Nora

“I don’t like it here,” Harold whined from just to her left. They’d made it through the bright lights, the door, but as her eyes readjusted, the forest she found herself didn’t seem much different from the one they’d left. Maybe a little less lush. And the colors were less life-like. Then there was the smell… decay, with just a hint of putrescence.

Nora felt a little nauseous.  She tightened her throat and the sensation passed.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” she told the ghost as she glanced around the gloomy forest. “You could have stayed put and let me handle this instead of demanding I bring you along.”

“And let you come here alone?” he wondered. “Out there with those men you hang around with. You might never have come back. And what would I have done? What would they have done?”

Scattered your ashes, she decided. Maybe about time as well.

Nora raised her eyebrows as she finally spotted a path leading into the gloomy grey-lit canopy of bare tree branches.

“From here?” she asked. “I could think of better places to spend eternity. I’m not going to stay here any longer than I have to.”

“I’d be with you,” Harold noted. “That would make things better, right?”

“Sure,” she said, her reply not even sounding convincing to her

Nora started moving. The sooner she found Amy, the sooner they’d be back home, as she could still feel  a connection of sorts to the others, and most especially to Gary. It wasn’t a particularly nice path of temptation, and she wondered how much of this was her and how much was Amy’s. Maybe they both were experiencing a low point in their lives. Would certainly explain why the girl had been eager enough to step into the lights, without the lure of an actual other life on the other side of the interstitial reality.

The branches she moved out of her way slithered as much as fell back, but she was making headway. And getting gunk on her hands and clothes. This place felt worse than it looked all slimy and dirty.

“I don’t see anything ahead,” Harold offered unhelpfully. “Are you sure this it the right way to go?”

“Shhh,” she hushed, straining for something, anything that would lead her in the right direction. What was that sound? Branches slithering? Breathing that followed her as she crunched across the floor of dead leaves.

A birdcall came from up ahead, low pitched. An owl hoot. That might be a good sign. And, as hoped, there was a tree with an owl perched on it. And not any real or natural owl, but one looking exactly like the stuffed one she’d seen in pictures of Amy’s bedroom.

Nora smiled. She was on the right track.

Turning left, she found the path easier to go by, with the forest slowly brightening as colors sprang from the dismal grey, blue and black, flowers appearing, hummingbirds and similar brightly colored insects flitting about. The odors were improving as well, changing from decay and decomposition to the fragrance of flowers and vibrant life with every step.

She was moving closer to Amy’s dream persona and away from the bleakness the two of them shared upon entering, the difference between life’s disappointments and hopes. It was good news and bad news. She might have to start seeing her therapist again. And so might Amy and her parents.

The latter, Nora would definitely recommend. There was no sense in returning the little girl to the same life of misery she’d been trying to escape.

Nora soon found herself in a pastel colored clearing surrounded by the kind of imagery you’d expect in a seven-year-old girl’s imagination. Stuffed animals, bright candy colors, a haven from the darkness, happy pop music floating on the breeze.

It was about as perfect as Nora could imagine. Her inner seven-year old was basking in it.

“Amy!” Nora called out. “Amy are you out there? I’ve come to help.”

She could hear the sound of a little girl sobbing and turned in that direction. Up ahead the forest began to transform into something more familiar, more real, more intimate; a child’s bedroom, a girl’s bedroom, an exaggerated version of what Nora had seen in the photos.

And a unicorn. There hadn’t been one of those in there.

But-

There was the figure of a girl on the bed, curled up and weeping.

Nora approached slowly, gazing at the golden hair of the small curled up figure, face hidden in her hands. Something wasn’t quite right.

She reached out.

“No!” Harold shrieked.

Her hand sank into the girl’s body, felt sticky, cold, wet. She pulled away, pulling back a stream of stickiness with her. The figure turned, revealing it’s face, rotten and horrific, a grinning rictus. The stench of it reached her nose, making Nora suddenly collapse back from the bed, her stomach clenching as she began to throw up.