Adalon

Step into the burning light of the sun leaving the hospital and its chaos behind you. Here the path is made muddy with old blood pooled in the imprints left behind by the hundreds of those who passed. Claws sink into the ground as the path is walked once more. There are hints of the past scattered on the edges where fewer lifeless bodies were dragged through, their footprints undisturbed. A dragon once walked here with only three legs. Over there someone small had dragged something much larger behind them. Claw marks upon a signpost show that rage or despair had taken over a pitiful being. Echoes of what once was tell stories of the path you follow.

Soon the smell of fire and antiseptic that had clung to the hospital walls faded as it is traded for the smell and sight of mangled trees. There is a sign here, once solid and proud, now patched together with different pieces of wood and different handwriting for each rune. Some of the runes are written in unknown blood while others are written in charcoal made from the burnt remains of the wooden piece next to it. Together they form the name of this shattered idea of a forest.

“Adalon’s Graveyard”

Dare to enter the forest and see that a closer look reveals what is wrong. The trees are from all across Sornieth, from the Southern Icefield to the Viridian Labyrinth. Each tree is twisted and malformed with bones and limbs sticking out of trunks and branches. Each tree is a living gravestone, grown from the remains of the dead. A skull rests in the center of a trunk, its jaw open as if forever roaring at the sky in anger now that it is forever grounded.

A sound of cracking announces a presence unnoticed. Through the trees is a gaoler. More branches line her body with a mane of blue leaves, yet she walks as if this does not bother her. As if the branches do not threaten to chain her to the ground and grow where she once stood. There is an understanding here, though you are not privy to it. Her deep water eyes peer in front of her towards the direction of those who still breathe without fully looking at them.

“Are you here for a story? I know much that happened, happens, will happen to those who will end here. I hear them tell me their stories. They do not whisper them to me, they do not speak. They scream.”

Will you stay?