The Lumberjack

The Lumberjack - Part Three

 The old man's grip tightened around my shoulder. Now, I hate to admit what I did next, but I'm afraid it's the truth: I punched him in the face, grabbed the pack of supplies, and ran out of the shop. I'm not proud of it, but that's what I did. However, if you have read and believed my account of the proceedings thus far (a worthy feat, I might add), then you may find me justified in that particular action. Or you may not. I don't care. I've been beyond caring for a long time.

As I turned to leave, the wooden doors attempted to close in on me, but I slammed them open with brute force. As I ran, deeper and deeper into the woods, all I could hear was the old man, laughing at me. As I ran, eyes fixed forward, never looking back, the cruel sound only seemed to grow louder and louder, and I became convinced that he was chasing me. No matter how fast I ran, how far I traveled, I could not escape the noise. It seemed to fill my head like air filling a balloon. Eventually, it was too much. It had reached a point where my ears had started to bleed. I stopped running suddenly, and whipped around to finally face the old man. But I saw that I was alone.

The moment I turned around to face the noise, it stopped. Well, at least that was over. My ears were still ringing like crazy, but at least the bleeding seemed to have stopped. I wiped the blood off of my jawbone, where it had gathered, and examined it on my fingertip. It was a milky whitish-red, a sickening pink. What was happening to me? It was at that moment that a sudden pain struck my other hand, and what I saw made my blood run cold. Had my fingers always been that long? No, they certainly hadn't. My nails, too, seemed to be sharpening, almost as if they were turning into claws. This entire ordeal made me want to lie down and weep, but I was too afraid at what my tears might be made of.

After a moment or two, (it could have been a minute, or a day, or maybe even a year), I stood up. Okay, I said to myself. Get it together. Whatever this fog is, it isn't natural. It's changing you, influencing your thoughts, and stealing your memories. Whatever you do, you have to get out of this forest. The mental image of me standing alongside the twisted townsfolk, clad in robes and peering from behind a wooden mask, suddenly popped inside my head, but I shoved it aside. I had wasted too much time on panic, and that had gotten me nowhere. The current strategy had to be cool reason. I did not have time for a single additional setback. If I failed now, I knew that I would never leave this place. It's already too late, said a voice from inside my head, but I simply ignored it. Now, to chart a course out of here.

First things first. I had to reach inside my pack. With any luck, there would be some sort of map. This thought comforted me. I knew very little about my outside existence, as the fog had stolen all of that from me, but I knew that I was quite adept at navigation, and now I felt like I was in my natural element. Sure, the woods seemed dark and scary now, but with a map, there was nothing to fear. Feeling better than I had since I had entered this forest, I zipped the backpack open. Inside there was nothing but a single, wooden puppet.

I wanted to scream, and give up, and let the fog turn me into something terrible. That would be better than stumbling around blindly in this hell-hole. But I couldn't give up. That wasn't an option. Maybe the townsfolk had given up, God knows how long ago, when the fog came over the town, and they now suffer eternally as these creatures of the mist. Perhaps they no longer really live, but are just puppets for whatever's behind the fog to control. I really didn't know. This was all too much for me. Why me? That was the only question that mattered. Why me? Why couldn't I be safe, at home, in some bed, with monsters being the farthest thing from my mind. What cosmic entity had decided that I must face this evil, and face it alone? There was no reason for it, I knew then, and there was no great showdown to be had. Is there any justice for the fly caught in the spider's web? I think not. For I knew that that was all that I was. Just a fly. Another link in the cosmic food chain. Though I could only remember the past few hours, judging from that I did not seem like the kind of person to have a lot of friends. Would anyone even mourn me, if indeed I was trapped in here with the rest of these monsters from now until the end of time? This was to be the point where I gave up. I knew that there was no hope. What good is a man against whatever force was behind all that I had seen? I knew the thing's will was far greater than mine, for I could sense it in my own mind, even then, like a passive observer, laughing at my misfortune. It would have its way, and I would die, or something worse. I had been defeated. That, of course, was the very moment where the puppet decided to make its move.