The Commuter Collection

Greenery

The tall, green pines stretched out as far as the eye could see, accompanied by handfuls of bare trees. The forest swayed gently against the harsh cold of the wind. The treetops were dotted with snow from the darkening sky, only the bare ones were surrounded by a halo of thin, white snow on the ground. Without many leaves to fall the forest floor was a concrete mud in the cold. The sky grew darker with each passing moment as the snowfall grew heavier and heavier.

Shikoba trekked through the forest wearily. She wore a thick, fluffy, tanned jacket. It blended so well with her scarf, which covered her mouth, and trousers they looked like one item of clothing. Her head was wrapped tightly in a large, thick black headwrap. Her eyes were covered by a thick, black ski visor. She wore padded, tan and grey hiking boots and black ski gloves on her hands. In her right hand she held a long, wooden hiking pole sharpened to a point on the end that she drove into the ground. She breathed heavily through the scarf, sending wisps of mist out in front of her which quickly disappeared in the cold.

Her legs ached from the effort of each step, and her empty water thermos knocked against her thigh with each stride, it made her painfully aware of its existence. She ran out of water the previous day, and food the day before that. Starved and dehydrated, she kept going. She took her compass out from her jacket pocket, and its needle spun around impotently. She returned it to her pocket and trekked on. The cloud cover came in three days ago, she couldn't even navigate by the stars.

She thought of giving up, she thought of that a lot, but she reminded herself why she was here whenever that insidious thought ate at her mind. She couldn't give up, she needed to do this. Step-by-step she dug her hiking pole into the hard ground and ignored her screaming arms and legs as she pulled herself another step forward. The forest swam and warped in front of her, and she almost lost her footing. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She reassured herself it was only her hunger and dehydration causing some form of illusion. She chuckled internally to herself, she wondered how many people reassured themselves of their hunger and thirst to feel better.

She took a few more deep breaths and opened her eyes again, but this time the Forest spun so harshly she couldn't stop the ground slamming into her side. She put up no defence, she hadn't the time or the strength. Her thick clothes protected her from worse injuries, or so she hoped, but her head rung like she was shot. She rolled onto her back and stared at the sky before she noticed the thick crack in her ski goggles, then felt the pain in her head. She brought her gloved hand to the spot of pain under her headwrap, and it came away wet. Panicked, she tore off her glove and checked the spot with her hand, it came back red with blood.

She tried to move and couldn't, not properly. She tried to stand and flopped on the ground like a fish out of water. Her head swam. It was a rock, or an exceptionally hard piece of dirt, she didn't know. She did know she was losing consciousness at the least, maybe worse. She thought of calling out for help, but something deep in her mind stopped her. She wanted to think it was her mind telling her there was no way anyone would hear her, but she knew herself better than that. Her vision blurred, and her mind dulled. She saw something moving near her. She thought it was the forest spinning again at first, but it looked like it moved with purpose, toward her. Against the phantom force in her own mind, she croaked out a plea for help. It was all she could do before her vision went black.

She opened her eyes to Pandemonium. Her family told her stories of the underworld, places evil people went when they died. She saw pits of green, fluorescent, bubbling liquid with people strung up over them. Licks of the liquid melted parts of the people's clothes and extremities with each popping bubble on the surface. Music played offkey from somewhere she couldn't quite place, changing rhythm sporadically, nonsensically, like an amateur musician emulating jazz. The music couldn't drown out the vicious wailing of the victims around her. The landscape was littered with torture devices, each one designed to maim, mutilate, or otherwise damage people to their absolute limit.