The Murder's Dance

"No, that forest is evil, everyone knows it, It is better than dying. Those people want to kill me. I don't get why I made them so mad..."

The snow was falling; lightly it dusted the plains, covering the dead winter grass with a soft blanket of powdery flakes. Despite the steady snowfall, the wind was completely still. Calm, clear and crisp, not even the slightest of breezes. The snow sprinkled from the heavens at a slow but gradual pace. The earth was slowly disappearing; it was being swallowed in the perfect, pure, whiteness. The grass was but a memory and the bushes looked as though they would soon vanish.

A sudden gust of wind disrupted the calm snow. The flakes whirled about, as the violent breeze rippled across the plains. In the distances, far off, a figure could be seen; the winds themselves seemed to announce its arrival. It was black dot stumbling through the snowy fields, a mere bug on the vast vast sea of snow.

It was a human, a young man to be precise. He wore a long tattered black cape over plain commoner's clothes and his feet were bare. Still he stumbled on. He was laughing and mumbling to himself; the freezing weather not seeming to bother him in the least.

"Stupid, why did you go and do that now?" he laughed, and glanced up at the dull winter skies. His face was plain, and his hair matted and dirty. His eyes held the look of madness to them; gleaming and glazed over.

"Snow, it's pretty isn't it? So white, so pure..." he laughed again and stopped his trek suddenly and sat in the deepening snow. " So cold..." he said with a snicker. He reached from his pockets and ran his hands through the white powder leaving bloody lines in the snow. He lifted a handful of the flakes to his face for a closer examination. It was a dull pink having mingled with the ample amounts of blood on his hand. "Pink is so much prettier," he said, voice losing the laughter as he studied the snow closely. He licked the snow, taking a large piece of the snow-blood mixture into his mouth. "Yum," he giggled, "but could use more flavor..."

He tossed off his cloak and struggled with a large bag tied to his back. The sack was what had been causing him to stumble about; it added nearly a hundred pounds to his load. When the sack was removed and laid out nicely in the snow, it was easy to see that the man's form was covered in blood. The back of his simple tunic was soaked red and blood dripped down from his body and was forming a small dark pink stain in the snow.

He knelt over the bag carefully and undid the many ties until it opened down the middle, revealing numerous body parts. Hands, arms, head, eyes, all fresh too. The man was proud of his collection. He pulled a head from the pile. It was that of a young boy, maybe ten or so, and set it gently in the snow. He dipped him hand in the puddle of blood in the bag and smeared them in the snow between him and in head. He repeated this until the white powder was a deep crimson.

"More flavor is always better, don't you think? Red is so much better than white, eh?" he paused as though waiting for the head to respond. When it didn't he seemed upset. "Not a big talker?" he pouted. "Well, talk about being rude to your host," he said. "I guess I can forgive you though, you are only an ignorant little child." He laughed and reached out and ruffled the short messy, bloodied hair of the head.

He grabbed a handful of the blood soaked snow and brought it to his lips greedily. " So good," he said softly. "Here have some," he said after eating his blood snow cone he grabbed another handful which he placed in the head's open mouth. "Yummy, isn't it?" When the head did not respond in any way other than a blank stare the man lost his temper and kicked the head away.

"You were no fun anyway," he said softly. He laid back in the snow, right next to his open bag. He stared at the body parts silently before sitting back up and picking up a hand. It had been a young woman's. He recalled how beautiful her cries had been and smiled. He brought the hand to his lips and kissed it gently.

"How are you, today, m'lady?" he said with a snicker. He grew bored quickly and tossed the hand away. He glanced back into the bag, wondering how long he would be able to keep these ones. The last ones had not lasted too long, but that was in the summer, and the warm air made the flesh on his keepsakes rot faster than normal. He figured he could keep them until the next village or maybe even the next. He glanced out over the snowy plain, taking in how beautiful the ornaments looked on the snow. How wonderful the deep red stains contrasted the pure white snow. Surely he couldn't miss a chance like this; to create a magnificent piece of art.

And so he started. Each limb was picked up and admired before being flung into the snow. Legs and arms went flying as the man was lost in an insane dance between him and body parts. The snow was still falling, but it wasn't as hard, barely falling at all. The young man took this as a sign of his victory; even mother nature was stopping to admire his work. After the last head went flying and the once pure white plain looked as though a horrible battle had taken place, the man was covered in even more blood than before. But the blood that speckled his face, coated his arms and drenched his shirt was not enough. He picked up the still open bloody sack and draped the blood soaked thing over his head, laughing as the blood ran in thick drizzles down his face and neck. He pulled it from his head and wrapped it around him like a cloak, still laughing.

"So pretty!" he laughed, "it's mine. Mine mine! I made it!" he laugher grew more and more hysterical as he took in the sights around. This coupled with the blood running around him was overwhelming.

He began to spin, and as he did, blood flew from the makeshift cloak and speckled the ground. Around and around he went laughing louder and louder with each turn. Finally he collapsed into the snow still laughing. There he stayed for the longest time, simply starting at the cloudy winter sky watching the snow as it slowly fell to the ground, trying to count the flakes. The smell of blood was over whelming, it was amazing!

The man laid in the snow until the cold was too much to bear, even for him. He stood up and after taking one last look around his art work he decided to move on.

"It was lovely playing with all of you," he said with a slight bow. "But I must be going now."

The snow had stopped completely and the late afternoon sun was casting an eerie red glow through the clouds. The man could feel the nip of a cold winter night already upon him. He shivered and pulled his new bloody cloak close and shivered in pleasure at the strong scent of blood. He picked up his other black cloak and draped it around his head. Not able to help himself, he brought one more handful of bloody snow to his lips, savoring the odd metallic taste of the snow, before heading to the west, fallowing the now low hanging red orb in the sky, leaving only the many body parts and a lone set of foot prints behind him.

His pace was much quicker now that he was not burdened with the sack of body parts, though he wasn't covering too much ground. The man began muttering to himself softly, as he tried to speed up, but the snow from earlier was nearly knee deep and seriously hindering him and by now the sun had already began its decent into the ground for the night.

"Not good," he said glancing around, "not good. Dark... not good." he glared at the sinking orb. "Don't leave! Please! Stay!" he pleaded. The sun's only response was to slowly continue to slip away. The man knew he only had a few moments of daylight.

Suddenly a tree in the distance came into sight. The man saw it as hope. A dead tree, standing alone in the middle of the snow covered field; yes that was his hope. He gathered up his stamina before rushing clumsily towards the tree.

"Yes, yes, don't move, stay there. I'm coming!" he shouted into the air and glanced over his shoulder cautiously.

The world was stuck in that twilight time, just between darkness and night. The man hated this time. He would blink and forget where he was and who he was. But through that he was able to stumble his way to the tree. Quickly he scrambled up the trunk of the tree, not wanting to waste any of the precious daylight. Up and up he went in the tree, fighting his way through the dead, snow covered branches. Finally he had made it to the furthest point up he could go without the branches breaking. He took in the sights before something disturbing caught his eye.

People. From the east he could see people from his last stop, some were one horses while others were on foot. They were after him! He almost fell from the tree at the sight.

"NO!" he yelled. "Not happening. Can't be.." but as he looked to the west and the south he saw even more people. They were all coming. He could heard the chants of 'kill him! Kill him!' coming from all sides. He was going to be boxed in. He was going to die. He scrambled down from the tree trying to find a way out of this box. There had to be. His gaze drifted to the north, and the vine filled, evil forest that inhabited it. "I couldn't," he mumbled, but found his feet going in that direction anyway. "No, that forest is evil, everyone knows it," he said, but his legs were still moving towards the forest at a quickened pace. "It is better than dying. Those people want to kill me. I don't get why I made them so mad..." he said, glancing behind him, were he was sure the masses of people would be breathing down his neck. "I have to escape these maniacs! They wanna kill me!" he cried and took off in a clumsy run through the snow.

He passed into the darkness of the forest just after the sun had vanished into the earth. He was trying to be as quiet as possible; he was sure the people were only steps behind him.

"Keep going, keep going. Can't let them get me, no no no, I have to get away," he whispered fiercely. But the forest was growing thicker and thicker; vines covered the ground, and dead trees laid all about, making the forest more like a maze. The branches would snag his cloak and the vines on the ground would price through the thin material of his simple shoes.

He was sure he heard voices now. They were in the forest; he could hear the hoof beats of horses and the rustling of leaves and sticks behind him.

"I thought I saw him go this way!" the man heard someone yell. He was so startled by the voice he tripped over a branch. He tried to scramble to his feet quickly; he was sure the noise of him falling would draw the ones following him even closer. He made it to his feet only to fall a few feet later, this time on a dead tree branch which impaled his thigh.

His scream echoed through the woods. He struggled to his feet again, after pulling the stick from his leg and stumbled on, leaving a thick trail of his own blood behind him.

"I hav�" have to make it t-t-o... There!" He spotted a clearing ahead. The hoof beats behind him were louder, and he swore the others had arrived and were boxing him in again. He could see them as they moved quietly through the thick forest whispering.

"You are going to die," the voices would taunt. "Die, die, die!" they said in a sign-song tone.

"Shut up!" the man yelled. He made it to the clearing and sat against the trunk of a large tree. It was over grown with vines that twisted and wove their way over its branches, creating patterns that were amazing to look at. The man sat under the protection of the tree, looking up at the vines and trying to ignore the voices. The forest would protect him. Yes. He had come here first.

"Fool," the voices said, "you killed and now you die."

"Killed? I don't know what you are talking about!" the man yelled back, picking up a stick. He could see the other people, maybe those from the west, lurking around the clearing, he guessed unable to find the opening. "I only played! I was playing! Not my fault they don't like to play nice!"

"Living in illusions," the voices said, and the man lowered the stick. The voices, they didn't seem so human anymore. Like the forest its self was talking.

"You..." the man said, trying to ignore the hoof beats growing nearer and nearer, he wasn't sure if those were people, he had seen people, yes, but the voices now were the forest...so he couldn't be sure what was what.

"Souls for souls, you could never repay. You could have stopped over a hundred heads ago," the voices said in a strange tone. The man sat quietly, gaze now frozen on the snow. The voices unlocked it. Set it free. Let it out. He could remember it again, worst of all he could feel it.

"They killed her, my sister.. Those men! They did horrible things to her and killed her!" he yelled, voice breaking.

"Yes, and you killed them, but what of the others?"

"I wanted to play. They took my sister, and I wanted to play..."

"You're not seven anymore, grow up! Its been over twenty years!"

"What are you! Stop talking about this! I don't want to hear it!" the man yelled, holding his head in his hands. "Stop!" The voices were louder and the hoof beats sounded only moments away. Too much, he felt strange, like... like he wasn't real. Like this was another dream

"You choose to die in here, this forest. Me? I am the forest," the voices said.

"You speak with many voices! And how do you know this stuff about me! You're lying! You're from the western village aren't you!"

"The forest is made up of many," the voices said. And the man looked up in time to notice that the flashes of what he assumed to be people lurking around were vines and branches moving about. "I know your story for your screams. I know everything of everyone that enters," the voices said as a vine moved down from the tree the young man sat at. "Your story screams because you don't wish to know it yourself. You also reek of blood!" The vine climbed down and curled under the man's neck, forcing his head up.

"You are the only evil here," the voices said, "I can't allow you to die here. Not in this forest. The blood on your hands will kill all the trees, choke all the vines and dirty every stream and puddle."

"I'm not dying," the man said, weakly. The blood loss from his leg was starting to get to him.

"Look ahead," the voice said, "those men coming are the fathers and brothers and sons of those you killed, they will kill you, and rightly so."

"Then save me! If I can't die here, save me!"

"Your soul is too bloody to live," the forest scoffed. "But, your body will die and your soul will become mine, and it will not stay in this forest, this I assure you." The vine retreated as a group of men came into the clearing. The man, in his weakened state couldn't look at them in the face.

"I don't want to feel," he mumbled without thinking.

"Foolish last request," the voices said quietly, so only the man could hear.

"It's cold," the man said weakly. "So cold." He was left alone with the men, the forest was silent. With nothing to think about he was left to the cold bitterness of the snow and the jumbled voices of the men. They were demanding and yelling. Asking... all he could focus on was the cold. So cold, he couldn't feel.

The men came up to him and hauled him to his feet and slammed his body against the trunk of the large tree. He was sure it would have hurt if he could feel. They spoke, their voices wrapped and gibberish to his frozen mind. Somehow his wrist became entangled with the vines and rope. He couldn't remember it happening. They asked him something, holding a sword to his neck.

"Cold," was all he managed to say, "I want to sleep," he babbled. The men seemed upset and the bigger one, holding the sword moved it to his stomach and ran him through. The man smiled, it felt weird. He was numb. Completely numb. He almost wanted to feel it. The man pulled his sword from him and stepped back so his friends, who had readied their bows and arrows could have their turns.

There was a torrent of arrows, but the man was only able to count five of them hitting his body before everything went dark. He was warm. So warm, but he couldn't feel. He wasn't sure actually if it was warm or cold, something was different.

"This tree, this dead tree," the forest said, "your tomb, your home."

He was awake but asleep, living but dead, feeling yet numb. Energy, power, magic, was what he knew. He wasn't himself anymore. He was something different.

The men had long since left the body when a figure appeared in the clearing. It's body born of the tree, under the mask of human flesh and a dark cloak. Its soul, was nothing more than a core of dark numbness. A core of human's evil, breath of a cursed forest, blood of many, that is what formed this being.

It moved without a sound through the clearing, stopping to admire the body of the young man.

"You birthed me, an insane fool, how humiliating," it said with an icy chuckle. "I shall need a name, though. One that will be feared and honored, I certainly can't take yours," the figure said, reaching out to run a thin pale finger down the dead man's check. The figure looked up at the tree, taking in the sight of the vines and branches climbing over each other, creating a grizzly web. And the figure suddenly laughed at the thought.

"Yes, that shall be my name. It fits, don't you think?" the figure asked the man. He didn't bother waiting for a reply.

"Spindal Spider spin your web," the figure said, his cold, soft voice, somehow echoing throughout the forest.

Author's Note

Just a short story I wrote while trying something new with my writing. Hope you like it!

Reviews

[UncleFossil]

Toy with spacing and do a full justification; then change the font face to give this something raw. Other than that not too shabby, find someone to illustrate this and you will have your cover grab. The font face I recommend for this is a typewriter face to give it a look like you wrote this fresh from the word processor. I don't know if you're active on here or not but I am sending this to Archive of our Own to examine. I am surprised you haven't tried for Liquid Imagination. One of my contributors was featured there so give that some thought. I give it a 84/100 for font choices and paragraph arrangements.