by: Maria Ouseph Kuttikadan
Leah walked through the forest, the trees pressing in above her head, blocking her view of the heavens above. Even if she could see past the canopy of foliage blocking the sky out and splattering the forest below into a dark, inky black, she would not see heaven. The sky down here was a thick, viscous shade of red. The colour of new blood spilt across a pure sacrifice, curling in dark rivulets across the sky, swirling and changing.
Around her Leah could hear a faint screeching sound, like nails being drawn over stone repeatedly, until the sounds merged together into one blanket of high pitched noise assailing her ears. Still Leah walked on, amidst the sounds of the forest and the bird like shadows which occasionally crossed her path, the shrieking growing louder as they did so.
In the distance, she could faintly make out the gate of the city of Dis, turning around for a moment before remembering the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the screaming of the city as they burned alive. The distraught face of her sister as she looked behind, only to turn to a pillar of salt, her agony etched permanently into the lines of her face.
She could feel the heat again, licking at her and crackling at her skin, even though the woods were dry and cold. The sensation was calming, brushing against her fingertips. At least she could feel something in the cold of the forest, even if that was the jagged pain of her sister's death.
The shrieking was even closer now, Leah observed, watching the bird like creatures swoop overhead, tracing the path of their obsidian wings and translucent bodies, swirling and diving in the sky. She continued to watch them, transfixed as one by one they dove towards the ground, racous cawing assaulting her ears.
Yet, Leah was transfixed, as one of the creatures dove towards her all she could do was stare, enraptured by its ghoulish, macabre poise. Leah felt the razor sharp talons pass overhead, yet she felt no pain. It was as if her body no longer existed, and in a way she supposed, that was true. She had given up her physical form and all that came with when she pledged her life to her God.
The same God who had killed her sister. Who had condemned the best woman that Leah had ever known to a terrible fate. A salt statue, forever poised with its arms towards the West, towards the blackened and charred ruins of her home. Her face was sharply etched into the salt when Leah last saw her, but the wind and the rain must have weathered away at the statue. If someone where to come across her statue today, would they know who she was? Would they know what she was so desperately reaching for? Would they know her agony? Or would she just be a pillar of salt, face smoothed over by time?
Leah continued to walk through the forest, her footfalls the one thing that was silent in this screaming forest. Every time a screamed ripped through the air, Leah would stop to look around. And every time she found it harder to lift her feet again, staying instead rooted to the Earth.
Her soul knew that it belonged here, and so did the forest. Dark vines began to keep her frozen legs chained firmly to the floor. She looked down at the vines crawling up her legs like diseased hands. Their dark, knobbed fingers covered in sores and weeping wounds that cried sap. The fingers crawled their way up her body, pushing, probing and curling around her like a vice.
At the beginning Leah fought. She fought the invasion of the branches crawling and scratching at her skin. She fought the invasion of the branches, their thrumming vines, pulsing like veins.
With every step, the vines crept higher, and her feet became heavier. Each step was the feeling of walking across a field of knives with a ball and chain attached to her ankles. The pain and desperation was too much to bear, but this approximation of a body failed her, the weight pulling her down too much to bear.
As the vines continued their pilgrimage up the curves of her body, Leah could hear their voices. The pulse of the vines became an insistent throb, consuming Leah's senses and pushing into her mind. The throb beat in an intoxicating, pulse pounding rhythm, her own heart changing the rhythm of her body in order to bring her body into the fold of the vines' warm embrace.
The screams from the forest were no longer scraping rocks. She could hear their pleas and their screams of anguish. She could hear a young man sob, refusing to apologize for his decision. She could hear an old woman's lament ringing out over the field like a cathedral's bells. The cacaphony of pleas for the harpies to cut their branches, to attack them and to maul their bark. Underneath it all, she could hear her own siren song, a sweet trail of trefoil cutting through the murky air.
She could once more feel the life drain from her neck, golden blood flowing from her body like waves of precious metal in a smithe. The blood pooling around her as the pit in her stomach grew and grew, swallowing her whole.
And then she felt the fall again. Long, shimmering gossamer feathers burnt as she fell. The heat of their burning charring her flesh. The feathers would soon melt as well, fixing themselves once more onto her body in a grotesque sideshow of what they used to be. The white marks stretched from her heart to her arms, long layers of candle wax from votive candles slithering down her body, forming loops and whorls and spelling out the patterns of her city. It's beautiful passageways, the shop where she and her sister used to work, the small church where she married her husband (may god have mercy on his soul) and her home.
She could feel everything again in piercing detail. She wanted to scream, to shout, to let everyone feel the pain of her scream as viciously and as hopelessly as her pain had festered. Yet she couldn't open her mouth. Her lips had fused together in a Frankenstein impression of what a mouth was, the flesh melting and filling her mouth.
She choked as she felt the rubbery flesh of her mouth slide down her throat. At the same time, long tendrils of creepers crawled into her eye sockets, nestling in their hollows, until all was dark.
Her skin too, has begun to change, crackling and splitting. The round curves and soft flesh giving way to angular edges and sharp, rough bark. Stiff and unyielding, the bark of a weeping willow tree climbed up her body, turning her body a ghastly colour.
With her body covered in vines and her skin turned to bark, the voices became even louder now that there was nothing to contest them.
Leah opened her mouth to scream, a Hail Mary prayer to the one deity who had been kind to her. Yet only a strangled whimper came forth, the rage building and building inside her with nowhere to go.
With a resounding crack, everything stopped.
The vines retreated and Leah was left standing there, arms forever outstretched towards the city of Dis. Weeping branches dangling towards the ground, brushing against the soft, red soil. Above her harpies swooped and screamed. One dove towards Leah, ripping open the bark of her body, for a moment made flesh again.
Leah screamed.