Pain seared through every part of his being as he took on his new body. The ground cracked and split open with his hued effort, as a glint of moonlight seeped through the mud. He flinched, not used to his new found sense of sight. He clawed with his tentacle-like hands that were splitting and reknitting into bones and flesh.
His wails of anguish pierced the silence of the night as he found himself crouched above the surface. It was too much too soon. The pleasing smell of fresh soil, rain, rivers, birds, animals and life intermixed with the smell of the burnt flesh of his people. He heaved, spitting out blood and phlegm.
A elderly man placed a hand on his head, startling him. He looked up to find gleaming green eyes,deep enough to hold the secrets of life, looking at him with sympathy and softness, like that of a mother.
“What have they done to me?” His voice came out hoarse and broken. Scars crisscrossed his naked body, like someone carved out pieces of his flesh.
“What they always do to things they can’t control. Loot and slaughter.”
He nodded. He understood slaughter better than anyone. He felt his partner cut down besides him, the space where he was an empty hole nothing could ever fill. Just like that. Ages of memory, gone.
His future, gone. That painful glimpse of a moment felt like eternity, and the endless possibilities of fate carved itself to a narrow path of pain and suffering. His future was set the minute his partner gasped his last breath, and it would end with him dead, or his killer.
-x-
The still water reflected the muted gold of a peaceful day, and it rippled as Kai dipped his feet into the freezing water.
“Baba, come look at what I found,” his daughter called out.
“Sakina. How many times do I have to tell you, you little brat! Don’t call from the back when I am leaving the house. It invites negative spirits,” he chided. “Go back and help your mother. And don’t call from behind.”
Sakina huffed but obeyed.
The life of a woodcutter was simple yet grating. Kai lugged a heavy axe for two miles, heaving and sweating under the hot sun. He laboured hard, the repetitive thud of the axe a hypnotic lullaby that helped him reach a trance , but there was only so far he could go before worry crept back in and held him in a chokehold. The sunny day suddenly darkened;not the dark of rain, but the dark of pitch night, though it was not supposed to yet. That could only mean one thing in the forest of Isra: something was watching him. He had to get out, but he couldn’t run, lest he spook the spirit into giving chase.
He slowly edged away from the tree he was felling, but he stumbled on the roots, and crashed hard on the ground face first. He heard laughter echo in the trees. Goosebumps trailed his skin. His breath caught in his throat, and his heartbeat loud enough to fill his ears. A putrid rotten smell wafted in the air, like that of an animal carcass left out for days. The forest grew painfully silent. He could feel the absence of life, as if even the tree spirits retreated, holding their breaths to not attract the wrath of whatever was hunting him.
Bloody footsteps appeared out of thin air, and he could hear the soft metallic whisper of the bells of an anklet. He smeared the blood on his fingertips. It was thick, and sticky, more solid than liquid, and almost black. That was good. If the blood was flowy and pure red, it was a sure sign that he would die. Thick dark blood meant if he played his cards right, he could make it back alive. He signed a quick prayer for luck, and followed the trail.
The spirit led him to a crystal clear pond. The water had a tint of blue that shimmered with the changing sun. Fragments of the boulder were visible when the water was still. A crow cawed once from somewhere in the tree, a bad omen.
The lake was so tranquil it felt like it hid another serene world beneath it, lulling his reflection to submerge and hide away until it was safe to come out again. He followed his reflection and the water rippled as he took a step in, and then another, his mind far away as if he was there, yet not.
Water reached his midriff, and what should have incited gut wrenching fear only made him mildly uncomfortable. He was fully submerged, his head floating in the still water, his eyes cloudy and black. Slimy tentacles wrapped around his leg and yanked him under water. He thrashed helplessly, clawing and screaming. His lungs burned, and water gushed into his mouth and nose, He closed his eyes, letting it all go.
“Wait, this is not what I want,” he heard a soft male voice from afar. The pressure on his lung decreased. He still couldn’t breathe, but he knew something was different.
“You want me to let him go?” the spirit asked.
“What good is he to me dead?”
-x-
Kai met the female spirit in his dreams. Sometimes she appeared as a breathtaking seductive woman, other times she appeared as a flesh eating monster. Always wearing a bloody anklet. Always tormenting him.
It had been a year since Kai crawled out of the forest drenched in blood, tethered to her ever since.
“Hewer, heed my word. I spared your meager life out of a whim. It is due that you return my favour. Once your daughter gets married, you must return to my lake and fell a tree marked with my anklet.”
“As you wish.”
With spirits it was better to be submissive and just give in, no questions asked.
-x-
“You listen to me, young man, you better keep Sakina safe. I know how to chop a man and bury his body.”
“Baba,” Sakina chided, blushing a deep red.
Kai thought he saw a glimmer of a smirk on the groom’s face, but it was hard to tell with the scar across his face. All of his expressions looked menacing.
“ You don’t have to worry about me sir. I know how to take care of my partner.”
The house felt quieter than it used to, as if mourning the loss. The hint of the jasmine oil Sakina used to put in her hair lingered in the air. Her bed was neatly made, any trace of her presence all erased. Kai accidentally set two plates for dinner, and when he realized, his heart ached. The purpose of his life was snatched away.
The felling of the tree went much smoother than expected.
The spirit appeared in his dream as her true self, with three eyes, razor sharp teeth, and tentacles. What was different was the spirit behind him; he had a gut feeling that he knew him from somewhere. His body was covered in scars. He was half man, half tree.
The half spirit laughed, and Kai’s heart went still, his ears ringing. “Nirvan?”
Nirvan smirked as the screams of a tortured woman echoed around him. Kai sank to his knees. He would recognize the voice anywhere. Sakina.
“What did you do?”
“No, what have you done?”
Kai looked at his hands, watery blood dripping.
He woke up screaming. The house felt quieter than it used to, there didn’t seem to be a trace of Sakina left. In the place where her bed was now stood a stump, clear red blood dripping from its bark. Around it twisted an anklet.
