[pre]Whispers in the dark
Everyone hears
Something about the dark
It makes us listen to our fears
Paint a face on your desire
Paint a picturesque view of your heart
Take a slice of all the answers
The riddle ends where all your daydreams start
“Whispers in the Dark”- Obsession Indecent
Chapter 2: Of Fears and Shadows
Immediately she was assaulted by the big golden Labrador named Molly. Molly’s nose and tongue instantly made an inspection of all of Sara’s extremities and, once satisfied, moved on to her face. Sara grimaced at the onslaught of doggy kisses and immediately pushed Molly away.
“No! Molly, stop! Down!” She howled at the dog as she made straight for the book clutched in her hand.
Teeth flashed in a grin as the dog took the object in her mouth and raced off through the backyard.
“Molly! Stop!”
She was screaming now, screaming and laughing, as she raced after the mutt. The two of them raced back and forth across the yard, weaving complex patterns through the grass as the game continued. Eventually Sara collapsed onto the ground, panting, and Molly came over too, also panting. Both of them sat there, catching their breath. Sara noticed Molly was now sans book. She frowned.
“Oh, you are in big trouble, Miss,” she said, trying to copy her mother’s best stern tone of voice.
Molly whined pathetically and Sara softened a bit. She looked over the ground that was scattered with chewed up dog toys in various stages of being eaten. Her book was lying a few feet away, looking none the worse for wear. Smiling, she got up, grabbed a tennis ball and threw it with all of her might without looking at which direction she was throwing. Immediately the dog was up and racing after it.
It was too late when Sara realized where she had thrown the ball. Into the woods. Sara groaned. It was a rule in their house that the woods were off limits without a grown-up with you.
The reason, her mother’s voice said sternly, popping into her head from out of nowhere, is because the woods are largely untamed and that it is all too easy for little girls to get hurt or lost in there if they were go in by themselves.
Sara snapped out of her reverie as her mother’s voice finished its spiel. She did a small dance of agitation on the lawn. Stupid Molly, always getting her into trouble. She glanced over her shoulder to look at the house. All of the blinds were shut. She glanced at the woods again; resolve hardening her face but still she hesitated. She wasn’t the type to go actively seeking ways to disobey her mother. She followed the household rules fairly well. Except sometimes she forgot or didn’t feel like doing them, but all the other times she obeyed them. And she had never felt compelled to go against this rule. It wasn’t because she wasn’t curious, because she was, but it was because the woods scared her.
Sara didn’t think there wasn’t anything wrong with being scared of the woods. She wasn’t a scaredy-cat like most of the kids in her class, or a carelessly reckless like the rest of them. No, Sara thought she had an appropriate amount of fears for a girl of her size. For example she was scared of bugs, but not of snakes. She didn’t like heights but she had no problem with small spaces. She loved the water but hated the woods. And she didn’t like broccoli. All evidence of a perfectly acceptable balance, and it wasn’t her fault that the woods were disproportionately close to her house; she hadn’t been around when they had built it after all.
Sara looked back at the house again. Still dark and empty, exactly as it had been two seconds ago. Sara turned back around and took a deep breath, starting off towards the woods. The trees seemed to grow unreasonably taller and more intimidating the closer she got to them. Their branches hung low on their trunks, blocking her way as if they were soldiers in the revolutionary war and she was a British Red coat.
“But I’m not British,” she said aloud to the trees, absurdly, but at the time it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
The trees didn’t relax their intimidating pose. Taking another deep breath, Sara took a few more steps and found herself past the tree line. Immediately she shivered. The forest was all shadows, the limbs on the trees so thick that hardly any sunlight made its way to the ground. Something snapped in the underbrush, and she jumped. In her head, Sara knew that she was being unreasonable, but at that moment she was just barely holding it together at all.
“Molly,” she called out miserably. “Molly, where are you?”
There was no answer from the dog. Again the rational part of her brain told her that the dog had probably been scavenging in these woods many times before, but the part of her in control at that moment was seized with an irrational fear that the dog was hurt somewhere, afraid and alone in the deepest, darkest part of the woods, dying, and probably tangled in branches and weeds, being attacked by giant spiders and blood-thirsty bears.
Sara shouted for Molly louder than before. In her haste to find the dog she went crashing and crying among the trees and thorns, getting farther and farther from the tree line and her blessedly barren backyard. Eventually she stopped to catch her breath. Her nose, cheeks, and hands were red, partly from exertion, but mostly because it was a cold, October day and she had left her jacket and mittens inside the now gloriously welcome, warm kitchen.
On the verge of crying, Sara tried to take stock of her surrounding and failed miserably. All she could think about was the horrible misfortune that seemed to have befallen her today. She was lost and alone in the middle of the woods, without a jacket and no sunlight to be found. Her dog, her friend and only ally back home, was probably dead somewhere, being eaten by savage spiders and bears.
In sheer exhaustion at the magnitude of her predicament, Sara began to cry. Tears fell freely from her eyes as she fought the racking sobs that threatened to escape her. Suddenly, a loud snap sounded from right behind her. Squeaking in fright, Sara whirled around and found herself face to face with a pair of cold, gray eyes. She fell down in surprise and yelped loudly as her elbow scrapped the dirt floor. [/pre]
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