It knew I was dreaming, as one always knows when they are trapped in a dream by the heavy stupor in every limb. I knew I was not in a dark labyrinth of trees and turned over trunks, in reality I knew that I was not being stalked by anything other than a wildly out of control imagination. But that knowledge didn't quite the hammering in my chest, the rushing of cold blood in my veins, not did it stop my feet from moving slowing, from taking me deeper into unknown.
The leaves shook as I pasted them, 'Stop. Go back,' they said to me. But I did not or could not listen. Forward I pushed, ignorantly seeking cover from the rising slick fear of being hunted, tracked, by something with eyes in every opened weave in the canopy of branches above me. In the purple moonlight I felt them watching me, on and on I moved like a ghost through mist. What could it be, I asked myself as I passed yet another looming tree, what creature could possibly be stalking my steps.
I don't know how long I walked, it could have been an eternity, months or a mere minutes--in dreams time often looses all meaning, it falls away. After a while my lungs were quivering from the frigid night air, so I pressed my face to the rough bark of an less offending giant. It's trunk shivered at the moment my cheek rested against it, either because of the harsh ice of my fast coming breath or because of the fear leaking out from my pores. I was acutely aware of being lead somewhere...but unable to know for certain.
"Where is he leading me?" I shouted at still forest, in a quite desperation. I needed to wake soon, I knew it, but I could not feel my way back. I could not feel where I knew my body was laying in slumber. Quietly, and quite suddenly a sob escaped my lips, and tears trickled down my cheeks.
"Go back. Stop, dear girl, he sees all. You're playing his game," I heard the trees speak with age and dirt. "Go back the way you came and don't stop for anything. GO! NOW!"
Without a second thought I turned to go the way I came from but from the corner of my eye I saw a blue haze in the distance. Draw like a moth to the flicking flame of death I walked towards it, my hands out stretched to touch it's beauty.
"NO! Stop, the game, dear turn and go home."
I heard the tree through a muffled cotton wool fog but I did not heed his warning, instead I watched with hot fascination as the luminous Dahlia surged with color. It was just a little further, three maybe four steps and I could feel it's smooth silky petals beneath my fingers.
"This is how he wins!"
One step. The flower bloomed and grew twice it's size before my eyes.
"Stop, dear girl! STOP!"
Two steps and the color went from bright glowing blue to a pulsing lupine. As always this color captured me, like the one I saw in the mirror every morning. It was such a alluring color.
One more step and I'd be where I wanted to be, but I couldn't move. My arms were glued to seemingly nothing and my legs suspend in mid air, as was my body. Sticky threads of glistening tendrils wove themselves around my body, hold me still, the paralysis seeping into my bones.
"What is this," I asked weakly, as my eyelids drooped lower.
"This is how he wins." The tree spoken mournfully before I lose my grip on the heliotrope woodland.
It was dark, that much I could see from my place in my bed. I shivered and was quickly reminded that I had left the window open before I drifted off to sleep. The moon was full and bright through the screen, sending rays of white light into my sanctuary. I went to move, the shut the window but my arms did not obey the command, neither did my legs. I opened my mouth to scream, to alarm anyone with ears to my distress but nothing ripped through the silence in the room. My mouth stayed opened in a quite scream as ice cold tears fell down my cheeks and that is when I saw it.
The same sticky threads of glistening tendrils, wrapped around the drapes that hung in front of my bed, stretched over the corners of the walls, and winding around the post of the iron bed. Afraid of what I would find I glanced down to see my body tightly cocooned in the same threads of paralysis.
I heard a ghostly chuckle from the corner, and out of the shadows came my hunter, shaking his head. The gleam in his eyes--more than two-- as he walked slowly towards the foot of my bed lanced my heart with the realization that this would be the night I died.
"Shush," he cooed, caressing my face his hands."He warned you, didn't he?" A voice serenely dispassionate made it's way to my ears. "No, matter. I have my tricks as well. Did you like the flower?" I saw the same lupine flower twirling between his fingers, so many fingers. It was more beautiful than in the forest. He smiled, showing me his razor sharp teeth and placed the dahlia on my wed covered chest. Pressing a kiss to my wet cheek he whispered against my skin, "It's the least I could do."
I could nothing more than watch as silk flew from his hand to the spot on the ceiling I had the habit of staring at when sleep evaded me. More threads, woven together in intricate patterns, shinning with beads, attached itself on to the ceiling a dripped down until it was hovering over my mouth. The beads ran together, sliding down like a rivulets of water falling from the sky. I was captured by the beauty of those unknown drops of diamonds, fascinated as it dripped slowly down the tendrils. I wondered what it would taste like...perhaps sweet like honey.
"Open your mouth." He commanded in a hoarse voice.
I did as he said and the moment the drop landed on my tongue I knew that this was how he won. As a thousand tiny pin pricks of pain shot through me, as I felt the blood being drawn out, I knew that this was how he won.
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