The Hermitic Woodsman

A viscous, cumbersome mist crept along the dew-laden vegetation of the forest floor. Gloomy towers of oak, birch, and pine loomed above, striving to block out the new day's light. A dull thud shattered the seemingly impenetrable stillness of the forest as a woodsman's axe hacked away at the damp flesh of the pine before him.

The aged figure stood back and admired his work as yet another of his victims crashed down to the forest floor. He wiped the sweat from his wrinkled brow, embedded his axe in the sodden earth beside him, and sat on the stump of the newly felled tree. Dense umbrage towered above the woodsman in every direction, it made him feel small and insignificant, it always did; he supposed that was why he'd settled there in the first place.

Few people knew of the woodsman's existence in the forest; this was by design. It seemed several lifetimes ago that he'd known the hustle and bustle of crowds that lined the streets of his hometown. Before he'd started a new life at this hermitage he'd had a family and friends, but the years had turned him into a gnarled, misanthropic creature that shunned companionship. In fact, he shunned the very daylight itself. Instead, he took solace in the shadows of the forest, and if there was ever a passer-by he would often take refuge in the thick foliage and lie in wait until they were out of sight, lest they notice him and disturb his solitude.

He felt a chill lurking in the air and was reminded of the cold nights he'd spent fleeing his previous life, struggling in the hostile woods without shelter or food. Still sitting on the stump, he wondered if anyone remembered the man he used to be, but rapidly shook off the familiar notion and set about carving the pine's carcass into heaps of firewood. His isolation had now reduced him to something that was less than a man. He grunted and spluttered as his worn axe came thundering down again and again upon the fallen trunk. Steaming breath poured from his flared nostrils above a bristled and curling upper lip. Finally satisfied, he packed the fresh timber into his coarse hessian sack, and started to trudge his way back through the unwelcoming multitude of flora that inhabited the forest.

Even on the best of days, the woodsman's paranoia could often take control of him. He was convinced of the existence of menacing phantasms that would lie just beyond his field of vision, stalking him from the shadows. The creeping fog served only to intensify his hallucinations. He ploughed on across marshy terrain, but his progress was hampered as he repeatedly halted, stricken with dread, certain he could make out all manner of fiends and spectres approaching him from the thick haze.

Despite his trepidation, he continued to advance, and the apparitions would fade into the mist just as quickly as they had appeared. His boots squelched through the mire with every step, and the muscles of his wiry frame seethed with exertion under the burden of the firewood. Eventually, this became too much to bear and he let the sack slump to the ground, allowing himself a moment's respite, observing the ghostly scene that surrounded him.

A foreboding arboretum rose from the boggy earth and penned him in from all sides. Even when looking directly up, the light of an overcast, languorous sky barely made it down through the twisting and clawing limbs of the trees. Sepulchral silence enveloped this eerie landscape, and for some time the only perceptible sound was the thudding of veins pulsing in the woodsman's clammy temples. The burning in his limbs began to subside. He scratched at his bewhiskered face with filth-encrusted fingernails and resolved to continue his struggle, but as he stooped down to gather his belongings, the crying of a young girl began to ring out from the murky vastness of the fog.

The woodsman frantically scoured his surroundings for the source of the weeping but to no avail. The cries ceased to abate and instead swelled into an anguished howling. Panic took hold of the woodsman, he threw himself into a crowded thicket and lay prone on the quaggy earth, desperate to remain unnoticed.

His close-set, sunken eyes peered out from the prickly shrubbery, but the source of the wailing was nowhere to be found. Above the awful din now came the sound of small feet patting through the mud. The woodsman retreated further into the thicket, but the steps continued to draw closer at a hurried pace.

The tortured screeching tore at his very psyche as he now cowered face-down in the claggy soil. He shuddered as the scurrying pitter-patter continued to approach until just as the steps neared the exact spot where he had thrown himself into the underbrush, they stopped, and the ungodly cacophony ceased entirely. Unearthly stillness once again consumed the woodland. He looked up to see beyond the twisted roots and branches, the shadowy figure of a child, unmoving in the mist. A strained, croaking, yet uncannily familiar voice floated down from above:

"We have not forgotten, nor forgiven."

This flung the woodsman into a maniacal and mindless rage. He clambered up, clawing at the soft earth. Axe in hand he hurtled out of the thicket, his throaty roar echoing throughout the forest. Serpentine brambles and thorns raked at his skin as he charged. He emerged onto the ground where the child had been stood, but to his puzzlement, found nothing. As he stood in bewilderment at what had just passed, a clattering of jackdaws seemed to cackle at his misfortune in the distance, before taking flight and once again leaving the forest in an eldritch tranquility.

Boiling rage cooled and gave way to a chilling sense of dread. The woodsman dropped to his hands and knees, desperately searching in the mud for a sign of the phantom that had stood before him. He frenziedly probed every inch of the nearby ground like the warped effigy of some fiendish bloodhound but found no tracks other than his own. After an arduous and frenetic search, he returned to his feet, stupefied by what had just passed. With no other avenue available, he resigned himself to continuing onwards and slung the unwieldy sack back over his shoulder.

Mumbling feral imprecations to himself as he marched, the woodsman endured the last of his wearying journey and eventually returned to his home without further hindrance. A dank, lichened hovel built from logs and twigs jutted out from a rocky crag hidden within the forest, its moss-covered roof sloped down towards a yawning ramshackle door that hung on decaying leather hinges. At the back of the roof peered out a teetering stone chimney, and to the side stood the woodsman's log store, where he deposited the day's gatherings.

The door hung ajar as it often did. The woodsman's pink, fleshy hand pushed it open as he stepped inward. He flung his hatchet onto a battered table that sat beneath a row of hanging game. Two rabbits, a pheasant, and a fox all hung lifelessly from the line, their dead eyes staring out from the dimness as if disgusted by the hermit's presence. Taking no notice, he pulled up a stool and began to tend to his fire which lay beneath the crumbling chimney.

Many hours passed as he sat there, pondering the peculiarity of the day's events, the flames dancing before him. Outside, the mist had lifted and a whistling wind had arrived in its place. Watery rabbit stew boiled in a cauldron above the fire, sending out an enticing aroma that drifted up into the woodsman's nostrils, causing him to salivate like a deprived, scavenging animal that had finally stumbled upon some half-consumed remains.

Grease dripped down through his greying whiskers as he flung huge spoonfuls of stew down his gullet. He spat and slavered as his grinding teeth tore the meat apart in his reeking maw. Plunging his face into the near-empty bowl, he licked up the last remnants of his meal as the wind continued to howl outside. Decidedly satiated, he crawled down upon a pile of straw that waited for him in the corner, curled up beneath some fraying cloths and rags, and fell into a troubled and restless slumber.

He tossed and turned throughout the night, haunted by suppressed memories of his previous life's misdeeds. A crumbling stone fell from the dilapidated chimney and skittered across the floor, abruptly awakening him from his tortured visions. The wind still hissed outside as he opened his eyes and looked out across the still room. He noted the blade of his axe, still hanging over the table's edge, glowing red in the dying light of the fire's embers. Suddenly the suffocating grip of a maddening terror clasped around him. He spied crimson droplets falling from the blade's edge, repeatedly they splattered against the floor, before bubbling up into a sanguine ichor that seeped down between wooden slats. His eyes darted about the room. The clutches of his despair squeezed at him more violently now. Out from the sneering mouth of the fireplace came the sound of a laboured, stertorous breathing.

As if in some awful trance, the hermit pulled his body, half-limp with fear, across the slippery floor to the fireplace. A stagnant miasma spilled out and engulfed him, yet he crawled on, transfixed by the breathing, until ultimately he lay there, staring up through the shaft of the chimney into the darkness above.

Two bloodshot, rheumy eyes stared down lifelessly from the shadows, crystalline blue, just as his departed wife's had been. Below them was an unnatural rictus that widened to reveal a boundless set of yellowing teeth. The woodsman shot back in horror, his hands slipping in the ever-growing puddle of scarlet. He lay there frozen as the fireplace birthed a perverse set of elongated limbs. Pale skin stretched and twisted over the atrocity's sinewy muscles as its outspread arms pulled itself into the room. Finally, shrouded by drooping locks of piceous, matted hair came that heinous face. A face that defiled all memory of his life before he had morphed into such a pitiful and hopeless wretch.

Paralyzed with a terror-induced stupor, he watched as the deformity clambered towards him, its sebaceous extremities slapping wetly against the floorboards each time it dragged itself closer. That mocking grin pulled back again. He lay there helplessly as the fiend's monstrous jaws unhinged and opened into a gaping black hole before him. This abyssal tunnel of teeth propelled forward and wrapped around his legs, cold and wet.

His shattered mind could hardly process what was taking place as the undulating monstrosity worked its way up his body. He writhed and clawed but was powerless to free himself from the constricting mass of flesh that enveloped him. This pulsing abomination continued to ingest its prey whilst a child stood watching from the corner, tears streaming from her cerulean eyes. The woodsman heard her cries and despaired as vivid memories of all his wrongdoings flashed before him, until eventually, those fetid, yellow teeth dragged across his face and snapped shut above like the closing of some abhorrent tomb.

Suddenly all was black, all was silent. The woodsman allowed himself to smile. He was finally, truly, alone.