The Dark Forest

The hills were always the greenest I’d ever seen. The sky was the bluest I could have ever imagined. The forest on the edge of the village, though �" the forest wasn’t the most of any color, with none of the vibrancy or beauty all that had it surrounded was blessed with.

The forest terrified the village.

The Elders declared a prohibition on entering the forest, consequence as banishment, when the birth of the village had dawned. No one was ever to enter and no one, since that time, has ever gone in. The villagers have always taken painstaking steps to avoid walking even within reach of the forest �" loathing even to look at the dreary façade of those trees.

I know what is inside the forest, however, and the color there is the most radiant and beautiful. All the villagers fear to enter what they perceive as a a decrepit forest but, in all reality, it is more vibrant and breathtaking than any place outside its borders.