The Forest of Questions (part 2)

The dark forest loomed before them, as mysterious and foreboding as evil itself. It had taken two days of traveling across flat plains of ice to get here, and now the band of twenty or so men stood before the Forest of Questions, looking, trying to uncover what evil secrets it held for them.
The Forest seemed to spring straight up from the ice. Without even any shrubbery to announce its presence, it stood like an impenetrable wall of trees. A wall designed to keep everything outside of it out, and anything else in. The trees were dark, with bark rougher than sandpaper, and roots that seemed to reach up from Hell itself to trip unlucky travelers. The canopy of leaves, nearly a hundred feet above them, blocked all but a few meager rays of sunlight, casting the forest floor into a permanent state of gloom and darkness.
Since they had arrived just before dark, the men of the group, the actual leader long dead, decided to camp outside the forest, and attempt to cross it the next day, and hoped to be out by the next night. Nobody wanted to stay the night in the forest.
Kale and the other slave boys set to making camp, while a few of the men huddled up to discuss the next days plan.
As Kale struggled to start a fire with the few sticks that they had found, he felt an overwhelming sense of dread spreading over him. "At least one person is going to die tomorrow," he whispered to himself, "at least one."



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Kale stared at the gloomy forest in front of him, feeling like a stone had dropped onto his chest. Five men stood at the front of the group, the same five who had held the meeting the night before. The troupe of men had awoken easily just before dawn. Most had not slept well, with thoughts of monsters and demons occupying their minds. Finally, the man in the middle of the five, after a nod from his accomplices, took a step toward the seemingly impenetrable wall of trees, and one by one, the rest of the men followed.
Once into the trees, they followed each other in single file, no one daring to steps outside the others footprints. There was not a sound besides the occasional snap of a twig carelessly stepped on. Not a bird chirped in the trees, no leaves rustled to produce a peaceful, calming sound, not a single hidden animal was heard stalking through the underbrush, and the forest was cast into a gloomy, eerie silence. It was surprisingly easy going, and after a while Kale noticed that they seemed to be on a kind of forest path. A not very conspicuous and well hidden path, but a path all the same. Kale looked from left to right, and on both sides all he saw was a near solid wall of trees, and when he looked back, he could see no evidence that they had ever walked through them. It almost seemed that the forest was herding them like cattle, guiding them to where it wanted them to go.
Ever since he had stepped foot into the dark trees, Kale had felt a small, uncomfortable pressure in the back of head, that seemed to grow the longer he walked. It wasn't really like a headache, more like some memory or thought lodged behind his consciousness that longed to be remembered, but had gone forgotten for too long.
As Kale walked, he watched his feet, counting his steps in order to take his mind off of the uncomfortable presence in his mind. Until, that is, the pressure suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by total and complete silence. And then he heard it. A quiet, almost undistinguishable whisper where the where the pressure had been. His head snapped up and he looked around frantically, trying to find who had crept up on him so stealthily. But no one was there, all the men were still in line, looking down and keeping there eyes on the path. He heard it again, a bit louder this time, and he could almost make out the words. He looked around him again, but nobody else had seemed to hear it. But as he looked harder, he could see some of the men, especially those in the front, looking around with bewildered looks on their faces.
The first two whispers still hadn't left his mind, seeming to loiter around at the bottom of that empty space. A whisper came again, and this time he could make out the words, and what he heard made his heart leap nearly out of his chest. The words were a thin, frightened version his own voice, and spoken quietly so that he had to concentrate just to hear them. "What is my name?" They whispered, then another, "Where am I?"
These questions were easy to answer, of course, and as he answered them, Kale found that they seemed to disappear from his head. "Thats it," he thought, "all i have to do is answer the questions, and thats easy enough." But as he continued closer to forest's center, the questions began to get harder and harder to answer, and started filling his mind faster than before. Soon they began to pile on top of each other, and he had to concentrate to answer just one of them. So absorbed was he in his task, that he seemed to lose any real sense of reality, and was only dimly aware of his surroundings. Once, distracted from his own thoughts by a frail scream, he looked up to see one of the five leaders run blindly into the trees, holding his head and tearing at his hair with white-knuckled fingers. But that only one second break of his thoughts brought on an onslaught of unanswered questions, and he quickly focused his mind once more.
The questions became more and more difficult and personal, until he could hardly answer any one of them. He face grew red with concentration, and he held his head to keep it from splitting in two. Kale looked up again to find himself accompanied by only four or five men, the others nowhere to be found. He couldn't take it any more, he had to get out of this Devils forest, he needed to clear his mind. He began to run, in no particular direction, sprinting blindly into the trees. Branches whipped his face, making long welts across his features. But he didn't notice the pain, he just kept running, on and on. His lungs burned, but he took no notice. His legs felt like lead underneath him, but he paid no heed. Questions rattled through his mind, every one replaced by two, then three, then four. They asked things that he didn't know how to answer, and he didn't want to know. "Who am I?" "Where do I belong?" "Where do come from?" It wasn't until a tree root seemed to reach up out of nowhere and wrap around his ankle did he stop. Still holding his head, he fell to the ground, and he stayed there.

The Forest of Questions (part 1)

(umm, sorry, but this isnt quite the real thing.I know it sounds alot like the begining, but its not. Its really just a general idea of the story. I havent quite worked it all out yet.)

Kale sat in front of the campfire, whatching as the hungry falmes ingulfed the meager supply of wood they had managed to find in the barren landscape. He shivered and moved closer to the fire, scooting along on his spare shirt so he didn't have to sit on the freezing snow. The sun was going down fast, and the Frozen Desert was even colder at night that durring the day. The other men huddled together for warmth, looking at him with lack of respect. He wasn't surprised though, He had chosen to come along as a servant boy. It was the only way they would let him come. Of course, he was still one of the lucky ones, as he counted the men for what seemed like the thousanth time, he shook his head, still not beleiving how much their numbers had disinigrated. They were down to twelve men all together, not counting him and the other servant, Bower. They had started with twenty-five.
Kale turned his head away from the miserable men, and as he scanned the horizen, he spotted a smudge to the north, the same way they were headed. " Hey Bower, whats that?" he asked, pointing in the direction of the smudge.
Bower turned from his meal of bread and water and let his gaze follow Kale's finger. "Ah," he said slowly in his thick, forign accent, "Tha be a dreadful place, truly dreadful. Many a good man has perished in tha Devils Pit. Tha be the Forest o Questions."
"The Forest of Questions?" asked Kale. Now that he looked harder, he could make out the faint outline of treetops. "Whats the Forest of Questions?"
"Its jus what it sounds like lad. The forest itself asks ye the questions ye want answered most." replied Bower, turning back to his meal
Kale looked at him, "Well that doesn't sound to bad," he said, "I already know what questions I want answered. How could that kill me?"
Bower turned to look at him again, " Thats not jus it, lad. The farther into the forest ye go, the deeper the questions go." Kale just looked at him with a puzzled look on his face, not understanding. "Look," Bower began again, " as ye get closer to the heart o the forest, the questions get closer to yer heart, until soon it be askin questions ye never knew were there. It'll drive a man mad, al o them unanswered questions rattlin around in 'is 'ead. He'll start stumblin around all confused, not knowin which way 'es goin. Thats 'ow it'll kiil ye. Ye end up lost an starvin te death. Lucky us, we get te travel straight through it."

Stories.

So, I've got a bunch of stories that I've writen, and from what I hear they're not bad. So i'll get those to ya as soon as i can. I hope you like them.