Day 692

It was a scorching summer day, the kind that makes your vision as hazy as the horizon if you're out for too long. There's that old saying about mad dogs and Englishmen - the only living things dumb enough to be out in such weather and yet there you were taking a walk through the empty park grounds like you owned the place. Being the only person around you almost felt like you did.

Insects hummed and the sun beat down on you with the same intensity as your grandmother's glare any time you spoke. Fortunately she couldn't stand the heat - she couldn't stand at all. Made it so much easier for you to get out of her sight and out into the world, especially on peaceful days like this where your only company was your thoughts.

Not even the birds were out today, there wasn't so much as a seagull's cry from the distance. After a while of this near silence, you began to feel worried and headed off the path and further into the park grounds, gradually wading through the knee height grasses to the shade of the forest. You'd never been there in all your years, your parents had warned you about it the way they warned you about everything in life - fairy tales.

Their forest story revolved around living trees called Fyxenhyd. They were something like dryads but always men, always still when you looked, always active on hot summer days and always hungry. Now you think about it, they may have been trying to warn you about predators but without using that dreaded word as parents so often refused to use for reasons beyond the younger generations.

This all popped into your head as you found yourself standing in front of the trees, hesitantly remembering the fear in your parent's eyes as they told you this Red Riding Hood-esque parable. any time you asked if they could take you into the forest to pick the bluebells that grew there they'd always say "Do you want us to meet the Fyxenhyd? Didn't think so." which never really made sense to your younger self. According to them Fyxenhyd only ate things smaller than them and your parents seemed as tall as trees themselves.

Of course now you know different, especially now that you're facing the forest they never let you near. That little voice in your head that always got you into trouble egged you to take just a single step inside, just one foot even - just to see the look on your parent's faces when you told them! If you ever told them.

With a deep breath, eyes closed to brace yourself you went to move your sandal-clad foot forward, expecting to meet cooler grass but you met something... wet? Eyes snapping open you saw your foot resting lightly on a tongue the size of your torso and teeth like rose thorns. A large tree contorted around it with golden-orange eyes the size of your head gazing back at you.

As the corners of its mouth slyly edged up into a grin you stumbled back and ran for the path, ran until you were back among the concrete and your lungs burned like the sun above you.

Now it seems every tree you pass,no matter how deep into the city you are, the knots and whirls on their bark look like sleeping faces, smiling at you smugly. Waiting for you to turn your back for long enough.