The Forest Jester

In the forest, there was a young girl, about 10 or 11 years old, sitting in the midst of the trees, but she had no idea where she was or that there were even trees surrounding her. All she knew was that there was thick, white fog that made it nearly impossible for her to see but 6 inches from her face. And the air was so brisk and cold that it hurt for her to breathe. And there was laughter. A distant laughter that sounded hysterical and yet somewhat melancholy, like whatever it was coming from had been waiting there, laughing, for a very long time. But what was it coming from? The young girl had no idea.

* * * * *

The fog was beginning to rise as the laughter became less and less distant. The little girl began to realize that she was in the forest, but she had no idea how she arrived there. All she knew was that she woke up in the cold, gasping for breath, and now there was something out there. Something malevolent. Something out to get her.

As the fog was rising, so was the girl. She got up and looked around, trying to make out the direction the laugh was coming from so she could bolt the other way. She spun in circles, growing more and more dizzy with each turn and each little step, scouring for the laugh. But it seemed to be like surround sound. Everywhere she turned, the laugh sounded the same, slowly creeping closer and closer.

She was so afraid of what she was experiencing that she froze. She couldn’t move, and her eyes seeled shut. She just wanted it to be over. She wished and prayed that whatever was out there laughing would just lunge out and take her and make it all end quickly. And then the laughing stopped.

Just as quickly as she froze, she broke into a sprint. She had no idea where she was going or where the laugh had gone; she just started running. Past tree after tree, tripping and fumbling over the roots, she raced through the forest, desperately striving for a way out, when the laugh erupted out of the silence, louder than it ever was before.

This caused her to stop so abruptly that momentum carried her several more feet, tossed her into a pile of rocks, and caused her to hit her head with such force that it left a several inch gash on her forehead, bleeding into her eyes and distorting her view. The blood dripped from her head, licking at her lips as it fell past her eyes, causing her to gag, before slipping onto the dirt floor. The blood loss caused her to feel undeniably uneasy and made her momentarily forget about the fear. She rose from the ground, the laughter still chirping in the background, and took a few steps before falling back to the dirt and becoming catatonicly unconscious.

* * * * *

“Dad, catch!” a young girl, barely above the age of 6, yelled behind the sweetest of innocent giggles.

“Good one, baby,” a young, cheerful man said in return. “Now you’ve got to catch it.”

It was a game of catch and toss played between a father and his daughter. One of the fondest and last memories the daughter has of her late dad is from before she even understood death. And now it was looking into her eyes and reaching out for her soul. And while she knew death was chasing her, she allowed her mind to ruminate on those long, distant thoughts, feeling the warmth she had felt when she was actually there. Letting it take over her body and drown out the fright. She felt so good.

Is this the joyous 7 minutes we experience before brain death? Is this what we see before we die? Is this what it means to have life flash before your eyes?

* * * * *

Laughter like an evil scream pierced the ears of the fallen girl, jolting her out of her slumber, blood still covering her face and pooling beneath her on the ground. The girl rose from her position in the dirt and looked around, the world spinning in her view, and began to creep towards a tree for support. The laughter, although it was the loudest it had been, didn’t seem to matter. All she could think about was the sharp pain and the metallic taste of blood staining her tongue. She tried to stand up straight and walk, the deafening sound of the laughter becoming more apparent, but only walked about half a step before collapsing back into the grasp of the tree. Then she noticed something. The rocks were gone. She was back where she started, in the middle of the woods, with no idea how she got there or how to get out. And with the laughter growing stronger and beginning to ring in her ears, she tried to run again, in the same direction she had before, but she didn’t make it too far before crashing back into the muddy dirt. She began to drag her dead weight, trying desperately to crawl away from where she was, when she noticed a dark figure in the corner of her eye. It was standing behind a tree, moving in such a fashion that it seemed as if it were laughing, the shoulders bouncing up and down in a rhythmic way, as one’s would when they were laughing hysterically.

The girl froze yet again, staring eyes wide open at the shadowy figure just to the right of where she was laying, and began to scream a shrill of a scream at the top of her lungs and turned in the other direction, dragging herself as fast as she possibly could, which was not very fast. The blood was still staining her eyes, making it difficult to see as it was now gushing from the wound and making even the driest dirt turn to mud. And the searing laughter stopped, so all the young girl could hear was the sound of footsteps. Now, instead of laughter, she was trying to evade the stride of the shadow, but at the speed she was going, it was unlikely that she’d be able to evade anything.

The girl stopped moving entirely at the sight of the shadow. It’s feet were now directly in front of her. She slowly began to wrench her head upward, looking at the face of the silhouette, and just as they made eye contact, the shadow reached it’s hand out towards the girl’s face, grabbing at the torn flesh on her forehead and ripping it from the bone with fierce force, peeling from forehead to chin, not even leaving her lips behind, causing the girl to let out a scream of sheer pain that could only be heard in nightmares. The shadow dropped the skin of her face directly in front of her, and with what little sight she had left, she was able to make eye contact with the eyeless holes in her skin, and with that, all of the might left in her frail little body urged her to turn around and keep crawling as quickly as she could. But it wasn’t quick enough. With blood spurting from her face, it really didn’t matter how fast she moved; she would be dead either way. But the shadowy figure wanted to be the one to take her out, and he would be.

The shadow grabbed her foot and began to drag her backwards, her skinless face scraping against the sticks and rocks on the ground, causing the most immense pain yet. Once she was back in the very spot she was before, laying beside her face, the shadow rolled her over, looked her in the eyes, and ripped at the skin on her neck, causing even more blood to spurt out, falling like rain on the area around her. She screamed, cried, and whined sounds she didn’t know she could make, her consciousness slowly leaving her at the same rate the blood was. And in her last moments, she heard the laughter ring out again, and at last she was playing ball with her dad.