The forest whispers.
It will whisper to anyone who hears it, which is, in truth, very few. Its branches will bend down, and the leaves will move, and you will learn things for which there are no words, secrets that you can never use. Still, it is worth a peek, these twisting woods, with their oddly yielding ground and the tremors left in your wake.
The ground itself, muddy and covered in autumn leaves from a time before time, it shifts. The roots, the surface, it makes hills from flat land and valleys from soft footsteps. It hides paths, makes false ones, changing and shifting until north is east and east is west. It does not make any sense, and you cannot rely on the sun to guide you, for it gives only its light, nor can you rely on sound, for all there is is chirping. All you can do is hope the forest likes you, and if it doesn’t, hope it doesn’t send a beast after you.
(What are you looking for? The knowledge the forest grants is of no use, unless you have the power needed to wield it. The forest itself is too dangerous to be worth risking, so for what reason do you find it worth your life to seek such knowledge?)
As you walk, the roots will cover up the path right behind you while the majesty ahead holds your attention, even as hills and valleys shift in your wake. (What are you doing? How powerful are you, my child? Do not lie. I cannot help you otherwise.) As you walk, strange animals, animals with lost and extra limbs, an exposed bone or three, predators with eyes that strike fear into any that look into them, these animals will scatter before you. Perhaps the occasional reckless herbivore will try to attack, but they will not even get close. You will not even notice them.
Behind you, animals will return to something slightly off normal, returning to their homes and lives but with roots over their burrows, ground shifting under their feet. They will return hesitantly, a new fear in their movements, eyes haunted by the memories of madness. (What do you hold in you?)
Do not enter at night. Not even those who are liked will survive, and those who aren’t will find themselves dogged by strange, extraordinary creatures made from not flesh nor bone but shadows and sounds, untouchable but for when they chose, invisible but for when you feel fear. Still, though all you can see is a shadow with eyes, it always feels like they are about to pounce, that they are waiting for you to turn around and look into their eyes, and even if you don’t, still you are never safe. Even if they let you leave (but for what reason?), you are marked by the forest’s shadow. (Despite your strength, the forest is stronger, and rarely ever lenient at night.)
First you will find a mark on your chest, like a baby sprout about to grow. When you see the mark, however, it is already too late to do anything, and if you catch it before, you will die in the removal. What human can live without a heart? (One powerful enough to recreate one.)
The sprout will start off the same shade as the shadows, nestling deep inside you until it is powerful enough to defend itself, and as it grows towards the surface of your skin it becomes green, the lush green of the forest at its best. You will also notice your skin losing its pink flush, skin cracking and breaking in the sprout’s wake. It will reach the surface, to the point where you can see it, to the point where if you scrape away skin, it will be there. Then, it will stop. It will grow sideways, spreading across your chest and up your neck, down your torso, until green-black tendrils can be seen, like veins until they move, twisting over and under your collarbone, your hips, branching out in all directions. (They should not glow.)
The tendrils will writhe and search for that power which is in the way you experience the world, for most, in the eyes, and it will reach. The skin around the power will crack, will feel like burning and freezing and the purest form of pain, while flowers will bloom from the soil spilling out in place of blood, until your face becomes a macabre image and all you want to do is scream. (Why does this not happen to you?)
It will grow. It will make your blood soil and your hair vines, your bones become bark and your skin leaves, your flesh berries with seeds and your features flowers. Your body is no longer yours, merely a vessel for the forest, and you are to march.
(Your body is still yours. Why do you obey their demands?)
The soil starts to pour.
You walk towards the forest, soil pouring out as seeds fall, losing more than you ever had in your body, everything you ever held in you spilling out in your march, trees already growing impossibly quickly until all anyone can see is a forest canopy, trees and roots slicing through strong buildings, ruins that look like they are long dead within. (It is yours.)
You are still marching. You walk towards the forest, and the trees will follow you as if they are at your command when it is truly the other way around. You were never in control (but you always were), and the rest of you spills out, barely held together but by the faintest remnants of the forest’s will, bidding you to return before you can fall, before the features that make up your face fall, and the growth ends.
(Good thing it is up to you.)
(You choose to stop.)
(You are not yet of the forest. You are still you. The forest you made is beholden to you.)
(You are powerful. Your forest glows.)
(What do you do?)
