The trees lean in, just enough to listen.
Every branch held its breath.
Even the wind blew carefully,
as if it knew something here
fed on sound.
Nobody would notice,
the moment the light thinned,
the way green turned bruise-black,
the way the silence began to hum.
There.
The oldest tree in the forest
split open at the belly,
a hollow like a mouth
that had swallowed too many secrets.
Inside.
Movement, not seen but felt,
a slick shifting,
a patient hunger
coiled in velvet dark.
Then her.
A shape like a memory of the sea,
where no sea should be.
Vast, voluptuous, glistening,
all draped in elegance and rot.
Tentacles unfurling
like thoughts you didn’t choose,
like promises that come with consequences.
And there.
Caught in her grasp, a girl.
Limbs slack,
wrapped and held in a cradle that tightens
whenever they remember they could move.
Each tentacle pulses,
slow and rhythmic,
drinking something invisible -
not blood,
not breath,
something quieter.
Resolve.
Will.
The small voice that says no.
It drains her in whispers.
‘You don’t belong here’.
Say it.
The thought flickers
behind her eyes.
‘You don’t have power over me’.
Say it.
Her lips tremble,
but the forest leans closer.
Laughter swells,
filling every space where courage might grow.
Run.
Fight.
Anything?
But the tentacles tighten,
not around the body
but around the fragile spark of choice.
And so she hangs there,
not defeated—
just paused forever in power’s embrace
at the edge of defiance.
The creature feeds best on that.
Hope, interrupted.
Somewhere deep inside,
buried under silk-dark coils,
a voice still insists—
You could end this.
But it echoes too softly now,
drowned in the wet, patient sound
of something feeding
on the words never spoken.
Apr 28
Apr 28, 2026 at 11:22 AM UTC
The trees lean in, just enough to listen.
Every branch held its breath.
Even the wind blew carefully,
as if it knew something here
fed on sound.
Nobody would notice,
the moment the light thinned,
the way green turned bruise-black,
the way the silence began to hum.
There.
The oldest tree in the forest
split open at the belly,
a hollow like a mouth
that had swallowed too many secrets.
Inside.
Movement, not seen but felt,
a slick shifting,
a patient hunger
coiled in velvet dark.
Then her.
A shape like a memory of the sea,
where no sea should be.
Vast, voluptuous, glistening,
all draped in elegance and rot.
Tentacles unfurling
like thoughts you didn’t choose,
like promises that come with consequences.
And there.
Caught in her grasp, a girl.
Limbs slack,
wrapped and held in a cradle that tightens
whenever they remember they could move.
Each tentacle pulses,
slow and rhythmic,
drinking something invisible -
not blood,
not breath,
something quieter.
Resolve.
Will.
The small voice that says no.
It drains her in whispers.
‘You don’t belong here’.
Say it.
The thought flickers
behind her eyes.
‘You don’t have power over me’.
Say it.
Her lips tremble,
but the forest leans closer.
Laughter swells,
filling every space where courage might grow.
Run.
Fight.
Anything?
But the tentacles tighten,
not around the body
but around the fragile spark of choice.
And so she hangs there,
not defeated—
just paused forever in power’s embrace
at the edge of defiance.
The creature feeds best on that.
Hope, interrupted.
Somewhere deep inside,
buried under silk-dark coils,
a voice still insists—
You could end this.
But it echoes too softly now,
drowned in the wet, patient sound
of something feeding
on the words never spoken.
Just a girl. Trying to recognise her power and end the nightmares.