#Random project | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sanjilover4815 · 2 years ago

Text

The Flaming Man

It was dusk when I departed my home village for the untamed wilderness, my wife staying at home to look after our children as I made my journey. A woodcutter by trade, I often find myself making these treks through the woods, as a customer in the neighboring village of Dorran was easily my biggest lumber buyer. The sun hung low in the sky as I rode my horse into the woods, the cart behind me tugging several dozen logs, stripped of their bark and cut into presentable pieces. Soon, they’d stop buying, and I’d need to find another customer.

My lantern had enough oil to cover my trip, and I figured that I’d be able to stock up in Dorran; my customer ran a store, after all. He’d surely have no problem lending me some spare oil. As we trekked along, the only sound I could hear was the clomping of my horse’s hooves on the path and the quiet flickering of my lantern’s flame. As I looked up, I could already see that the sun had set, and the chill of a winter night flowed into the forest like water from a broken dam. My clothes were doing next to nothing to help combat the chill, and the rapidly approaching darkness was beginning to make me nervous. I pulled my hood up and surveyed the area around me as my horse slowly rode on, the cart weighing her down greatly. I ought to give her something nice once we finish this job, or else she’ll grow to loathe me.

As the winding path led deeper and deeper into the forest, the lack of sounds began to unnerve me. My other nighttime trips had been quiet, sure, but the deafening silence was beginning to gnaw at me. My horse quickly stopped in her tracks, causing me to lunge forward, tightly grabbing the reigns with my free hand. I look down at her, confused. She wasn’t one to act up, especially not when there was a job to do.

“What’s wrong, girl?” I gently ask, though I receive no response. Believing it’s the chill, I get off her in an attempt to comfort her, though I’m quickly met with the proper cause of her outburst. At her foot is a lump of flesh and blood, most likely the remains of an owl, though it’s incredibly difficult to tell. It’s mangled and melted into an unrecognizable shape. I take a few steps back in surprise when I see it. No hunter would do this, surely. Neither their bows nor their blades could mangle a creature in this way, and I’ve never heard of a hunter that could melt flesh, anyhow.

Against my better judgment, I guide my horse from the owl’s remains and begin to continue riding, unable to get it out of my mind. The ever-pervasive chill continues to grow more bitter by the second, and I contemplate going back home. I remain lost in thought before my horse stops again. Looking down in front of her, I see another mangled lump of flesh, this one far worse than the last. It’s pooled in a bizarre mixture of blood and liquid fat, and any other recognizable features of the animal are completely gone. I take a deep breath before looking further down the trail, realizing that my path is seemingly blocked by a field of them, popping up from the dirt path like twisted wildflowers. I run my hands along my horse’s mane as I look at them.

“You stay here, girl. I’ll go look around.” I hear her neigh as I turn back towards the path, creeping my way through the dark forest. I keep my lantern close as I walk, avoiding looking at the ground under me, though I hear my boots squishing against sticky pieces of flesh. It takes every ounce of control I have not to vomit. Shivering, I make my way deeper into the forest. Looking upwards to distract from the noise, I realize that the only light I have is that of the moon and my lantern, both of which are inadequate. The moon’s been waning for a few weeks, now, and it’s nearly new. It’s not much help navigation-wise.

Before I know it, I find myself stumbling into a forest clearing. Unlike the outside, it’s relatively warm here, as if the bitter hands of winter have yet to find it. I relish the opportunity to warm up, finding a stump in the center and leaning on the tree behind me. Confusingly, I find it soft behind my head. I stand up in alarm and slowly poke the tree with my free hand, illuminating it with my lantern as best I can. Through the lamplight, I see that it’s bizarrely artificial-looking, as are the other trees in this part of the woods. It’s perfectly smooth and without flaw, instead of the rugged naturalness that normal bark has. I poke it again and still find it relatively soft, as far as trees go. I bring my lantern closer and watch as a bead of liquid slowly rolls down the tree’s front as it reacts to the heat.

“Wax…” I mutter to myself, testing the other trees in the area to make sure my hypothesis is correct. Much to my own chagrin, every tree in the clearing reacts in the same way. Why would there be wax trees in the middle of the woods? And who had the time to sculpt them, anyhow? As I ponder my questions, I hear a sound from the woods. It sounded like a low groan, not entirely unlike the howl of a wolf, though it was distinctly human in nature. It wouldn’t jump out to me, normally, but the complete silence of the forest tonight put me on high alert. I look around in an attempt to find the source, only to find it completely gone. As I look around, I realize that I’ve completely lost the path I came in on. Panic slowly rose in my chest as I began to break out in a sprint. Not the most rational way of doing things, but I was desperate to escape the wax clearing. Selecting a direction that vaguely matched my memory, I sprint as fast as I can through the trees, unsure if they’re natural or man-made. After a good bit of running, I find myself crashing into the same clearing as before, the wax from my lantern’s heat still slowly rolling down the artificial bark.

The noise starts up again, though this time it is followed by several more groans. Though they were all of a different pitch and intonation, the howling voices were clearly the same one as before, erupting this time in a nightmarish chorus of moaning human voices. Sweat begins to bead down my face as I look around for the source, the darkness of the woods slowly beginning to get to me. The groaning only continues, louder and louder, more and more aggressive by the second. I keep my lantern as close to my body as I can possibly get away with, letting its warmth overheat me, letting sticky sweat drip down my body and pool in my clothes. My throat is tight with tension as I creep back towards the stump in the middle of the clearing. I take a deep breath and look in front of me, roughly where I came from, though I had no way of knowing for sure. In front of me, mostly obstructed by darkness, were eyes. Hundreds upon hundreds of eyes staring into my very soul. Some were animal, some human, but all of them held the same desperate sadness that I only knew from starving children and animals who had yet to succumb to their hunting wounds.

Though I can’t see anything but eyes in the forest, the wails have become deafening. Whatever those creatures are, I can tell that they’re the source of the mind-numbing wails that have been taunting me ever since I stepped foot into the clearing. I stumble backward in an attempt to get away and fall down, my lamp clattering down behind me and breaking. The oil spills everywhere, staining the very earth beneath me, and the wick goes out. Despite my lantern getting snuffed, darkness has yet to completely overtake the woods. No, in fact, lamplight still continues to flicker along the bark of the waxy trees. As I slowly recover from my fall, I make my way to my feet, only to discover, for the first time, that I’m not alone.

Before me is a man. He’s taller than I am, by quite a bit, and dressed as though he’s a nobleman going to a high-society party. Instead of skin, his arms and legs are made of dancing orange flames, miraculously able to avoid singing his suit. Perched upon his neck is the skull of a coyote, though much larger than any coyote can hope to manage. From the sockets of his eyes and the end of his nostrils, flames flicker up like demented candles. I stare at him in complete disbelief as he continues to walk towards me. I slowly begin to step backward towards the fog of eyes, but I realize that he’s far faster than I could ever hope to be. As he continues to approach, he outstretches a flaming arm, extending his fingers from a burning hand, bringing them closer and closer to my body, sweat begins to pour down my face. Before he can reach me, I break out in a sprint again, bounding through the blanket of eyes, allowing their shrieking wails to completely drown out my thoughts. Though I run as fast as I can, I can never escape the dull flickering of the flames behind me. My legs scream from pain the longer I run, my pace obviously slowing as I become more and more exhausted. I’m sweating bullets now, partially from the heat of the man, partially from the vigorous running. As I crash into the clearing again, I find myself collapsing on the ground.

I hear the telltale flickering sound behind me as he slowly closes in. Against my better judgment, I pull my head up and look at the clearing again, only to be completely transfixed by my hands. Any wrinkle that existed before is gone, replaced by the smooth, waxy surface of the trees. As beads of sweat begin to roll down my head from the flaming man’s heat, I realize that I haven’t been “sweating” at all. I’ve been reacting to heat. I’ve been melting. I begin to lose feeling in my legs. I stare at the trees ahead of me as the light gets brighter and brighter as the flaming man grows closer. The feeling in my legs is the first to go, then the feeling in my back. I hear his quiet flickering growing louder and louder as his heat begins to melt my body. The tips of my fingers slowly melt off, revealing muscle, then bone underneath them. In just a second, the bone begins to melt too, pooling on the floor in a heap of flesh and blood, completely unrecognizable as human. I find myself screaming as the flames begin to melt the rest of my body, trailing up my arms before slowly melting my head and face off. As the eyes melt out of my sockets and my voice begins to sputter out, my thought process completely stops. Any thoughts, dreams, wishes, and fears instantly cease as the flaming man melts me away into nothingness.

For a moment, everything is dark. Peacefully, gloriously dark. I wonder if this is what death is like. If death is floating in a pool of inky darkness for all eternity.

Then, I feel the blackness disrupted by a flickering, familiar flame as a figure walks into my little grotto of darkness. He’s a traveler, no older than twenty-five, and he’s looking for a place to rest from the harsh winter chill.

I try to scream, to warn him, to tell him of his fate.

But the only thing that comes from my mouth is a haunting wail.

#short stories #writing #creative writing #random project #project #horror #fire #flaming man?#is that a tag #i spent like an hour on this whoops #Let's see how it do

0 notes