The painted eyes on the trees always gave Avwyn the shivers.
She didn’t like them. Any time she got close enough to the outskirts of the camp, when the edge of the Kelp Forests were in sight, she would see them. Eyes, everywhere, bright white to stand out from the darkness of the forest.
The stories that flitted around the camp were just as bad.
“They found him,” one of her fellows had told her the other day. “Densin.”
Avwyn gasped. Densin had gone missing, and maybe this meant he had been rescued.
“He tried to desert,” her fellow said, shaking his head sadly. “…they found… well. What was left of him.” He shuddered. “It got to him before we did.”
It was an awful way to die, everyone agreed.
If you were smart, you didn’t desert. If you were suicidal, you deserted and got caught by the army. They’d kill you real fast, bullet through the brain.
If you were stupid, you’d desert and try to get out.
If you were stupid, the thing in the woods got you.
Anyone who went into the Kelp Forests, anywhere near the front lines, never came back.
People painted the eyes on the trees as a reminder. It was rumored that there was a pair of eyes on the border for every soldier the monster had killed.
Which, if Avwyn’s count was correct, meant the monster had killed over thirty deserters. And those were just the eyes she could see. Who knew if there were more sets on the Calmar side.
She’d grown up on spooky tales about the woods, of course. Her parents trying to deter her from running off as a little kid.
But this…
This fear was real. Tangible. It was alive, teeming through the camp, just as thick as the fear of being gunned down.
They said it never went into the camps, but surely that wouldn’t last forever. Someday it would leave the forest and it wouldn’t care what side of the war you were on. It would tear you to shreds.
Avwyn rubbed at her arms, staring out at the forest.
Dozens of sets of eyes stared back.
None of them were real. She tried to tell herself this, to convince herself that this was just as much a folktale as the stories her parents told her as a child.
But she thought about the drawing one of her superiors had made, one who had claimed to see the beast. She couldn’t help picturing the massive, hulking form, the sharp teeth, glowing white eyes, the bearskin draped around its shoulders, its claws. The creature itself was terrifying. But she had always found it more frightening, somehow, that it wore the pelt of one of the creatures of olde.
It wasn’t real. At least, she tried to tell herself this. It couldn’t be real. Things like that just didn’t exist in real life.
No one who went into the forest ever returned.
But no one came back from the trenches, either.
Avwyn had two choices. Take her chances with the woods, or die by Calmar guns in a few days.
True, the gun would probably be quicker than being torn apart by the beast, but…
She had to try. She hadn’t quite given up hope yet.
She sprinted towards the woods.
For some reason she had expected more fanfare. She had expected alarms, search lights, squads with their guns drawn and hounds on her scent. She had expected a wild chase, a physical fear right behind her, to solidify the terror she felt, to make it real. For the camp to reach for her the moment she stepped from its walls.
Instead there was only the whispering of the wind in the trees, the hammering of her own heart, the sound of her breath, and the thundering of her footsteps as she ran. Instead the camp let her go, let the forest wrap itself around her.
She ran, and ran, and ran until she couldn’t possibly run anymore.
Avwyn leaned on a tree to catch her breath and looked around.
The forest was dense. It let no moonlight in, making it much darker than the camp. Everything seemed… stretched. The trees too tall, their limbs too long, shadows twisting.
She turned in a slow circle.
She had no idea which way the camp was.
Fear clawed up her throat. This was the monster in the woods. The woods themselves. The Kelp Forests were impenetrable. People told stories about it being protected by an ancient magic, keeping anyone from coming and going, keeping either side from tearing it down to make more space.
The woods took up valuable land, land they needed. That was what the whole war was, a desperate clash for land as the oceans rose.
Avwyn let out a frustrated scream, sinking to her knees in the soft dirt.
She was going to die out here.
She would die, the claws of hunger, jaws of thirst tearing her apart as surely as any bear, the hulking form of hopelessness creeping up on her. She would die, and the eyes of her corpse would turn milky white.
She sobbed on the forest floor.
Eventually she wiped at her face and gathered herself to her feet. She had nothing left to lose. She was doomed to die. She might as well prolong it if she could.
She didn’t know much about surviving in the woods, but she knew she would need water.
So… so she would wander aimlessly until she heard water and could find a stream or river.
Not a great plan, but it was something. Something to hold on to, to keep her from going insane.
But just as she began to set off, there was a soft thump behind her.
Avwyn froze, her heart pounding as near-silent footsteps approached her.
The shadow of a massive thing towered over her.
Just when she had become convinced the monster was a metaphor, when she believed it was the woods themselves that would kill her, here it was. The thing she had been told would tear her apart, creeping up behind her to do just that.
She turned around. If she was going to die like this, she wanted to see what the monster in the woods truly looked like.
The thing was huge, perhaps seven and a half feet tall, broad as an oak. It was draped in a bearskin, and its eyes were a pale grey in the darkness.
But it was just a man.
A very large, very scary man, yes. But he had no claws, his eyes did not glow, and his hair was pulled back into a messy bun. A Nirayon, she was sure of it. Under the bearskin he wore a pale green tunic and simple brown pants, both of which appeared to be made of linen. A large hunting knife rested at his hip.
Avwyn’s voice was shaking when she spoke.
“Who are you?” she managed, much less demanding than she had hoped for. “Are you what kills deserters in these woods?”
The man tilted his head at her. “The monster?”
His voice was low and rough, and sounded underused, as though he rarely spoke to anyone at all.
Avwyn managed a nod.
He nodded back. “I am it.”
Avwyn’s eyes widened, taking a slow step back.
The man extended his hand to her. There were still no claws. It was just a hand. A very large, very strong one, but just a hand.
“I can help you,” he said simply. “I am Oma.”
◉ ◉
Oma led the deserter back to their cabin.
She was a Meran, which was always easier – their refugee camps were closer – and she seemed brave, which would help.
They got her settled in the safehouse, which was a little ways off from Oma’s cabin. Her name was Avwyn, apparently, which was nice. Only two syllables, no last name. Just like Oma.
They were always more comfortable with people of their own status. And they could help Avwyn.
They brought her food and water, and told her of the plan for the following morning. She seemed upset at the realization that there truly was nothing beyond the woods, that the only place she could go was the refugee camp disguised as a civilian. But she was smart, and recognized that it was her best chance at a long life, if perhaps not a happy one.
But the next morning she had changed her mind.
“We leave now,” Oma said. They had to go while it was early, make the most of the light.
“No,” Avwyn replied. “I don’t want to die in a refugee camp.”
Oma blinked at her owlishly, confused.
“I’d rather die helping you get people out,” she continued, folding her arms over her chest as though she was very determined. “I won’t roll over and be useless while this war kills my fellows. I want to help you save people.”
Oma stared at her quietly for a long time.
“It’s thankless work,” they said eventually.
“I don’t care,” Avwyn decided.
“It’s lonely,” they continued.
“Not anymore,” she replied. “Not while we both live. Right?”
Very, very slowly, they nodded.
Avwyn grinned at them.
It was fierce, determined, and so incredibly alive. She was right. They couldn’t picture her in a refugee camp. She seemed to have accepted the fact of her premature death, knowing this could not last forever, but that at least she would die saving those she cared about. She spoke frequently of the many ways she could die – caught while helping someone out of camp, spotted on the wrong side of enemy lines, attacked by a creature, simply injured by accident. She was convinced her time was short and theirs was not, despite Oma being in just the same peril.
But as the months passed, Oma had a harder and harder time accepting this as well.
The apparent fact of her imminent death seemed unreal. She was too violently alive to be anything but. There was simply no other option. She had to be wrong. She couldn’t always be right, after all.
Avwyn made Oma look like a coward. Avwyn ran back into the camps to remove people herself.
They asked her, once, how she knew who to ask. How she knew which soldiers would follow her without question into the woods, which ones wouldn’t turn her in and get her killed.
“There’s a way they look at the forest,” she had replied, gesturing around them both at the never-ending woods. “I can’t explain it. You just know. You look at them and they look at the trees and you know.”
Oma never understood this. They couldn’t do that, couldn’t look at someone and know.
But then again, Avwyn never learned the woods like they did.
Avwyn would laugh and follow them blindly, and ask how they knew where they were going.
“What landmarks do you use to get home?” she had asked.
Oma had frowned, and looked at the woods around them. They placed a hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. “He tells me where to go,” they said simply.
“You talk to the trees,” Avwyn said flatly, raising an eyebrow.
Oma shrugged. “He knows me.”
“Okay,” Avwyn agreed, and never asked again.
She never doubted their direction, though, and always followed where they led. And they never doubted who she picked to get out.
They didn’t understand each other. But they trusted each other, and that was all they needed.
“Do I have it?” Oma asked, once. They were in a clearing, laying in the grass. The sun was warm. Oma had work to do. They weren’t doing it. Neither was Avwyn.
“Have what?” she asked, rolling onto her side to face them.
“The… the look,” Oma said, glancing at her. “If I were in the camps, would you pick me?”
Avwyn tilted her head slightly. She half-crawled over to them, sitting up so she could peer down at their face. They let her. They found her fascinating. They didn’t mind her being close to them, and didn’t mind her studying them like a strange type of bug. They were sure they looked at her the same way, sometimes. They seemed to confuse each other to no end. Somehow, that was why it worked.
“You know something?” Avwyn said slowly, still staring down at them.
“What?” Oma prompted when she didn’t continue. Her eyes were so very brown.
“I’d pick you,” she said, as though it were fact. “Every time.”
Oma stared up at her.
They didn’t quite know what that meant, but they liked the sound of it.
She smiled down at them, upside-down.
They smiled back. They hadn’t smiled in a long time. There was no one to smile at. Now there was.
“You know something?” Oma asked this time.
Avwyn shook her head. “Tell me.”
Oma stared up at her. They reached up, tapping her temple with one finger, right beside the corner of her eye. “Your eyes could grow a new forest each,” they said simply, as though it were fact.
“I don’t know what that means,” Avwyn said, smiling down at them. “But it sounds nice.”
“It is,” Oma agreed. “It is nice.”
“Would you be able to talk to the trees in those forests, too?” Avwyn asked.
Oma hummed, thinking. They let their hand fall back to their side, the other arm sprawled loosely above their head, near where she was sitting. She didn’t seem to mind. They remembered distantly when she was scared of them. It seemed a million years ago.
“I don’t know,” Oma said eventually. “I think they’d be like you. The trees here are like me.”
Avwyn laughed softly. “Cryptic and strange?” she asked, ghosting her fingers through their hair.
Oma smiled at her laugh. “Something like that.”
“I like your cryptic strangeness,” she said.
“I thought we were talking about you.”
And she laughed again, tossing her head back, and pushed their shoulder, and they grinned and didn’t move, just stayed sprawled out on the warm grass like that as the bullet shattered through her skull and sent her blood spraying across the clearing.
◉ ◉
Oma looked up at the sound of crunching footsteps.
They crept towards the sound.
There was a man, spinning in aimless circles. He was in the center of a clearing, warm sunlight filtering through the trees and playing in the long grass. He was a Meran. He held no gun, and was clearly frightened.
They smiled to themself. He had the look. He must have done, or the trees wouldn’t have led them here, to this clearing.
They stepped towards him.
He jumped, whirling to face them. “What – what are you?” he demanded, voice wavering with fear. “You – you are the monster!”
They extended their hand towards him. “I am,” they said.
He stared at them, their hand. His expression was wary. He would settle in a refugee camp and live the rest of his days there. He had the look. They were sure of it.
