A Fork
Despite the brevity of your rest, you feel a second wave rush through you, and a newfound sense of desire - a desire to find your way out of this place, or to at least find answers for what is going on. You start going again, carrying yourself strong and eager.
Time seems to fly by you, and you feel you are making earnest progress now. Your stomach is content. Your feet are feeling rested. Your body as a whole seems pleased with you, and so, you look onward for some sign of where this path is taking you.
There, in the distance, you see an opening. The trees fan out, and you hurry toward it, eager to find an exit to this endless maze of trees.
At last, you have made it to something else - a proverbial fork in the road, for the path now splits in half and heads right and left. However, you see rather abruptly that there is something vastly different depending on what direction you go.
Going left, you see that the tropical palm trees you’ve grown accustomed to seem to shift into pine trees - trees that tower even higher, so tall the path is dark, yet still weirdly safe. The shift is instant, because one tree on each side is a palm tree, the one beside it is suddenly a big-trunked pine tree. It looks like an actual forest rather than the tropical island you’ve been in thus far.
You swear you can hear the sound of birds singing in the distance - your ears don’t work the same way they did, but you don’t think you’re imagining it. They are singing sweetly, as if they are trying to beckon you toward them. You can’t tell what might be lurking there, yet it calls to you regardless.
You also notice that the ground is different - the coarse sand you’ve grown used to walking on changes into dirt, and very soft-looking dirt, at that.
That’s one way to go, you think. But then…
Then, you look right, and see that it is the opposite of the left path entirely - rather than a rather sudden change from palm tree to forest trees, the palm trees suddenly appear to die, for going right there is an endless row of dead, crooked, and misshapen trees devoid of leaves. There is no green in this direction, not that you can see. It is bleak and dull and gray.
The air appears to grow murky, and you swear that the sky is darker in that direction as well. Yet even though it looks rather ominous, you don’t get a sense of fear looking that way. You feel curious, almost like it’s trying to scare you off on purpose, but it may hold something valuable further off.
You swear you hear birds in that direction, but the cawing of ravens and crows, rather than the sweet birdsong from the left. The ground is also different than both the sand and the dirt; it appears almost like cement? You aren’t sure, but it appears that way.
Either way, you have two choices, unless you decide to go backwards toward the coral reef you first came from. This feels like a waste of time, however, and you note you can’t exactly go forward. The trees before you - still palm trees- are bunched together so close, you don’t know if you could find a way to squeeze through even if you wanted to go forward.
You look left. You look right.
Both sides could lead you to a way out of this place or to something good, but you are unsure which is best. Now, you must choose, and hope you make the right choice. You only wish you knew which was best.
Where to next, you wonder.
Written by Hollowpages on 28 May 2019
The end (for now)