Part Four - You'll Get Only Daylight

The Room

“So what did the faces do?” Scott said. He felt like he was making progress with Milo, but he didn’t want to insult him like other profilers had in their interviews. Scott had made as much progress as them, he’d watched the videotaped sessions, so now every word going forward would be new territory.

“Why would I know?” Milo said.

“Did you ever theorize about it? I mean, you had the time?” Scott said. He pulled his stomach tight and breathed deeply. He probably shouldn’t have joked with Milo about his situation. Milo was completely unpredictable, and Scott was one wrong mannerism away from this interview ending.

“Lot’s of time?” Milo said. He leaned forward stretching his arms over the table.

“Lot’s of time indeed Scott. How long was I in there again?” Milo said.

“Four hundred years,” Scott answered back.

Milo looked at him blankly.

“You’re getting it Scott, let’s keep going,” Milo said. He sat back in his chair like an exhausted puppet.

“My theory, plan, formula, whatever, was that the faces were linked to whatever was controlling the woods. It wanted to observe us, every inch of our behavior,” Milo said.

“Why would it want to do it, the Phantom or whatever,” Scott said.

“To study us, we talked to it too at times. The problem is the days mixed together weird. So much time had passed since we were in there, I can’t remember all the events where we figured things out. I only sort of remember the big things.”

“It, it talked to you, the Phantom?”

“Yeah, multiple times, I don’t understand it.”

Milo tapped his finger on the table like a bent mannequin.

“I don’t understand it. The thing tortured us for years, but it wanted to know how we felt about it all,” Milo said.

“You’re saying it was doing it strategically, like it wanted to know something about you?” Scott said. He was getting sucked in by the forest now too.

“Exactly, it wanted to study us,” Milo said. He looked away at the panel of glass behind Scott’s head. It floated like another world, a flat portal to a world of suspicion and misunderstanding. The government wanted to know how all this was possible, and Milo was biological proof of the forest’s strange power. How did they want to respond? All the government agencies and their lackeys could dismiss this as isolated event. They’d bring in some reclusive scientist to explain a hole in time and space, and Milo would be the sole survivor of some dingbats warp field theory.

“He was preparing for an invasion, Scott,” Milo said.

“What, what do you mean?” Scott said.

“He was preparing for an invasion, he wanted to know our weaknesses, and there is no one more resilient in our world than children,” Milo said.

Milo blinked back some tears and shook his head.

“Um, okay, I’m glad we’re getting there, but let’s get back to the details of the forest a little bit more,” Scott said. He knew if Milo drifted into emotion he’d lose a bunch of answers.

Milo shook his head again.

“What? What details then?” Milo said.

“If you were there for so long, did the seasons ever change?” Scott said.  

The Woods

"How long have we been in here anyways?" Melissa said. She was on her back, on top of some brown-angry leaves with mud sinking out from underneath their edges. She was staring at the canopy of chiseled green and twig. She was covered in mud, dried blood, and small pebbles of caked dirt. When Ron tried to swim back to the shore just a little while ago, something was pulling on his feet. He started to panic, and said there was something in the water with him. Milo and Melissa didn't see anything moving behind, except the thrashing blackness from his panicked limbs. They had to jump in the mire to help him out.

"I'm not sure, but it's been a while," Milo said. He was sitting against the tree watching the island. Nothing had moved since the figure wandered out there when they first appeared.  A few birds were singing like broken whistles in the wayward eves. There were no sounds of cars, jets, or other people walking alongside Snake Tooth Pass. Milo couldn't see past the canopy completely, but the sky looked strange, fake, like it'd been crudely painted with a fleshy yellow crayon. The trees themselves had an odd plastic edge to them, like the kind Milo's mom had in their basement, and would take out for special occasions since they had cords of Christmas light webbed through their limbs. He didn't want to think too much about his mom.

He'd cried for her earlier as they were running into the unforgiving wall.

Everyone had cried from the slashing vines and bashing trees except Ron. He cried later from what he saw beneath the water. Milo was happy to see him cry. He didn't know why, but he was glad to see Ron wasn't always trying to act better him. They'd been friends forever, but Ron had always been the same type of egotistical asshole. The one silver lining about being trapped in this forest was it finally knocked Ron off his 11-year-old pedestal. They were all pieces of meat for this forest to play with.

"I think it's been at least nine hours?" Milo said.
"No, less that that, maybe five," Ron said. He was sitting further up the path from Melissa and Ron. He wouldn't go near the water.
"I'm starving, we should try to find some food," Melissa said, standing up.
"I'm not hungry, at least not yet," Ron said.
"It doesn't matter, we should try and find something," Milo said.
"I need a little bit more time, just a little more," Ron said.
Melissa looked up to the sky.
"Shouldn't it be night by now, it was two thirty when we got off the bus," she said.
"Yeah, there is no way the sun shouldn't be getting less bright, this is weird," Milo said.
Milo walked further along the path, deeper into Snake Tooth Pass. Nothing moved but the edges of trees bending over the dirt-bumpy trail. There was a shape up a head, where the forest billowed upwards on a tree-etched hills. It was jagged, menacing, and full of moss.

"Is that a machine?" Milo said. The trees bent downward like a collapsing tunnel. Melissa sprinted over to Milo.
"I see it, I see it!" She yelled, pointing.
"The trees are trying to hide it, look at them," Milo said.

The forest groaned like an old engine powering up. Another figure stood amongst the trees across from Ebner's island. It watched with five eyes beneath it's metallic mask. It needed more reactions from these children, especially the coward from the water.