A Darker Reality

Always Watches

The grandfather clock in the living room struck four. Cecily walked down the stairs, shouldering her backpack. She peered out of the window at the early morning darkness. Her mother shouldn't be awake for a few hours, which was good. She needed plenty of time to do what she was planning on doing.

She tiptoed to the front door, opened it as quietly as she could manage, and stepped outside.

The air was damp and chilled. Cecily let the hood of her red jacket fall back on her shoulders as a breeze gently stroked her face, icy, yet pleasant. The grass on their lawn sparkled under the light of the street lamps, wet with morning dew.

She quietly shut the door behind her and walked across the yard and onto the sidewalk, making her way towards the park. This was something she had been wanting to do for a long time: a landscape picture of the forest behind the park.

Cecily strolled down the sidewalk feeling more at peace with each step that took her further and further away from the house. When she finally reached the park, she walked straight through it, past the playground and picnic areas all the way to the edge of the park. There, a chain-link fence stood about eight feet tall--the only barrier between her and the forest.

She could still remember when the fence was first installed. It was made a precaution after several children got lost in the woods, some never to be seen again. This didn't phase her. She wasn't planning on traveling too far into the forest, and she had a decent sense of direction.

She took off her backpack and prepared to throw it over the fence, but hesitated. This was where she saw the strange man before. He was standing just outside of the fence watching the children play on the playground. It was odd. When she saw him, she felt as if she wasn't supposed to see him. Even the children seemed oblivious to his presence, and when she asked her friends, Justin and Laura, if they could see him too, they didn't know what she was talking about. She eventually dismissed it as her imagination playing tricks on her, but the thought still made her hesitate.

She shook her head and dismissed it once more. She tossed the backpack over the fence, then started to climb it, hooking her fingers and shoving the toes of her shoes in the diamond shaped holes of the fence, hoisting herself higher and higher. She reached the top and tried to swing her legs over the top, only to lose her grip and fall to the ground on the other side, landing painfully on her back. She lay there for a second, the wind knocked out of her, trying to catch her breath. She eased herself up, her back aching and protesting with each movement.

"Well, I'm not doing that again," she said to herself while standing and picking up her backpack.

She pulled a flashlight out of her backpack and clicked it on. The beam of light illuminated a small spot of the dirt path before her. It used to be a nature trail that led deep into the woods, but that was shut down after the fence was installed. Cecily could remember walking that trail with her friends once, (without her mother knowing, of course) so they could go see the supposedly haunted mine. It had been abandoned for years, and people liked to say that the spirits of all of the people who had died in the mine were still there. Cecily didn't believe it, but when they went to visit the mine, she could recall feeling a strange atmosphere about the place.

Cecily walked the trail for a ways, studying the scenery around her and looking for a good place to stop. As she traveled, she noticed how eerily quiet the forest was. There was no stir of a breeze, or busy sounds of night animals. It was still and silent, except for the soft sounds of her feet treading the dirt trail.

It didn't take her long to find a good place to stop: a small clearing that used to be a picnic area before they shut down the trail and moved the tables to the main area of the park. The tree line looked dark and eerie, with the trail leading further down into the woods, cutting through the trees. She clicked off the flashlight and noticed that there was a light mist hanging just above the ground. It was exactly what she was hoping for. It vaguely reminded her of the picture she drew when she was a child.

She took off her backpack and sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing with her sketchpad and charcoal in hand. She set to work, scratching and smearing at the dark substance, trying to recreate the scene before her.

Cecily barely noticed the feeling at first, because she was concentrating so hard on her picture. As time passed, the feeling got stronger. She felt like someone was watching her; like someone was hovering over her.

The feeling peaked. Her body tensed and the feeling of dread swept over her as she dared a glance over her shoulder. What she saw shocked her. Or rather what she thought she saw, for the thing that she thought was a man was gone the second she laid eyes on him.

************

Tenemos knew that she was here. It was the girl that the proxy had spoken of before--the one who could see him no matter what. She was in his woods. No one had willingly stepped into his woods for years. The proxy was right; she was a mysterious girl.

He saw her climbing the fence to get in, toppling over and falling to the ground, then getting back up and moving on as if nothing had happened, with not even so much as a limp to show that she was hurt. Whatever she had come to do, she was determined to do it.

He had followed her through the woods, watching her every move closely as if he were afraid that she would disappear if he looked away for even a second.

She finally stopped in a small clearing, sat down, and started working furiously on something. After a moment's hesitation, Tenemos stepped closer to her, once he had made sure that he was invisible. He peered over her shoulder and down at the sketchpad she had balanced on one of her knees. She appeared to be drawing a landscape picture with what looked like charcoal.

As Tenemos watched the girl, he couldn't help but feel a strange sensation deep inside him. It was a feeling similar to the one that the proxy described to him earlier that night when he got back from the Lower World. It felt like an instinct; like this girl was a threat that he should destroy immediately....or even flee from. But as he watched her draw, she seemed so innocent. He didn't see how she could possibly be a threat.

He watched as the girl froze, her muscles tense and tight. She slowly turned her head and looked at him, shock lighting up her eyes.

The second she laid eyes on him, he teleported--falling back into the swirling, twisting abyss--and landed behind a tree just outside of the clearing. It was impossible! He had made himself invisible to her, and yet she could still see him.

He peeked around the base of the tree and watched as the girl set down her sketchpad and stood, still clutching the piece of charcoal in her fist. She scanned her surroundings with startled, alert, confused eyes.

"Hello?" she uttered, her voice soft and timid, yet loud against the quiet of the still forest.

Her gazed wandered to his direction, and he snapped his head back behind the tree.

"Is someone there?" she asked.

He could hear her soft footsteps coming closer, and he teleported again, throwing his body upward and catching himself on a tree branch. He couldn't believe it; he was hiding...from a human. He haunted these stupid creatures' dreams and for some reason he had to hide from this one. What could have possibly made her any different?

He watched as the girl looked around, shrugged, then gathered her things and walked off.

He followed her, leaping from branch to branch and watching her from above. She climbed back over the fence, careful this time not to fall, and disappeared from his sight. He didn't leave his forest that time, but as he watched her walk off he had to fight the urge to follow her. And somewhere deep inside him, a small desire was planted for him to capture her, but not to harm.