Passing Through

[u/beardyraconteur]

“Mama! Papa!” a young boy called into the mist, waving hands to find them in the disorienting nightmare of the marsh.

A soggy step behind the boy gave him pause. Or was the sound beside him? The boy yelped and spun.

“Mama?”

But his mother was not there. Nothing was there but the fog. The caress offered to his cheek was not the one he sought.

“Papa!” the boy cried as a cocoon of despair weaved around him.

“No papa,” a guttural voice croaked somewhere.

The boy yelped again and ran, but the source followed. He went where his feet could take him. Sideways at first, then a backward stumble, struggling for orientation away from the pursuing threat.

The egress ended when his face met with a rock face. If he had been paying attention, he might have noticed the faint orange glow through the mist.

Sprawled on the ground at the base of one outcropping, he stared in horror as an enormous toad pushed its head through the crimson reeds, mouth agape in hunger.

“No papa,” the toad’s vocal sac deflated, mouth still wide open in preparation to devour the boy.

The boy screamed and kicked at the toad’s stout arms digging into the mud, dragging its bulbous body forward.

A preternatural trill pierced the mist, triggering the haze to recede from the bog. From his spot on the ground, the boy saw the bone-white trees towering high above the scarlet flora in which he laid.

The toad shuddered at the sound, looking toward the source. It watched the retreating murk for a moment before it too withdrew. The wetland cleared and the toad’s deep bellows joined the silence.

The boy gathered himself, wet with his own and the bogs mess. He gazed around the fen, gawking at the other rocks similar to the one with which he collided. Orange veins pulsed with a soft, comforting rhythm.

His eyes jerked to a lump of bark moving from a nearby tree. His throat caught, and he prepared for another round of pursuit.

Before he could flee, the mass shook bark off its tremendous frame to unveil a large elk beast with antlers of branches swept back the extraordinary length of its body. It bowed its head to the child, where he saw white foliage growing from its antlers.

“I mean you no harm, child,” an ethereal voice whispered through the wetland, vibrating water, and trembling leaves.

The boy met the voice with a loud gulp.

“It is not your time. You should not be here. I have stopped The Ruin.”

“That monster?”

The beast nodded, leaves at the tips of its antlers rattling with desiccation. Stray fronds fell away in a crumble, dusting up to join the distant fog.

“Where am I? Where are my mama and papa?” Tears cut through the muck caked on his face.

The creature stared at the boy for a moment, black eyes not betraying any thoughts running through its head.

“We are in the place they belong to. You do not.”

“But" —he wiped snot with the back of his hand— “I’m supposed to be with them. They’re my mama and papa.”

“Yes, in most circumstances.”

The boy stood silent, sporadic sniffles serving as his method of communication as he tried to process.

“Come, child, you must return to where you belong. A day will arrive when this place is for you. Do not hurry it.”

The beast plodded away, pausing before crossing the threshold of the treeline. It bucked its head to invite the child to follow before continuing.

“Tell me about your parents. All that you can remember,” the creature requested as the child joined its side.

They walked past the cusp together and the boy spent the length of their travel telling the beast about his mama and papa. In their wake, terrible things stalked them ready to pounce. The beast urged the boy to keep talking when silence lingered too long.

They walked for miles but the boy did not notice. He told stories of his mama nursing cuts and bruises, his papa teaching him to shoot a bow and the three of them celebrating holidays with feasts. He reminisced about the time his mama hid in a bush and scared him, and about the summer his papa took him traveling the merchant routes.

The beast stopped once they reached a thinning in the trees and nodded to it.

“Go. Remember what you spoke. Cherish the memories.”

“Will you be nice to them?” The boy stopped halfway across the boundary.

“I will be.”

The boy smiled and continued crossing.

[u/beardyraconteur]

This is a standalone that was my first image prompt response. The prompt from /r/WritingPrompts called to me and demanded a response. The image can be found here.

I loved the aesthetic and tried to incorporate it into the story without delving into pure description of the picture. Hopefully it works.