Cursed and Lonely: The Stop

Chapter 9: Book

He opened his eyes, he did not remember what had happened to him. He did not remember where he was. He was confused. There was a rope around his neck that was cut off at the end. What had he done? What happened to him? He did not know the answer. He only knew that he needed to get out of here as fast as possible.

This forest was cursed. He could feel eyes on him. But there was no one that was looking at him. It felt like the forest tried to kill him. This forest was too dangerous. He wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. He looked around. There was nothing around him, no animals, no bushes, not even a corpse.

He felt tears on his cheek. Why had he cried? He did not even know what crying meant. He did not know about what he had cried about. Had he cried while he was dying?

He started hearing them again, he started hearing those voices again. It started out softly but they became louder and louder with every second. The voices of the dead. Voices telling him to die. Voices that started taking over his body. He couldn't let that happen, he tried to grab his bag but dropped it instead. Whatever was inside of the bag had fallen out.

He needed drink from a bottle of water. He needed that sound to calm him down. He could barely control himself any longer. He was losing himself to the voices. He was struggling against the voices.

He tried to reach his bottle of water. He just needed to get a hold on the bottle before the voices could take control of him. His hand could almost reach it, just a little more. With every second he could hear more and more different voices. It were people's voices young and old. Male and female.

He could not control himself any longer but he did not give up yet. He could not give up yet. he was starting to lose his strength. Everything was slowly fading, he could not see anything anymore. He had lost consciousness again. He couldn't think.

He heard a different voice now, it was a soothing voice. The voice was that from a young female. The voice told him to break this curse. He could see memories in his head. It were not his own. It were the voice her memories. A memory of her hugging another person what seemed like her mother, a memory of her dancing in the grass.

Everything faded again. Once he regained consciousness he was outside of the forest. He was laying down on the street with his backpack on his stomach. He did not remember picking it up. For some reason he was sweating, what had he experienced in that forest?

He took off his jacket and saw red imprints of hands on it. It was blood that couldn't dry. He didn't think anything of it. He had lost all of his memories already. He started walking away from the forest. It felt like he had just fought a battle of life and death. But he could not remember what it was.

It had been a long time since he had left the forest. He did not know why but he started avoiding every forest he saw. He was scared of those trees, he was scared of the shadows within.

As he walked more and more, he started losing his strength and his sanity. His beard and hair had grown long. He had no fat and barely any muscles, he was a skinny as a needle.

He had stopped using toilet paper a long time ago, there was no need for it anymore. He didn't even remember what it was. The red coloured imprints of hands were still on his jacket. The blood still hadn't dried. He could not remember where he got this jacket from. He did not remember anything at all. Was it his own jacket or had he stolen it from someone else, he did not know. The jacket was comfortable but he had been wearing it for so long that it was basically a part of his body now.

He came across a small city. He did the usual things that he had always done when he was in a city. He stayed there for a while looking around. Looking left and right. Looking for food and water. He opened his bag to check what he still had and noticed a book.

He took it out of the bag, it was heavy. The cover was black and the title was written in silver letters. It was a book called "Time". He had forgotten where he had gotten this book from. Has it always been in his bag? He did not question it more and started reading it.

The book was about a boy who hated humanity. The boy had created a curse in order to get rid of what he hated. He knew all kinds of tricks like stopping time. How he had learned those tricks was a mystery. No one knew how he had done it and no one would ever be able to do what he had done.

He set out on a journey only killing those he hated. He hated the silence so he made sure that he could hear at least one thing, it was the sound of him drinking water. This way he was able to keep his sanity.

But his sanity could not stay like that forever. It started out slow, but he lost all of it. He started killing the innocent and the good. He did not care anymore who he killed he just wanted humanity gone. No matter what you would do, new ones would be born, those new ones could be good or bad. It was not worth taking the risk. There was no need for them. They did not need to stay alive.

But the man knew that he was not immortal. So he made himself immortal in this stopped time, he would only be able to die if time ever moved again.

Even though he was immortal he didn't have the will to continue doing this. Every day he killed less and less people. At one point he had enough, he was tired of it.

He stumbled upon a forest with giant trees. There were animals and bushes. He burned all of it. He didn't let a single one stay. He looked at the giant trees, this was a perfect place to die he thought. But he could not die. So he made a change again where he could be in a position where he wasn't alive nor dead.

He would need to hang himself for that, only then he could be at peace. He still had his dream of purging humanity, so he made sure that he had people who followed up in his footsteps. If they would stray from their path he would just whisper in their head, he would just tell them what to do.

It was an endless loop that seemed like it would only be broken when he had achieved his goal. But a curse could be broken if the loop got disturbed. But the boy did not think about that, after all he had the voices with him. The voices of the dead.

He was done reading the book. While he was reading he had noticed fingerprints onto the pages of the book. They were red, but they were barely visible. He did not pay any attention to it. The story was intriguing but had nothing to do with him. He could not remember anything anymore from the past months. He had only learned that forests were dangerous.

He was not searching anymore. He did not try anymore. He had already given up. He could feel regret but he did not know why he felt it. He could not remember anything. He was just a shell without any insides. He had lost everything.

He knew that the next time he would hear the voices he would not be able to fight them off anymore. He would not be able to control himself anymore. With those thoughts in mind he fell asleep. He had no dreams and no nightmares.

When he woke up he ate the fruits that he had stolen from the shop. He did not taste anything. He hadn't tasted anything in a long time. He could not even remember if he ever had the ability to taste anything.

He filled his backpack with food and water. His eyes fell on a glass bottle. It had a name but he did not remember what it stood for, even though he had just read a book he could not understand language anymore. It looked like water to him so he put it in his bag.

He continued walking and was ready to leave this city. His legs already started to hurt, he was tired of the pain. He needed something to help him walk. He looked around and found a thick stick laying on the ground. He took it. The stick looked sturdy. He could walk better now, he had something he could rely on now. And so he walked again, he did not have a destination.