To the Forest that Bargains Life

My story started here.

When my mother died, I've been crying all the time. All I did was mourn, and mourn, blaming myself that whatever happened to her that made her meet death was my fault.

I couldn't understand why my heart drenched, a turmoil inside me stirred up to make me feel the suffering more.

Crying in the dull, forlornness room with things that weren't in their proper places, stygian lights, and curtains that hindered light from the sun. There on the somber side, I would condemn myself for what had happened to her years ago.

I felt like I was dying, too. I was lost in the glacial, abysmal vastness of the ocean as my floating feet aloft it was excruciatingly with a slow rapid-fire hauled by its tremendous mouth, sending me to its bottomless body and engulfing me to die and to be part of its blue salty water. I'd remain there.

For it's a metaphor I wanted to escape. It's like I wish I were on a concrete canoe that would never make me drown in the deep ocean that was waiting for my end. As if it was only fated to be my own cage never-ending.

The other day, I woke up. Staring at the wall, smelling the attar of the rose from the place but in the alternate way. A wilted flower that was blown by the wind while it faded away. Then I would voyage on my mind as I blame myself again.

I couldn't esteem of anything. It seemed like a void was unclasping me and whispering to my ears. Death, too. They were teasing me, mocking me, killing me, and dragging me to the forest of confusion and misery.

It became a habit. While my tears, there weren't one of them left like my eyes were tired to make one.

My Dad would knock three times on my door and he would say, "Sweetheart, aren't you coming out?" and I would mutter, "Leave me alone!" Then I would hear footsteps fading away.

Right there in the house, it was only me and him, my father. I couldn't blame him for what had happened to my mother, but I somehow knew that he'd remain in the picture. He would evermore be in the picture and not merely me . . . However, did it even matter before?

I never wished for it.

When school had begun again, I didn't do anything instead I frequently prepared myself before I went to our campus: waking up early in the morning, doing my morning rituals, eating breakfast quietly, and hopping in Dad's Subaru car as he would drive all the way to the parking lot of my university.

It was what occasionally happened as if it was a typical thing to do, even though my Dad and I after the burial of my Mom years ago haven't had that talk, a talk so casual and so happy that I couldn't long for. I have to be at ease, at peace, and I didn't desire to ruin my day by sheer conversing with someone that I loathed for years.

I drowned in my studies, doing my best to graduate, to enter college. I focused and never befriended anyone. . . Well, there was one that I had before but he moved to a foreign country and lived his life there for a lifetime, and of course, he came back only for me to realize that he was. . . escaping home. I wanted to escape too like him, but could I handle it?

With my possible expenses. . . With everything. I couldn't.

I needed to have an urge, a potent to make me get away from my home.

I still have to rely on my father. It kind of sucked, but whatever I was thinking remained inside my head. I was locked in my bedroom, crying all the time endlessly, and that's the pill to make me sleep at night only to have nightmares, to have bad dreams.

Despite that tale of mine, it was never the darkest part.

When I graduated senior high school, I was the valedictorian of my class, a top-tier student in my batch. Like what happened when I was a ninth-grader student, because that time I had attained the highest honor, ranking first in my class. Everyone looked at me with respect because of that.

But those years that I spent, those years where I felt like I was punishing myself, those entire years. . . I despised still myself and my father even more. Whenever I think of my mother, I couldn't accept it. The scar stilled in me, engraved deeply that it touched my darkest side, my darkest fear.

And still, it was never the darkest part.

My story was kind of boring but it started there. It was cliché for all I did was to mourn and mourn, and I badly wanted to hurt myself to the pits of the hell inside me, burning my heart alive, torturing my every bone. But that despise was in me, and even if my head whispered to hurt myself, I feared to hurt myself.

The scar was enough for me to suffer.

Until now.

Sitting in front of a mirror, criticizing how I look based on the reflection that I am staring at, feeling weirded out for how strange she looks. My eyes are sore, the wavy black hair of mine is a mess, cheeks, and nose reddish, and this pale skin of mine even paler than before. . . My lips are faded pink.

What makes me glare is the eyes that I own in which I didn't deserve, that I want to take off myself. These blue eyes of mine are similar to the attribute of my mother's. They remind me of her and of what I did to her.

I flinched when I heard a loud thud.

And when I looked beside me, I saw how the door is cracked open, my father barging inside my room.

I gazed at him as I can't remember who he is and what is my memories with him, a blank look it may have been, wanting to push him away as he rushed toward me with that filthy face-a worried look. I hate seeing him as he pitied me most of the time. It makes me want to shout at his face so that he can leave me alone.

He grabbed my wrist which makes me look at his hand and winced.

"Let's go, Avery," he said, pulling me from my seat and make me stand on my feet. Gripping my hand, plunging me away from my bedroom.

"Dad, stop." Two words they are, the only words that I can say.

It makes me contemplate. It is so sudden. Whatever the reason he got to access and unlock the door of my room seems off, but somehow, I can't remember that I locked it after eating dinner with him silently earlier.

I want to ask what on earth is going on and why does he has to do this to me, hence, I can't. Why do I have to be pulled this way anyway?

I halted and forcedly took his hand off me. "Explain." I creased my forehead. "Why?"

I can't believe that I'm talking to him! Of all people that I have to speak myself for, why the hell should it be my father?

I feel a stinging pain inside me, tickling every bit of my soul, wrecking the tranquility that I hunger for. This is chaos, and I must leave.

We're almost in the staircases, thank goodness that I stopped him in front of the stairs.

As I look at his face with knitted eyebrows and twitched lips, it seems like he's thinking it's ridiculous of me to utter words, to question him. It makes me go burst and be mad, or punch him on his face, but I have to remain calm as I should be.

He fixed his stand and said, "We are going to states."

"No," I blatantly replied, shaking my head.

He's got to be kidding me. He's doing it already. He wants me away like he always has back then.

I heard it for the second time.

"We need to get out of this place as soon as possible," he continued.

"No," I said, stern.

He won't make me.

He sighed. "Avery, I know that this place never contributed good health to your condition. You have to grow and live your life."

"No."

He has to spill the real reason, his evil intent. He has to say them, and I may have forgiven him for that.

That's why I heard them.

That's why I upset my mother and she. . .

I shook my head. "Come on, Arthur," I disrespectfully said. "How will I have a good health when you yourself want me like th-"

He slapped me.

He freaking did.

I laughed preposterously. "Oh, wow."

I'm done.

I took a step backward.

His eyes are pleading, asking for forgiveness, his mouth agape. "Avery, I didn't mean to-"

"Enough," I muttered, voice broken. "Just forget about my existence."

"What will you do?" he asked, eyes widened, rushing toward me.

But before he could even get imminent my direction, I ran toward my room and locked it.

"Avery, open the freaking door!" he ordered, shouting, but not enough to let me obey him.

I don't know what's happening anymore. From this moment, all I could think of is hurry. I searched my eyes through my room to look for my bag- where is it?

I stepped nearer the bed and kneeled, lifted its mattress, and looked beneath it. I found a suitcase and a bag. But I chose the bag because it is convenient so I picked it up and stood up, then I quickly dashed to my closet and disclosed it to get as many dresses and clothes that I can and make sure it fits inside the bag.

When I'm finished, I suddenly have the urge to heave a sigh.

I stared at the door. He never slammed it anymore. It made me crease my forehead. What is he thinking?

I went to my window and removed the windowpane for me to get outside by jumping. It's quite heavy, but it's not a waste of time either. It's already removed, just a bit tightened for it to not fall suddenly. I removed it before whenever I tried to escape to breathe some fresh air. I can't believe that I'm using this passageway to leave home.

I put it somewhere besides the bed, then I leap a foot on the windowsill. Honestly, our house is a two-story one. I'll get hurt if I plunk forward certainly, but I have to try.

I gulped. Is my father already in the living room? Is he hiding somewhere and waiting for me to lure myself out of my bedroom? Does he know I'm liv-

"Avery."

I looked at the closed door.

He's behind it.

He's been there all the time.

"Can you give me a chance. . ." His voice is mellow, but it is also fainted, wavering. "Prove myself?" he continued, then he chuckled after. "We're quite a mess, aren't we? You don't even make me explain myself."

I did. Earlier, I did want you to explain, father. I want to say those words as a reply to him, but I am a mum. I can't be able to speak. I am tongue-tied.

"Avery, I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize." Finally, I have the guts to speak. "Dad, I loathed you. I really do, but that doesn't mean that I don't love you and don't care for you because I do."

He's never uttered a single word.

I continued, "Dad, all I ever ask silently is for you to fight. You have the right to fight for me."

"Avery, you don't understand-"

"Stop." I closed my eyes for a moment. "Listen, I don't care if you're sending me to States because you want to bring me to my real family. I care that you've been a coward all the time."

"Please, Avery, listen-"

"Dad," I said to stop him again. "Let me think about it."

He's quiet, perhaps from what I've said.

"Don't chase after me. Don't do anything. Stay there until I leave." A tear then escaped my eyes. "Let me heal. Let me calm myself."

"Will you. . ." he paused, ". . . will you come back?"

"I will," I replied. "So wait for me until then, got it?"

"Okay," he said, but I still don't trust him.

"I'll come back as soon as I heal, and do come with you wherever you want me to go." I leaped my other feet on the windowsill and grabbed the nearest wall to strengthen my poise to not just fall, leaning in, panting. "Please, let me do it."

"The key of the car is in the garage."

I smiled bitterly. "Got it."

Before I knew it, I am crying.

I looked down the bushes from below. I take a deep breath before jumping, closed my eyes as soon as I did. Then seconds later, something is prickling my skin.

That hurts.

It's so fast. Maybe because I am too preoccupied, but when I came back to my sense, I am in the garage, looking for the key. I found my father's jacket hanging in a corner so I scanned and searched for it.

I feel a cold metallic object inside so I picked it.

I was right.

It's indeed there.

I opened the car and jerked in my bag. Then I went inside as well and started the engine.

My story started before I got here.

Hence, my story is barely from what's about to happen.

When was the last time I experienced being whole? When every part of me in me is fixed? When I do not even ruin the world I inhabit in me? When was the last time I realized the beauty of my world? When do I know the hidden secret behind nature and life?

When I was only five years old, my mind was filled with wonders at the world including how it moved. What will be revealed at the end of the solemn symbolism of the towering heights of the wind and the pulsation?

When the world began to be seen here, is it astonishing to see with two eyes? Could it be that it will only witness how sensationally the individuals here on the surface of the earth follow the currents of the system and nature? Is it unbeknownst to me that the dream is just a nightmare where it turns out that freedom is the opposite?

In fact, I don't know the answers back then every time they suddenly appear on my mind. They also leave voluntarily when I have no enough reason to silence them.

At this point now, I wish I was just a kid. Aside from the fact that my views are still blind, I know my intellect is still fresh and I still have a lot to learn. That the steps I am taking are just towards the development of my life because it is just beginning.

But should we seek the far-reaching? Is it possible to restore the opportunity that should have happened only once? When progress, flow, and wave are reversed, can mistakes from the past be corrected?

I was running out of questions then but at the height of the fierce eruption of misty waterfalls in my heart, thousands of bleeding soldiers rushed on my mind seeking justice and answers that I knew would torment me. They were sent to calm the screaming turmoil in my heart and psyche.

I wanted to answer them. I have to. But it is way easier to just let them stay than to make them rally inside of me. I will explode and I will scatter into pieces if the reasons I'll utter will never satisfy their hunger.

They will eat me until I became nothing. Until I am left without anything. And until it will be just nothingness in me.

I was caught in my messy hair.

I still pursued driving.

I am never looking back and I never stop.

I never even know where I am and how far I am from the place I lived a few hours before this happened.

I don't know what to do anymore.

I just want to be away from where my home is. Because I thought that it is the safest decision to make. Henceforth, I felt like I lost track. It seems like it just makes me feel to be sick at the moment.

I never thought that my Dad would do that to me. I think he would battle and hold me up until the end. But it was the opposite all along. Now, reality dives in and comes on its way for me to open my eyes and see the things clearly like how I wasn't perceiving them before.

He wasn't that confident to shelter me with his warm and serene embrace. He gave me up realizing that he couldn't win the fight. Yet he hadn't jumped into the fact that he even never tried to win this battle with me.

I just thought at first. I was complacent. Also reassuring. Convinced himself that he would defend me. That he would never easily let me go. But I was wrong at first.

I was wrong to expect. He can also trust me and he will try to hold me until the end while we are next to the actuality that even if I am not his real child, he would still choose to be with me. And that reality will make us even stronger.

Ironic. Reality is more real than the expectations you only expected. A thought isn't an assumption but a hoax that is believed by the mind, and it is a fiction created to deliver us from our darkest day.

I assumed I was ready but I remained not. I am still empty because the enemy had stolen the wisdom in me and made me a fool. I wished to be a successful subject of the light but I was captured from its feathers- and so I wandered- wandering not realizing I wasn't lost- just sailing away from the lostness of reality.

So here I am, driving, wasting the gasoline in the car's tank, and wanted to disappear in the world without everyone noticing it.

At first, I want to be a part of the air, a part of the surface, a part of the sky, and a part of this world when I leave. I want to be nothingness or in a nothingness where feelings are void, and there, I can be numb.

But it changed.

The car's engine slowed down.

I could do nothing but stop it. It was dark outside. I don't see even a single light other than the car's headlights. The only thing that keeps the surroundings not to be total darkness is the pearls blazing in the night sky, staring at me, and their mother who has witnessed my agony tonight.

I cried out very loudly, struggling from the weight I was feeling in my heart I wish was gone, and the grief that suddenly awoke here in my heart would disappear.

I am not aware that I am not in the place I used to be anymore. Well, not until I heard the sound of the unseen air that raptured me, and the cold breeze it brought.

I was dumbfounded. When I felt the corners of both my eyes heat up again, I looked up and closed my eyes. I hit the steering wheel a few times before the car got out and headed to the other side of the road.

I crossed my arms and smiled bitterly. I was not scared. I was no longer shocked or surprised. This is what usually happens when you get used to it. Sometimes it becomes natural as well. Worst of all, be numb.

"I just want to die."

That's what I want to happen to me since this is the course of my destiny. I would just disappear from this world because no one cares about someone like me.

Who else cares for a child who is looking for love? Because of the stain and mark of the past, no one will try or even take pity.

"I just want to die!" I screamed loud at the top of my lungs and heard how my voice broke. "I-I just want to die."

I burst into tears. I don't know what to do at these times other than to be weak and let the resentment out of my heart.

How many times do I need to say those words to be true? That I would be dead now with a natural accident? That there would have been an earthquake and the road would have collapsed and I would have been covered with cement? Or did it rain and lightning struck me? If that happened I would be happy. Because alas! I can finally rest.

But it can't be.

Life wants me to suffer more. It wants me to struggle and to feel the undying and unfamiliar pain in my heart. Never did life wants me to be freed from its terrible grip. Everlasting is its curse and how it wants to torture me.

I rubbed the hot liquid kissing on my cheek, take a deep breath after. I clenched my fist.

It was normal back then. When she's not dead. When she was still here with me. It wasn't this worse. But from what I can see now, there seems to be no real hope.

I turned to the car. I was about to walk there when I caught the attention of a man in a black cloak who pierced his every stare at me.

It didn't give me any chills upon knowing someone I never met before is here. A few meters between the two of us. I could not clearly see his face but I noticed that he was staring back at me.

I stepped closer to him. I was nearer. His familiar eyes are closer so as his unmoving body. He gazes with manipulating dark sight that reflects the moon from above. I grew the steps.

When he realized I seemed to be in a hurry, he walked back before looking behind him and runs away from me. I didn't expect that.

"Wait!" I called him.

Then chased him.

He jumped on the guardrail on the side of the road, then dashed to the grass field all the way to the forest is the root he has taken after a while. He's too fast!

I stopped in front of the barricade. Where is he going? I watched him leave. I never saw him again when the whole forest swallowed him.

But the darkness and the forest did not stop me from tracking him. So I kept running, also jumped over the block, and headed straight for the rough terrain. When I was at the mouth of it, I absolutely traced the inside of it.

I paused for a moment.

Lots of trees.

Smoky.

Windy.

It's dark.

The silence is deafening.

I took a deep breath before continuing what needed to be done at this time.

I don't know why I am following an absolute stranger who wears a cloak. I don't know why I am doing this. I just want to know a few things like why is he here? Or what is this place and where is it located? Are there any specific places I can stay at?

I shouldn't have gone this far_ or I wish I knew this place so I knew where I was going.

I am so idiot and desperate.

Even though my knees were shaking, I kept running. I just went straight while avoiding the branches, the trees themselves, and some vegetation that blocked my path.

Almost the only time I did that. I also don't look behind me and on either side of me.

I stumbled causing me to scream in pain affected by a designed ripped on my jeans now hanging on a sharp stump, stabbing my knee. It's not that bad but I'm still in pain as if the imperfect cut created here seems to be stifling to wake me up to the truth.

I closed my eyes tightly before facing the tree in front of me. I was shocked to see a mysterious object with engraved words.

FOREST SURVIVAL

Still, I don't know why but somehow it made me at ease, but not some kind of ease that is familiar for it is strange- oddly dissimilar. I can't even expect and forefeel what's waiting ahead of me. Never I had divulged it is part of that I will ideate as it will occur in reality sooner.

Three words.

Splendiferousness.

Magnificence.

Resplendence.

These factors affected me for a very long time in my oblivious days. How can I state something beyond description? When I wasn't a stranger to the light, I let myself be bewildered by its safest whistles.

Now that it treats me like a monster, I let myself be an instrument of darkness. A different kind of it I never thought that would be my fate.

That's when I avoided them. I wasn't in my real being anymore. Gradually I was eaten up by fantasy into the world of mania to do something I would later regret.

Because when darkness beguiled me, its intention would always be in the wrongest ways of living, and that obscurity scarred my bruised heart. It made me in anxiety. Now that I'm tired, this is how I'll end up.

Forest Survival, the words engraved on a wide and relatively long tree staring at me in front of me now. It's too old. Obviously, it's put there years ago.

I am not sure what it meant but, somehow, it told me to move forward. It gives me faith to live. So I didn't waste a few more seconds.

I stood up and continued walking even though the injured knee of mine was becoming a bit of an obstacle. The wound tickles in a painful way. But still, go straight because my body does not object even though my state is not good now. What else must I do? I've been here already.

I just have to find the guy.

My heart beats faster. My knees are shaking. Even so, it still commands me to continue despite my condition. It seemed to remind me to have hope and belief even when it is impossible.

Lots of cricket to hear. More mists. There are taller trees now that I am in the middle of the forest. They seemed to have grown healthier, but their breadth terrified me at this hour - they lined up as they stood tall and straight, and their silhouettes seem to have faces.

Some hoots surrounded me.

There are a lot of scattered leaves too. The cool breeze also caresses every branch as well as the leaves of that falls. I heard my own rustles.

I kept going straight even though I knew I was completely lost. Until little by little my stomach growled with a complaint.

My body is also weakening and getting cold. I no longer like the destination of my fate. Am I going to die inside here?

The air has a mix of nature's fragrance and smoke. I can hardly breathe to its unaccustomed familiarity yet its freshness still abides on my nostrils and muttering I exist.

"Hel. . . He-Hello?" I said, looking around every route and corner as I walked forward.

I clenched my fist.

It's in a blurry motion, and my vision, it's spinning around. I felt nauseated. My head hurts and my stares have gone dark. Gradually my stomach turned upside down. I think I'm going to vomit.

Then it growled again. Perhaps, I'm merely hungry. This is the second time I have felt hungry.

As a matter of fact, I spent a few hours maneuvering the car. It was still dusk. Meanwhile touring in it for about an hour, if added, it unlikely won't bother me. And for the record, I wasn't eating three times a day. Maybe once, twice, and sometimes I didn't.

Dad wasn't aware of that or maybe he was. Maybe he just liked what I was doing to make it easier for me to be erased from his life and he wouldn't have any more problems. That he would no longer have to return me to my real parents like a thing that, after being nurtured, cared for, and loved, would just be thrown away or given away.

I lose my appetite every time I remember Mom and my flashbacks to the memory of my past when she was with me.

Apart from her and the stranger I wanted to forget, they did not increase because I was afraid my entire life to have someone barged in again to disturb my peace then leave me afterward. No one even tried to, of course. They do not want to have dirt smeared on their palms who have not yet experienced the urge to suffer.

My vision became blurred so I closed my eyes to bring back the tears trying to come out of my eyes. Stop. I'm tired of crying. I could no longer afford to breakdown at the time I knew it would be my end.

I took a deep breath before having the courage to speak. "Is anyone . . . here . . . ."

But I stopped uttering words when I saw the place where that guy who wears a cloak went.

Maybe.

An unfamiliar spot. Odd houses. Peculiar infrastructures. Inside what these weird people called Forest Survival, there is strangeness in the air. It didn't suffocate me. It shook me.

It was quieter as I stepped into the area. There are cabins like treehouses among the branches of monstrous alike trees from both sides: four from the left; four from the right. The lights inside them are on except for the two on the left. There is still a bonfire. I saw a glimpse of the huge wood tower a few meters away from here. Between both sides where the cabins are, there's a house. The same space between them has space to pass to the back.

I repeated what I said before. "I-Is anyone here?" I muttered with doubts and hesitation knowing that there are living humans here like me. Tho I still isn't seeing one of them. I'm also just not sure if they're dangerous or not.

I heard footsteps from some of where they are. Some doors, opening. And there I saw, from those six, as if floating cabins, there is one person each: three girls and three boys, alternately placed. Emotions weren't the same. Confused, shocked, surprised, glad, happy, and unpleased. Almost at once they came out and went in front of me.

I feel like I am facing the judge to criticize me for the sin I have committed. They have this scrutinizing look that makes me want to be immersed in the ground I am treading on.

"Welcome to the Forest Survival, what can we do for you?" said a girl, between fair and tan, have blue highlighted hair, a pair of green eye, and red pouty lips. He also has dignity. "As you can see, we are survivors of... Reality so we escape to breathe and to exist out of its toxicity until we woke up."

"Are you here to sign up and be one of us? Because probably there isn't even a single slot left for someone like you," said the girl with blonde hair, which is in a bun, and pink thin lips. She has as white as snow skin and deep black eyes.

I blinked. Um, what are they talking about? "I'm here- I am lost. I don't seem to find where I am right now."

"What?" said a frowning man with thick eyebrows, brownish eyes, a sharp nose that matched the shape of his face, thin and red lips. His skin is tan while he is just the right height. He looked young and cute. His black hair is in a mess.

"So you are lost, and you also have no intention of staying here and be with us," the man said coldly with a serious face. Emotion screamed in his dark eyes. He was calm but his aura was strong. His lips also are red. Just like the woman with blue highlights and black hair, she is also between fair and tan.

"I was also looking for this guy. He went here, definitely. He had this black thin cloak. He ran and I followed him but I lost track. I was in the midst of-"

"We didn't want your reasons, lady," the blonde-haired woman said angrily. "Just leave."

"Oh, shut up, Freyja! I've already heard you shoo the same words to someone before," rebuked the man who had just spoken. He had fair skin, jolly dark eyes, pink lips, tall, and a well-made body. His long and straight black hair is a hair bun.

There is another girl that is just staring at me as if diving into my whole being, her hair is black and it is up to her shoulders, and her eyes are blue. She is simple despite her features but she has a strong charisma and aura. That's what I'm sure of.

Each boy has superbly carved jaws that girls would fall for. Each lady has unique charms that men would appreciate and others would envy and love. It is like a zone for imperfectly gorgeous creations of God Almighty that have joined together to exist out of the Earth's toxicity.

"What? That's the truth, isn't it?" Frejya rolled her eyes and glared at me. "She's missing, eh." She even stared at me awfully.

I didn't know they have a big role in my life that could let me be who I am again. They are these weird and strange persons who would make me perceive death differently. While the exposure of the truth in my tale would be told from someone in their group.

It's a place like a chest, incandescently pure as gold inside a treasure perked up by angels. It might be that never-ending reality in which I'm trailing. For this can make my courage open its eyes or let my nightmare play its role in me.

I must let myself grab the trial in an unheard-of circumstance or the havoc destroys what goodness desires for me.