It hid behind a tree as soon as it noticed me looking in it’s direction. I crossed the bloody river to see why he was hiding behind that tree. It was not alone, it was accompanied by an evil soul, which was feeding on its spirit. I attempted to take the cub out of that place, but it seemed impossible. The soul wouldn’t let go. So I calmed myself down and enlightened my spirit, and amazingly, the soul just disappeared. It came to my attention that evil souls fear people that are enlightened and calm.
I immediately took the cub out of there afterwards and had a vision of a lush green land, filled with more hope and enlightenment, just like me. A vision that started to lead me in a direction that I didn’t know of before. The cub, apparently, was following me, it was inexplicable. How would an animal want to follow a human, I thought of it as a sign of loyalty because I saved it. After days of walking in the designated direction, I noticed that the forest started to lighten up. Everything was becoming beautiful and the forest started to show it’s true colors. My vision had come true, after days of walking on that steep, muddy and long path. The cub wouldn’t stop following me, and it eventually got annoying. But I thought to myself, why not keep such an animal to accompany me, so I don’t have to feel the sense of loneliness every again. We still had much to explore in this new lush green land, which I think holds many wonders and secrets to it.
This story was inspired by the piece that I wrote called Hatred in the souls. This is the continued story of the person that got stuck in the dark forest.