Winterwoods wasted no time in hopping to her hooves and scrambling over to the window. Peering through, she sighed a little at what she saw. Sure enough the woods were fogged over, but this time the thick haze that coated the woods moved slowly, and was a sickly green. Placing a hoof on the glass, she stared out in confusion.
She trembled with the memory of what she’d just experienced, and tried to convince herself that it couldn’t have been real. How else would she still be in her home? Or alive, for that matter? Hoping to write it all off as a really bad dream, she shook her head and made her way back towards her bed. She gasped, started. The bed where she’d been laying mere moments previous was neatly made. On the comforter sat her shawl and satchel. The nagging itch to race out to the woods still lingered in her mind.
“I… I have to go back out there… don’t I?” Winterwoods whispered as she reached for her things. “Something is going on, and something needs to be done. I can feel it. Something… something is terribly wrong.” Having put on her shawl and bag, she walked to the stairs. Looking back to her room one last time, she wished that she had somepony there with her.
Starting at a trot, she crossed the clearing just like before. The sweet scent was still faintly in the air. The crickets, owls and stream once again hummed their nightly tune. She paused briefly at the edge of the thicket and noted how different it was this time. The mist lingered more heavily, and the sickly color was appropriate for the earthy, yet sour smell it carried with it.
Her face twisted in revulsion as the smell assaulted her sensitive nose, but she stepped forward into the trees anyway. The path was wider this time, which made Winterwoods feel all the more nervous. It left her so much more exposed than before. And all the brush around the road appeared to be gone, leaving nowhere to hide if she needed to.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she answered the calling in the back of her mind and continued cautiously onward, doing her best to walk silently. Winterwood’s eyes constantly darted around in search of places she could escape to if need be, but the trees were so dense that such spaces were few and far between. What little she did find would be hard to slip through, especially if she had to run.
Very slightly at first, the pathway began to dip and swerve. The foul scent in the air was growing heavier and the ground became softer and wetter. It was foul, and oily from plant rot. To her dismay, she was soon walking ankle deep in cold mud and clay, and the smell was so nauseating that she feared she’d faint from it. The trees began to thin out, and the visibility of the surrounding area began to improve.
“Where on earth did all this muck come from?” She gawked down at her filthy hooves, the white patches on her legs were stained and caked with the mud. She looked to her surroundings. The forest had gradually degraded into a bog of sorts, and the muck only seemed to deepen with each step. It wasn’t long before Winterwoods began to struggle. Each step took a heave of her whole body, and her only choice was to move towards the remaining trees on her right. It looked like their roots covered more solid soil, and could make travel much easier. Or at least give her a break from the slimy stuff she was in now.
“This would be easier if I knew where I was going,” Winterwoods huffed. “Or if I knew what I’m actually looking for out here.“ She reached for low hanging branches to help pull herself up out of the mud and finally plopped herself onto more substantial ground. Breathing out her exhaustion, she took a look around. The trees were spaced sporadically apart, and through the fog she could see that on the opposite side of the solid ground water began to build on top of the mud.
The croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets rang through the bog, and Winterwoods noticed that while she could clearly hear them, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the noises originated from. With a creeping sense of dread re-kindling itself, her sense of wonder at the sudden bog in her forest quickly faded. Turning, she looked back at where she’d climbed from, and wasn’t surprised to find it no longer marred by her hoofprints and her sliding through the muck. It was so pristine, it looked like it’d never been touched by life at all. It even had a few inches of water on top of it.
A gurgle disrupted her thoughts and she turned her gaze back towards the bulk of the bog. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Stepping carefully, she lowered herself closer to the muck and peered into the waters, wondering just how deep the they went there. She looked for nearby rocks jutting above the surface and stepped onto them. She slowly made her way out into the middle of the water and onto a log.
Glug. Winterwoods froze in her steps and listened intently. Gurgle. She frantically scanned the area for any sign of movement, any sign of life beside the invisible frogs. Blort. The air was growing cold, and terror seized her heart. It was coming. She was trapped, like it’d waited for her to become just curious enough to venture out before closing in.
“Where are you then?!” She shouted angrily. “What do you want from me?!” She did her best to seem brave. She was shaking in her horseshoes, but her frustration made for at least an attempt at courage. A shrill and forceful breeze nearly knocked her off her hooves. She turned her attention to its source, and found a form rising out from the muck, moving slowly towards her. In the depths of her mind, she heard the sound of faint static growing louder.
She covered her ears as it grew to unbearable levels. She felt incapacitated, like her muscles refused to work. The muck form swelled and bulged amorphously, reaching towards her. The thing mere yards away, the sound of static gave way to the sounds of water droplets. Winterwoods turned away, searching desperately for a means of escape. There was none.
The rocks she'd used to get where she was were gone, and the tree roots much farther away than she recalled. With a yelp, Winterwood's legs gave out and she buckled down to the rough, splintery log, squeezing her ears and eyes shut in pain as voices once again pierced straight into her brain.
“How dare you?! HOW DARE YOU!?!” one shrieked.
“Please, calm down! Let me explain!” the other tried to edge in.
“No! No more lies! How could you do this after all my work?! How could you do this to me after you promised me?!” the first growled again.
“I never meant to hurt you! I just-“
“You LIAR! I can’t believe I let myself listen to you! But never again! This time, I’ll make you regret this! I HATE YOU!” the voices ebbed and Winterwoods was left in ice-cold silence. With a shaky breath, she lowered her hooves from her ears and slowly tried to stand up. She felt a snort, a blast of hot air ruffled her fur. Shaking, and with the most tender of movements, Winterwoods turned to face what lurked behind her.
She was met, face to face, with the dark mass, this time looking right into a set of beady, dead eyes and the gaped jaws of a gigantic alligator. There was a brief pause before the voice resonated again.
“This time, there will be no more lies. You will give me what I deserve. You will, or I will take it from you.” The creature suddenly lurched forward, jaws wide. The last thing Winterwoods heard before the world turned black was the sound of her own scream cut short with a snap.
Winterwoods jolted awake with her heart pounding in her chest. Sitting up, she trembled in the darkness of her room, unsure of the questionable fear that pricked at every ounce of her body. Something was terribly wrong. It was still very dark out; and was long before dawn she guessed. Her room was silent and still.
She barely made it over the edge of her bed before she vomited. With a wail, she cried out to the darkness, hoping that it would be enough to scare it away. To her dismay, while the fear clenched her tightly still, she felt the woods calling out to her yet again.
She wept.