The Woods (unedited)

            The Woods have always been there as far as I am concerned. Since the dawn of time it has always existed. I watched it sprout from the ground when it was nothing more than mere leaves and shoots as all life has always begun. Centuries and decades after, look what it has been turned into. If you have lived as long as I did, surely someday you will be bored of just sitting around and watching the world turn round and round and round until God decides it comes to a halt and sends me away forever. So why not have my fun now?

            I made the Woods’ history. I am its author and its ruler. I am who decides what happens – or more like who enters – here. They called it the Wood of Suicides for a reason. You see... what I do is this: I, in my own fun, in my own time like to drag people into this place and just watch themselves take their own life, without any consent. In this day and age, people tend to be so troubled and burdened with their own lives. Suicide rates are increasing and I am a contributor. In the world, people ask for contributions. Death comes to me as well.

            Here’s the story of how it started. Like most “haunted” stories, it always starts in the darkest of times, in England, in a small little village away from all politics and war. For someone like me, it never occurred to me as to why I have not done this earlier until I have watched many hangings done – although I did like the torture instruments of the Spanish Inquisition than the noose – until I came to think “hey, I can stage hangings my ownself in the woods”.

            I found my chance in a boy in the golden days of his youth. Like most people his age, he was deeply in love. It’s been so long and names have never been much of my niche. As I mentioned, he was in love and people in love tend to be foolish. They would do all they can to “take the moon out of the sky” for his love and will eventually just capture the moon in a basin of water. Humans amuse me with their idiocy sometimes. Back to the story: a youth in love will always be the biggest fool and it is always, always certain that he will experience the biggest heartbreak a man will ever in his life.

            Well, I, of course was the puppeteer behind this series of events. See, though it was in superstitious times, the superstitions of people was based on what they could see and see happen rather than what was inside their own heads. The thing about being me is that I control people and manipulate them without their knowing.

            I took the opportunity to slowly take control over everything in his life. Yeah, sure he did tried to court the girl and even so subtly tried to draw her away from the village into the woods – there was no fatalities at that time, he was the first – to have “some time” with her. It was fun watching all these happen, but as I said, I was the director of this film – as you would say now – and I had her humiliate him in front of everyone. How? Boys are foolish. He wanted her to marry him and this was what I did: I had him run around the village naked to “prove his love for her”, and then propose to her in front of the entire village. Here’s my plot twist: I had her put her foot in between his thighs and walk off, leaving him there in humiliation as she calls him a person without dignity and that she can never ever marry a person as such.

            The poor boy went home carrying himself and weeping as any man would. He became the joke of the village and in a small village where everybody knew everybody, news spread fast. “Surely there was a way out of this”, you might say. However, I liked to have fun. Sure he could’ve left for somewhere and started a life anew in another village, but I wanted things to be different. When people are broken, they tend to leave behind a huge hole in their soul, like how a city would be after a trebuchet launched its missiles into the city walls. His soul was vulnerable and I breached it, possessing him entirely. I’m sure he would be terrified when he realised that he was unable to move and to find that his whole body was not subject to his head. I had him hastily write a letter addressed to his parents stating very simply this:

I have left this place before my time. Heaven be my witness and Hell shall take me. Look to the woods. Find me there.

            I led him out of his house, stopping by the stables to find a spare reel of rope and a barrel for leverage. Silently I led him even more to the woods. His eyes were wide with terror and red from all that time of crying. I was sure he wanted to scream, but since I was in control of him, a sly smile spread across his face, being the only reflection of me in him. I took him into the deepest part of the woods and there hastily tied a noose as I have seen it done so many times in that Dark Age. I found a solid branch to hang it on and I did and tested it. I guided his head to the noose and placed it there. There was nothing he could do now. I gave him possession of his body once again and kicked the barrel under him. I watched him struggle with himself as the life left his eyes. He looked like a fish struggling to release itself off the hook. I was very much amused and I decided that I will add more souls to my collection. To this day, I have collected much and is now very much known as the Wood of Suicides.