The Monsters You Leave Behind

The first blood spilled within the woods came from a buck. He fell to the long grass with a low bellow, wet and thick. Red foam bubbled from his mouth. Yellow and white feathers poked out from his left flank; the arrow lodged itself into his abdomen. His dying cries chased away any nearby creatures that observed their fallen neighbor. One, two, three strained breaths—his flank collapsed and did not rise again. Strained muscles slumped against the now darkened grass below him.

Uneven hoofbeats stamped through the undergrowth near the fallen deer. A final warning to anyone near the dead creature, lest they met the same fate. The new creature emerged from the undergrowth.

A human—they were not hoofbeats but footsteps. He looked sickly: bony arms, a sunken face with watery eyes, his lungs rattled much like the buck’s. He knelt by the carcass and cut near the arrow wound, so it did not break when he pulled it off. He dug into his hip pouch and got to work tying up the buck for transport.

The human returned a few days later. The skull of the buck hung at his hip. He dug a small indent in the ground at the base of a tree. He nestled the buck’s grinning skull in the dirt, secured it, and left the woods once more.

He may have been the first hunter in the woods, but he certainly was not the last.

Traps littered parts of the woods, each designed to fool young animals into patches of unsuspecting leaves. Limbs strung up by rope or snapped between metal jaws — they met the same fate as the buck ages before. Some hunters took every part of the animal with them instead of giving pieces back to the forest.

Yes, death happened in the woods long before the humans arrived. But it was out of survival—meat immediately transformed into energy once gobbled down by hungry mouths. Now, as more and more humans came into the woods who gutted the fish, stripped the herbs, and toppled trees, their hunger outgrew their stomachs. They were gluttonous for something they could not have, something that the woods would not give them.

The one-sided battle between the woods and the humans waxed and waned as time went on. Hunting parties diminished, and life started to bounce back. But then the trees started falling. First, the ones who died but would not fall came crashing down. A helping hand at first. Then trees that still had time to grow and learn, met their fate on the ground too early. The humans uprooted the brush at their feet and trampled the earth for their animals. Never mind the ones that lived within the wood’s territory; the humans needed room for the cattle, the pigs, and the sheep. Some could survive without humans’ care, but they traded livelihoods for shelter and gave their resources to those who gave them food in their belly until it was time for human greed to eat them as well.

Some humans discovered how to use all parts of the animals, down to the bones. But others did not care and disposed of the stray pieces. Skulls missing lower jaws hung on fence posts. Ribs and hooves prized by hunting dogs found solace in the earth of the forest when the dog came to hide their toy.

Soon, the bodies of the humans started to wither and pass as well. Same as the animal carcasses, human remains had a random chance of ending up near the forest. Some bodies were buried at the base of a tree or near a patch of flowers. Ashes fell into rivers and dirt, and were soon swallowed by the fauna who lived within.

With flimsy protection made from dead trees, roots broke through coffins in the earth and surrounded the corpses. Once the mighty oak stripped the last bits of flesh, roots soon defiled the bone remains. Weak openings at the base of necks snapped with a simple push, and roots fed on what was finally theirs; what had ruined their livelihood became their meal.

The human abodes nearby grew with the rising population, nearly bursting at the seams. More trees fell, and the forest watched as houses made of fallen trees grew skyward by human hands. They churned the earth and forced chaos into dedicated rows. Gardens and fields filled with vegetables, fruits, and grains. Taunting the forest from which they drew their resources.

The forest shrugged at human advances and waited. All living things had to reach their end, and humans would be the same. Their power would rise and fall, the forest would grow back, and another would take the humans’ place. A never-ending loop of life and death in a consistent, timely manner.

Or at least, that was what the forest believed. The humans thought differently.

The town bordering the forest soon grew into their space and knew how much they could harvest without damaging the land. They found a balance after years of testing. But they were a particular group, unlike the pack of humans that advanced along roads, armed and armored to the teeth. Some stood high above their kin on horses, those who wished to conquer all they met.

And did they conquer.

Screams resounded in the woods as the army ransacked the tiny village. Human politics or whatnot, someone stepped on another one’s toes, and there was a price to pay. Many fell to the army’s weapons in their homes, others to arrows in the back as they made their escape. Splotches of dark red littered the earth as more and more died at the hands of others.

A few managed to escape into the woods, seeking protection from the trees when all they did was take. Feet trampled undergrowth, and the bushes rewarded the humans with thorns slashing against arms, a small wound compared to the sword. The woods did not help or hinder those in the escape. It sat. A bystander to the violence around it. Humans slumped to the ground, red blood once again staining the grass. Where the earth thirsted, it drank what the humans left after death.

But the screams continued. They bounced against thick trunks and traveled into canopies where the leaves swallowed the sound once in for all. It, too, continued in a cycle. Screams of fear while running away; of pain at the cut of a sword; of anguish at the sight of fallen kin. The sound of the buck screaming at the arrow in his flank. A warning, a plea, for someone, someone, please, help us! My baby! Oh no, not Amelia. Why? Why us? Please, just let us go! Please—

The earth exploded as tree roots ripped themselves out of the ground. Scattering dirt and broken undergrowth, they burrowed once more into the soil, searching. The dead who departed long ago left their remains. And it was time for the forest to take something from the humans.

The forest grew a guardian from the remains of all who had called the woods their final resting place. Multiple heads fused on one spine. Mismatching legs made of bones from various creatures. What would be wings on a bird were now bony appendages stretching from the spine that stabbed into the earth for extra mobility. A ribcage with enough space inside to fit a stable instead of organs. A thick, long tail that clubbed whatever came near. An amalgamation of cracked bones fused with the protective ligaments of various tree roots. Strong oak in the ribs and spine, flexible elm in feet that contained mismatched sets of hooves, paws, and talons. The Prometheus of Nature stood at the boundary path between the woods and the village. A crossroads between the unknown of the woods and the order of the town. Those who paused as the earth shook by an unknown source stared at the towering beast.

The beast had three heads: a cow with the final wound still on the forehead as a perfect circle; a ten-pointed buck with half a lower jaw; a human skull with part of the back left missing. She breathed without lungs and staggered on uneven legs. Femurs from all types of animals reached toward patellas lined like teeth to create a smooth hinge. Dirt, flowers, and leaves from the earth clung to the bones to emulate some sense of skin or pelt.

The monster opened her mouths and roared. An ear-splitting scream came from a nonexistent throat; the beast cried in anguish for those who perished within the trees. The humans cut down by their kin, the animals hunted by humans, animals hunted by other animals. She howled for every natural and premature death in a voice laced with animal shrieks and human screams. The humans still standing scattered at the sight of the monster.

With heaving breaths, the monster darted toward the first armor-clad human she saw. Even with no carnivorous teeth—save for the small ones in the human’s jaw—the human died with a bitter crunch. The monster flung the carcass behind her into a patch of soiled grass and continued her hunt.

Once she started, the monster did not rest until every human from the army met their end. They were her enemy. The village sustained too much damage, and the villagers who lived there fled toward other sanctuaries. She did not have venom for them. The ones who slaughtered in the name of someone else or for resources they had a surplus of deserved their death by the teeth of the Prometheus of Nature.

Blood splattered and exhausted, the monster dragged the final body out of the forest. She stared at their corpses with mismatched eye sockets. They could not rot here. One by one, she transported the bodies deeper into the town and tossed them into various fires that ravaged houses and farms. Flecks of ash fluttered into the sky and carried on the wind to rest somewhere else.

As the village burned—with the smell of cooking flesh filling the air as a warning for those who dared trifle with the earth—the monster staggered her way back into the forest. Each step into the blood-stained grass thumped and sank into the soft dirt.

Deeming the task completed, the tree roots relinquished their hold on the remains. Sections of ribs, legs, and the gaudy appendages thumped to the ground. The undergrowth of the woods would grow over them one day. The beast’s legs collapsed under her, and she slumped to the ground. The roots dislodged from her heads, and they tumbled across the clearing.

The buck’s head still grinned, teeth stained with blood. The cycle of man ruling nature and succumbing to their end by their own hand would continue once more.