013 – Last Foray

The forest was quiet. Terribly quiet, and Masło knew it. He knew that there are predators out there of every kind and size. The birds were silent too, always a bad sign. Only sounds were the creaking of trees and wind rustling the ferns and the leaves. His lamp wasn’t really made to lit such oppressive darkness. Its bluish glow was just enough to not trip over the slippery stones or twisting, gnarly roots – that would be a shameful way to go, after all these travels. His scan crawled under his heavy cloak. Someone was watching him. Ha! No, that was way too positive a thinking… Something. Yes, that would be a better word. He squeezed his knife in his hand, sweaty from the anxious shiver that coursed up, his spine. What was he thinking? He knew he should’ve stop, find or make shelter the moment the sun was turning orange on the sky. Now even the stars died out below the cloak of heavy clouds, and the darkness was subline in its thickness, so black that it turned into edges of other colors, deep purples of corvidae feathers, oceanic blues and stormy greys. He gulped, checking his way forward with a foot when he heard a crack of trees behind him and a strange, oozing sound – one that wasn’t there before. And then… The stench. It was a smell of death, putrid aroma of decay, old meat and guts. It blew over his back like a breeze and at that moment he knew, that it will be a night of discovery – as in finding out if he will be alive a moment into the future.