The Last Forest | Tell a Story to Me | Original Fiction

Source

This is my entry for the Tell A Story To Me Contest from @bananafish and @calluna! You can find the prompt and more information here! I'm so excited to get back into writing and this prompt was right up my alley. Enjoy!

I stood at the edge of the trees, staring into the darkness peeking between the towering trunks. I had seen trees before, but never like this. The city only had maybe five trees in total. They were incredibly rare because the Earth had become too toxic for them to spread their roots and thrive. There had been a major effort to preserve what few trees existed.

With the Wilde Forest, they didn't really have any other option. After the explosions, the forest became the sanctuary to all the wildlife left. It was too dangerous to even enter the woods. Legends said that the animals that remained knew humans were to blame for all the destruction. They were said to know when a human was too close to their home.

I gulped as I thought about all the stories I had been told since childhood. I was scared. Really scared. I couldn't back out now, though. My family was relying on me.

I didn't know it then, but the world, what was left of it, depended on my journey into the last forest. It would change everything.

Long before I had been born, actually, before my parents had even been born, the world was at war. All the countries were at odds, blaming each other for the state of the planet. Everything was dying, but no one wanted to admit their part in it. Overpopulation, pollution, poor energy practices, and who knows what else had left humanity with only a handful of years left on Earth.

There was no reasonable or quick solution to fix the horrifying problem.

Out of fear, and likely guilt, war broke out globally. Some say they thought if most of the population were wiped out, the planet would stand a chance of healing. Of course, there is no way of proving that. It did make sense, though.

Not much was recorded after the wars began. Things escalated so quickly, it was impossible to keep up. We knew there had been several nuclear explosions causing nearly all the world to become radioactive. The radiation ruined everything.

Everything.

The few thousand people left scrambled to preserve what they could. It took years to start to build small cities around the ruins. Only five emerged in 100 years.

Many died of starvation due to the radiation of the soil. Crops couldn't grow and food became scarce. Engineering helped make farming with what little clean soil could be found a little easier, but even that isn't working anymore. My family, in particular, has very little clean soil left.

I heard there was good soil to be harvested in the forest. It's this only forest left in the world. The soil has to be clean there. If the trees can grow in abundance, then crops should be able to do the same.

The Wilde Forest was dangerous. No one knew what hid in those thick trees, now. Real animal knowledge had been vastly lost. I wasn't sure what to expect.

Many others had made the trip before me but had not lived to tell about it. I was afraid the same would be my fate.

I waited, staling. I stared hard into the spaces between the trees, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness the thick canopy created. It wasn’t working.

Finally, with a deep breath, I took my first step. Shaking, I continued until I could no longer see the bright sunlight. I stood next to a tree trunk at least four feet around and stared up into its leaves. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

Something made a sound in front of me. I whipped my head towards the source. My eyes still had not adjusted so I didn’t see whatever had made the noise. My heart began to race as I desperately scanned the trees for any movement. I could feel eyes on me, but nothing made a peep.

After what felt like 20 minutes, but I'm sure had been only a few, I finally took a couple steps deeper into the woods. I paused briefly.

My eyes were starting to adjust. Everything was still dark, but shapes were starting to emerge. Bushes and foliage of all sorts and sizes polka dotted the forest floor. I tried to move quietly, but it was hard considering all the brush. My feet had always walked on cement and dirt. The new terrain was a bit of an adjustment.

Something moved behind me. Spooked, I ran headlong into the forest. I tripped and tumbled, but kept running. My heart was beating so loudly in my ears that I couldn't hear if the beast I was imagining was coming after me or not. I wasn't taking a chance of stopping, though. I knew I would be devoured if it caught me.

Just as I was imagining its sharp, vicious teeth ripping through my leg and bringing me down, my foot caught, slamming me into the ground. I cried out and threw my arms over my head.

“Please don't eat me. Please don't eat me,” I whispered and tried not to sob. I had ruined everything. My entire family was as good as dead now. I continued to whisper as I thought myself into a whirlwind of guilt.

Footsteps started towards me, but I didn't stop my mantra. The forest must have been playing tricks on me because the steady footfalls did not sound like they were coming from behind. Instead, they came from directly in front of me. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut in anticipation as they approached.

“Why in the world would I eat you?” A quiet female voice asked.

My head flung up. In front of me stood a small woman. Her hair was a dark brown, her eyes as green as the foliage. She looked as though she belonged to the forest, itself. She was so beautiful and such a relief that my eyes welled up with tears.

“I thought something was after me,” I choked out.

The woman shook her head. She extended her arm out, offering a hand to help me up.

I stumbled up to my feet and thanked her. “What are you doing in the forest?” I inquired.

She looked at me oddly. “I live here.”

“In the forest?” I was very confused. I had always been told that no one could survive in the forest.

Again, she nodded. “Do you not? I've always been told there's nothing outside of our trees. Everything was wiped out years and years ago.”

“I live in a city outside the forest.”

We stared at each other for several long minutes.

“How?” She whispered.

“We worked very hard to build what we have and save what we could,” I explained. “But I'm not sure how much longer we’re going to make it. We’re running out of clean soil. Food is becoming harder and harder to come by.” I stared down at the ground, afraid of showing the emotions I was feeling.

“Oh no. That's not good. Why didn't you move into the trees? They protect us.”

I explained our legends to her and what my world was like currently.

“No, no, no. The animals live among us peacefully. We were told nothing was left in the world. Only our forest.”

“It is the last forest. It's all the clean, good earth left.”

We both frowned.

“Maybe we can help you. At least until the earth heals,” she suggested.

“That would be amazing.”

I later learned that her name was Aspen. She led me to their village hidden in the last forest.

With permission from their leaders, I took home a small supply of food. Together, my people and the people of the Wilde Forest worked together to build our communities and survive.

The last forest is what saved my people.

---

_{Sponsored ( Powered by dclick )}