#spooky forests

[valhahazred]

Secret World wandering, still in Romania. I wore my best vampire dress to blend in but it turns out there aren't even any vampires in this area.

I think this is my favourite area in the game. I love a good spooky forest and there are like five distinct spooky forests all blending together.

[overwhelmingly-hufflepuff]

spooky forests?? bowling and christmas ornament shoppes??? SIGN ME TF UP!!!

[abarbaricyalp]

@sambuckylibrary

SamBucky Halloween Prompt 6: Something lurking in the woods

Sam’s gonna meet the monster in the woods if it kills him

Rated M: Body horror, injury, general monster gore (AO3 link in the notes)

This one got away from me and is much, much longer than my other fills so the first section is here. Please follow the link for the full story

i found something in the woods somewhere

There is a monster in the woods, and it calls out in the voice of the one you love.

Sam had spent many nights sitting at the edge of the woods, waiting for his mother’s voice, his father’s voice, his best friend’s voice. There were so many he’d lost. There were so many the forest could choose from, and still it remained silent.

Silent, but never still. Sam could see the monster. He could see the sulking shadows moving from tree to tree. In the winter, when there were no leaves to hide behind, he would catch flashes of something bright, like the monster could choose how it appeared. Dark, when the forest was dark. Light when there was snow and ashy bark across the land.

Two days after his sister left, Sam had decided he was going into the forest. The day he packed enough clothes and food for a week, the monster came to him instead. 

The monster was not particularly monstrous, other than the energy radiating off of it like heat on a fire. In fact, the monster seemed to just be a man. His eyes darted and shifted around like his body did in the trees and he wrung his hands around a short, thick piece of branch as he stood in the middle of Sam’s house. Beyond the window, the forest loomed. For a second, Sam thought it was reaching for him back.

The terror that should’ve come with a monster standing in the middle of his house had not settled over Sam. One moment, he’d been alone. The next moment, the monster was eyeing his spices and some pots. It was...natural, almost. Something Sam didn’t feel the need to interrogate any further. There was a monster in his house and Sam...had expected it.

“Do not venture into the woods,” the monster finally said. He did not speak in the voice of one Sam loved. There was none of his mother’s strength, none of his father’s gentle wisdom, not a trace of the laughter that lived eternally in Riley’s voice. It was scratchy, like he hadn’t used it in years, and timid. Sam had never supposed a monster to be timid before.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Sam asked, instead of why not.

The monster creaked his fingers around the branch again, bark flaking off and falling to the floor. “You were not made for the forest. It was not made for you.”

“I’ll decide what I’m made for,” Sam corrected.

The monster’s eyes flashed and his strong jaw clenched. He looked away for a moment and Sam saw some of the inhumanness, as if a veil had lifted before it slammed back into place when he turned again. “I know you’re alone, but the forest won’t change that. You wanted to find me, right? You thought it would bring you… Glory or acclaim or…”

Sam had just wanted to talk to the monster. Not even talk to it. Just listen to it. Listen to anyone’s voice again. And now the monster was in the middle of his home, speaking in a voice he didn’t know.

“Well, you’ve found me. Your business with the forest is done.”

Those were not the words Sam had expected to hear. “You speak as if it’s alive.”

“More alive than you can imagine,” the monster said. “Do you think monsters exist without magic to turn them away from the human?”

Sam did, actually. He’d known plenty of monstrous people and there’d been no forest to corrupt their behavior. He knew a handful of diseases off the top of his head that could turn the most loyal and tame of dogs into frothing dangers. He knew the veil the monster wore well. A pretty human face to hide something terrible underneath. There was monstrosity across the world. The forest was not to blame.

“So you were a human once,” Sam said.

The monster chuckled mirthlessly and ran long fingers over the small carved animals on the mantelpiece. “In my dreams, I was. I don’t know how trustworthy they are anymore.”

“How long have you lived in the woods?”

The monster again grinned coldly. Sam could count the points of his teeth, jagged and mean. “Longer than this town has been here.”

“Then how are you still alive?”

“The forest hates me,” the monster said simply, as if that were a thing a forest could do. “It wants me to suffer. So it keeps me alive, but ruined.” He picked up a wooden flacon and ran his thick nails over the delicate grooves of the falcon’s feathers.

“What’s your name?” Sam asked, despite knowing that monsters didn’t have names. He thought they ought to. They were still God’s creatures, still someone’s creatures. They deserved to be spoken to.

“I was called James,” the monster said. “I can remember the sound of it in my mother’s voice, my sister’s call. No one has said it in a very long time.”

“Did you--” Sam’s stomach turned over painfully, cold and sharp in his gut. “Did you start speaking with their voice to replicate it?”

The monster’s eyes snapped to Sam’s face and again the veil slipped. A storm raged in his eyes, animalistic and feral. Then all was quelled again. “No. That’s not how the voices work. I don’t ask for them. They come to me.”

“How?”

“I want you to stay away from the forest,” the monster said again. He curled his fingers into a fist, trapping the falcon against his palm. “I will return when you want. You can leave a bowl of fresh, burning meat near your fence and I will come. But do not venture into the woods to seek me out.”

Before Sam could argue, the monster had left as silently as he’d appeared. A real, tangible thing one moment, nothing more than a story the next. Sam looked at the blank space on the mantelpiece and then took another falcon figurine from his pocket and placed it there.

Please follow the link in the reblog to read the rest!

[happymelvin]

Obey The Forests... I always do, and wouldn´t dare to do otherwise. New photo and artwork of mine ready in my @etsy shop -> HERE <-

[rocketdoodles]

i originally didn't mean for this to be such a gloomy set, but it just happened xD i'm gonna try to do one of these at least every few days, it's fun practice