Part Two - Don't Test the Edges

The Room

“So, this phantom, did you ever see it?” Scott said, fingering through the yellow memo pad.

“Yes, yes I did, many times,” Milo said without blinking.

“How many times is that then? How many is many?”

“1,319 times to be exact.”

“What?”

“I witnessed the phantom 1,319 times.”

“How, how do you know it was that many times?”

“We counted, not at first, it was too terrifying, but we eventually got used to it.”

“How would you count? You had the same clothes and everything from before. Did you have paper?”

“What?”

“I just want to know how you got that number,” Scott said.

Milo leaned over in the seat and shook his scarred head. Scott couldn’t help but think of the vines he’d mentioned before as the shallow and jelly-like gashes gazed back at him in white scars.

“I just told you I saw this Phantom 1,319, and you care about how I got that number?” Milo said.

“Well, no, I mean it’s a very specific number. So, I guess I just wanted to know?”

“How I kept track?”

“Um, yeah, how that happened.”

“And you asked me a question about paper?”

“Yeah, yeah I did.”

“Do you need paper to keep track of time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why did you ask me? Don’t you want to know about the phantom?” Milo said leaning back.

Scott waved at the clear panel of glass behind him. The glass reflected the sterile white light of the room in a perfect glow like the surface of the moon.

“They’re going to bring some water in for me, did you want any?” Scott asked, adjusting his glasses.

“No, I’m okay, but thank you,” Milo said, rubbing his forehead.

“So tell me about the phantom then? What did it look like?”

“It appeared many different times, in various forms. Sometimes it would be just a shadow or bulge of light. Other times it was this blue thing drifting around like smoke. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“It was always there though?”

“Yes, almost always.”

“Where was it usually inside Snake Tooth Pass?”

Milo rubbed his forehead some more, like he wanted the skin to go away. His callused fingers missed the scars on his narrow forehead like they were little bits of fire.

“On Ebner’s Island,” he said.

The Woods

“Stop trying to get it Ron, you won’t get it,” Melissa said crying with a torn lip. They’d been inside Snake Tooth Pass all day. At first, when they wandered inside the woods, there were toys beaming about the swampy water around the green island like little plastic stars. Milo had pointed them out, and they immediately made a weary break for them between the reeds and mossy logs. They were almost too old for toys, but they just wanted to know what kind they were, and why they were floated in this little pond. The toys suddenly vanished in the murky water though, like they were attached to some hidden puppets strings deep beneath the bog. A weighted breathing followed the toys disappearance, like an exhausted chest of air had been watching them. The sound echoed four times, which even to three children seemed excessive in the forest.

They ran for the edges after the toys vanished into the inky water.

Each time they’d come close, the trees would tighten together like stubborn giants of bark and leaf. Vines would snap down like condensed whips of fire and slash at the children as they pushed forward. None took more than a few scraps of flesh, but they were deep enough to slap their nerves inner fire. The pain was biting enough to produce tears and wails. Milo never thought he’d get used to the sight of his own blood, but there it was pooling about his hands and knees. Ron was still the most battered out of the three of them.  He’d run at full speed over and over again. The woods would wait for him like a sharp green net, throwing him backwards like Ron was a rancid fish. It wasn’t until a particular flaying, which ripped the skin just above his eyes so blood trickled down in a stinging crimson glare. Ron sat on his kneels trying to pull the blood out of his eyes.

“Stop, stop it, just stop,” Milo said, standing in front of Ron.

“We got to get out of here, we’ll be in trouble, my dad,” Ron gasped.

“Something’s keeping us in here okay. There is something in the woods, something is going on,” Melissa said pacing.

Milo sneezed out some blood. His nose had been torn open from an earlier bout with the living wall. He walked back and forth on the narrow path winding through Snake Tooth Pass. The woods seemed to shrink and expand around him with each step, like it monitored his panicked heartbeat. The path was just outside the water and its beams of bright green reeds. Something was standing in the center of the island. It was tall, long, and bristling about in shadow, even though the rays of sunlight hanging through the forest hadn’t changed since they’d been trapped. It looked like a man for only a second, only it had a hood, and what looked like no face. It was so close, Milo could see the shadows hanging down, and trying to mix into the clear air sitting around them.

“You see that man? That guy over standing on the island? Can anyone else see him?” Milo said. He pointed into the forest, and the towering shaped looked back, even though no one listened.