The grove is idyllic. The green carpet is thick, and white wildflowers sprinkle across every part of its surface as though deliberately and evenly scattered. The grass is warm beneath my feet, and the smell of milky dogwood is everywhere.
“We’re very pleased to invite you to spend some time here,” my guide whispers, a mask of calm and perfection. “We think you’ve earned it. You’ve worked so hard. This will really help bring your anxiety to an end.”
I breathe, in and out as practiced daily, and the lush air of the grove helps.
It is those thin black trees in the distance which stymie me. So many of them, ordered in rows. Points of oblivion, encircling and trapping us. My guide seems to notice, though he is behind me and I can’t assess his face. “Just focus on the grass and the flowers. Nothing else matters at the moment.”
Even though I feel the inner peace – should feel the inner peace – god, I’ve paid so much for the inner peace – it feels blocked. Even here, amidst the crispness and light. I felt like I had touched it once, very early on in the process.
I have paid so much for this. And so I can’t let them know that I’m still struggling. I feel like a fraud, in this white gown – now slightly marked by patches of wet green and brown. The Collective has done so much to help me – to try to help me – but I still can’t breathe easily.
They think that I’m fixed. “You’re ready for this,” the guide whispers, again. “I won’t be far away, but just continue thinking about the nature around you. And everything that you’ve achieved. You’re almost whole again.”
I nod firmly, but inside I am bursting with regret. I didn’t even take the tea the guides had prepared for me. It felt wasted on me, somehow – all I could ever feel when drinking it was the acrid taste. I never felt relaxed, or ‘becoming whole.’ All it ever did was make me paranoid, even when I ought to be drifting off to sleep.
As if through some sort of psychic connection, the guide speaks again, “The tea will have worked its way into your system, now. Just close your eyes and stay relaxed. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
I don’t ask time for what. If I can’t properly follow the instructions that I have paid thousands of pounds for, I don’t exactly have the right to ask for any further instruction. I am content – or something like content – to just allow this day to move forward. My old mantra: maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow.
The minutes pass. An hour or so, I think, and my embarrassment comes in fits and starts, like a slicing knife of shame. I am a fraud. I am a fraud. My anxiety spirals as I start to wonder if I am supposed to do something. Maybe the tea was actually intended for something. Was it hallucinogenic?
“Are you comfortable?” the guide whispers again, a plastic susurration. I don’t respond, hoping that is the correct answer. Strangely, after a few moments, he speaks again, but lower: “Take your bloody time.”
I am taken aback, almost certain I misheard. And yet, though the guide is behind me – the comment didn’t seem as though it was directed at me. I continue to wait, my sweating hands clasping each other fiercely as though finding comfort in one another.
Shadows begin to settle, blotting out the beautifully scattered flowers, long forgotten. The darkness between those long tree trunks seems to deepen. There could be anything in there.
As my heartbeat finally begins to settle, too, I hear something. Beyond those encircling sentinels of darkness. Something like creaking, and shifting, brushing through soil and detritus. The boundary between us and the darkness ripples, as though being tested by something from beyond.
It is just nature, I remind myself. Just…nothing. It’s fine.
But it is not nothing. The guide behind me remains silent, but the shadow of the trees seems to morph into something else. Something other. At first I believe darkness itself has become manifest, and then I am certain that a giant claw has emerged, slipping out of the terror of the approaching night.
It is not a claw. But it is something other.
I am stiff, and smothered by terror, as it approaches. It defies real description to my scrabbling brain. It is massive, and wears the colour of the night itself, painted in ink. It is almost impossible to discern it from the shadow, but there is a difference. Its arms, or feet, or claws – or whatever – are similarly illustrated in dark, but there are so many of them. Not two. Not four. Dozens, at least.
It approaches and with its bulk I expect it to lurch, but it does not. It swims in the air, utterly weightless. Unconstrained by the physics of this world. It isn’t from this world?
“We welcome you,” the guide utters, quietly. “We honour you.”
I snap my head back around to him. He is standing with head bowed reverently. “What the fuck is that?”
His own eyes snap open at me. Notwithstanding the approaching – thing – his fearful gaze does not leave my own eyes. “What? You’re…awake?”
I find enough energy to scrabble to my feet. “Of course I’m bloody awake.” My chest heaves with anger, transmuted from the terror and anxiety. “What the hell have you done?”
“Oh dear,” is the uttered response, though I can barely hear it.
The thing-of-shadow swims through the air with abyssal grace toward us. I step back, next to the guide, who rests his head in his hands with anxiety.
I breathe. “What have you done?” I repeat.
His voice is of regret, and shame. “You were supposed to be asleep. And healed. And ready.”
I step back further. The guide is now in front of me, lost in his own frustration. “I think I’m fine without this,” I state.
The guide is not moving, but the black thing does so. I cannot stay. I can’t watch. I turn, and I begin to run, clutching the bottom of the ridiculous gown as I do so.
I am away, scrabbling across the trail and away from the grove. The Collective and the grove are both behind me. That’s good. There is still light this way.
As I flee toward the light, I distantly realise that I am calmer, and more certain, in this moment than I think I have ever been. I ignore the scream behind me. It sounds wet, and gurgling, and desperate. It isn’t my concern. Nothing else matters. I’ve earned that.
Awesome little short!