FSE

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She had left her coat on the hook by the door, and as the evening wound on her shirt and trousers found new homes on the armrests of a chair and the landing floor. Her heart was outside, beating as it hung from the gate, swinging in the wind. Snow fell, and she was as far from feeling as she would ever be. Somewhere, some uncountable distance away, the wolf howls, a mournful sound that pierces the cold night.

The hare opened her eyes and felt the sudden force of the maelstrom all around her. Around her the storm billowed, clouds of darkness swarming around her as she found herself on top of a large hill. Across from her the wolf stared. It was different now - all sharp edges and glowing black. It was standing on the far side of a small valley which connected the two hills, and aside from that the hare could see no sign of anything apart from the flowing, rolling clouds.

She clung to herself as the chill hit her, leaning forwards to help better keep her balance. The world was full of grey, and the short, thin blades of grass which covered the ground were washed out to the point of having no colour whatsoever. Her ears rang with the sound of the wind, but being on the barren hillside she could see no shelter, only the patient stare of the wolf.

Its eyes glowed white, like they were full of fire, in stark contrast to the black sharpness of it's fur. She could almost hear the wind rolling through it's hair, like blades clanking together in a storm. She shook her head. It couldn't be real, she thought to herself, but as another chilling wind hit her she took the only path that presented itself, and slowly crept down the hillside.

It was slow going, and to her dismay she found that the valley simply made the wind stronger, the buffeting force channelled through the narrow gap, threatening to throw her off her feet, but with no signs of it abating she forced herself on, fear and overwhelming sensation clouding her mind of rational thought. Onwards she persisted, crawling on all fours as she crossed that narrow divide, shielding her head from the force of the wind, deaf to all but it's howls.

Clinging to the earth she made it to the base of the other hill. She wished desperately she could close up her ears, with every instinct begging her to take cover, but with none about she whimpered under the sound of the wind, and began the slow ascent. She felt simultaneously exposed in the harsh atmosphere of the storm and cornered, with no other way to go. She drove on through sheer force of will, some darker part of her brain warning her from descending into the cloud which swirled at the bottom of the hillside. The grey of the world pressed in on her, making her feel choked even as the wind tore away her breaths.

It felt like hours, desperately clinging to the face of that grassy hill, steadily putting one footpaw in front of the other, until finally she looked up and saw the wolf staring down at her. It hadn't moved, standing still at the summit of the hill, but now up close it seemed larger and more terrifying than ever. Those bright white eyes were curved at the edges, and seemed to leak fire as they stared at her intently. The rest of the beast was too dark against the grey to make out features, even as it towered over her. Each time she looked at it her eyes would be drawn to those hunter's eyes - devoid of pupil or iris, but full of sheer burning energy.

"What do you want from me?!" she demanded, her words carried away by the storm so she could barely hear them herself.

"Why are you doing this?!"

"Why won't you just... Stop!"

Suddenly everything froze, as if time had suddenly come crashing to a halt. The storm was suddenly muted, though the clouds kept rolling at the edges of her vision. She gasped the sudden silence leaving her ears ringing and throwing her off-balance. She struggled to stay upright as she looked nervously around.

Behind the wolf's front foot a familiar mouse appeared. "Redge?" she said, disbelievingly.

Redge nodded, stepping slowly around the paws of the wolf, staring up at it like a patron at a museum, admiring it, as if from a distance, whilst being right underneath the dangerous-looking creature.

"What are you doing?! Get away from it!" she commanded.

"It -is- very scary, isn't it, she?" he said.

"I don't... I don't understand," she said, a part of her brain screaming that any second that wolf would look down and scoop her friend up in it's mighty jaws.

"It's the scariest thing you can imagine, I'll bet. A wolf and a hare."

She looked up at it again. That monstrous form; a creature of shadow and death and all things sharp and deadly, with eyes of fire. "It's not real?"

"Oh no, I wouldn't say that," the mouse said. "After all, locked on a hillside like this, in a storm, must be real, oh yes, she."

"Why are you talking like that, Redge?" she said.

"What do you mean, she?"

"Like... You're saying things properly."

"You're listening differently, she"

She shook her head. "No more riddles."

"Just an answer staring you in the face, she."

That wolf dominated the hillside. That she could not deny. It was in all things, terrifying and humbling. It wasn't just it's shape or size or appearance - it was the very thing itself. The more she looked at it, the more she was convinced it was something more than just scary - it begot fear. It wasn't just dangerous, it was more full of danger than any dangerous thing could be.

Redge had moved off, stepping to the edge of the hillside, looking out, up at the clouded sky. "Is this what the world is like beyond the mistlebells?"

She reached out, tentatively, towards that wolf, her mind screaming danger, but somehow muted by her will. She felt something overriding her fear now; a sense of power, and a sense of purpose, but more than that. She felt a familiarity she hadn't felt in a long time. A passion and brutality which somehow fit nice and neatly into what she thought was real. She ignored the mouse and pressed her fingers to the chest of that wolf, it's blade like fur parting as her hand stretched out.

Suddenly, there was darkness again.

Silence and darkness.

"Everything," she said slowly, feeling it echo around inside her mind, "feels... So... Stretched," she managed, before, like the twang of rubber as it re-takes it's shape, the world came back. Not the world of the hillside, but the world of the darkness and the fireplace.

The embers glowed in the silence as she woke, her breathing the only thing she could hear for a long while. She felt sick. She wanted to close her eyes and roll over. She hated the hardness of the ground that she lay upon. She wished it were a soft bed or pile of leaves or anything but the dirt upon which she woke. Her head was ringing and she growled at it to stop.

"She could've warned me, she" Redge's voice came reproachfully.

"Go away," she said. She wanted a bath. She'd never realised how much the fall from earlier had hurt and made her sore. Why had she used up so much effort? Was it really worth her struggle? And for what? What had all her struggles even achieved. "You could've warned me, mouse," she said, opening her eyes blearily and rising on her elbows, seeing the concerned looking mouse standing before her.

He simply grinned, infuriatingly.

"Whatever you did to me, I don't care," she said, frustration boiling up inside of her.

"I think she already know-"

"Save your riddles, mouse. Just tell me how to get home."

Reginald looked up at the high trees, the mistlebells dark to the point of invisible here, but somehow she knew they were what he was looking at.

"I hate those damn trees," she said, groggily getting to her feet and rubbing her side. She must have fallen on her left when she fell unconscious, she decided.

"And yet they are beautiful," the mouse said.

"They are so much glowing fruit," she replied.

"She misses the sky," the mouse said knowingly.

And she did. She missed the sun and the warm air. She missed the safety of four sides and the laughter of children. She missed so many other half-remembered things, like whispers on the wind.

"How did I get here?" she mumbled, craning her neck to look up at the darkness. "Why can't I remember?"

"She remembers more."

She nodded. "She hurts more, too," she said.

"She call it... Motivation," the mouse said with a grin. "Come, let she return to the light," the mouse said, scuttling off into the darkness. "Come," he said, his voice guiding her in the dark.

"He's lucky I don't squash him," she muttered, before reluctantly following.

There wasn't much time for conversation on the journey back, the mouse guiding her with simple one-word statements, and her begrudgingly following along. She was almost used to listening out in the dark for his voice, and padding along obediently behind. She followed almost without thinking. Instead her thoughts were filled with the swirling storm and the wolf. What had happened when she closed and why did she feel so... So... Angry?

Lost in her thoughts she realised she hadn't heard the mouse's voice in some time as she wandered through the darkness. She stopped suddenly. "Redge?" she asked the darkness, but there was nothing in reply. She stepped forwards gingerly, only to hear a sudden creak and a snap as whatever she was walking on bent precariously beneath her. She stood stock still, clinging hard to the surface beneath her, but with another long, low creak she felt the earth start to give way, until all of a sudden she was falling through the darkness for a few terrifying moments until she landed heavily on her side.

The hare's fall was somewhat broken by a bed of leaves and snapping twigs, but still she cursed as her shoulder ached. It wasn't her first fall of the day. She rubbed it as she got to her feet. "Redge?" she called out, then once more, but still no reply came. She tentatively felt around her surroundings, finding earthen walls in a rough circle around her position. She soon began to realize she was caught in some sort of pit, completely blind and unable to see how far she had fallen.

She swallowed and gathered her resolve, reaching up to attempt to climb out, but her shoulder immediately protested, a sharp twinge of pain rising along it as she attempted to raise it, making her shudder. How badly had she hurt it, she wondered. In the dark she couldn't see it. It hadn't felt that hard of a landing, but it must have been pretty rough.

"Such a shame," came a voice in the dark. It was low as voices could be. Slow and deliberate. "Still, you've got all the time in the world to think about what you did wrong, now."

"Stay back," she said, defensively.

"Oh I'm not going anywhere near you," it said. "I mean, who would want to?"

She cocked her head at that, trying to pinpoint the sound. It seemed to be coming from all around her.

"Such a stupid mistake," it said. "You were going to be okay if you'd just followed your mouse friend, and now you're trapped."

"Who are you?" she said. "What are you trying to do?"

"Oh don't worry about me. Worry about you. You're the one in trouble here."

"I'm... Fine," she said, angrily.

"No one ever believes you when you say that. They just don't want to help you. It's because you're a broken person. You're too much effort to fix. After all, a normal person wouldn't have stopped listening for their friend. A normal person wouldn't have gotten trapped in this deep, dark pit."

"I know what you're trying to do!" she said, shuddering, though she couldn't tell whether it was with rage or whether it was with fear. In truth, she couldn't fathom why it was saying those hurtful, mean things.

"First you failed to save your friend, then you failed to follow another. You're really not good at this, you know?"

"That... Wasn't my fault!" she shouted back, but it came out as more of a whimper.

"Anyone else wouldn't have fallen, you know. Anyone else would have found a way to talk to the spiders without annoying them. It's your fault he's gone. Now no one will hear his poetry."

She had tears in her eyes. She punched out against the darkness but it was like punching air.

"You're an open book to me, hare. I know everything you've ever done wrong. I know every failing you've ever experienced. I know everyone you've ever let down. I know that Blue just wanted to get rid of you. He sent you into the darkness to die. You brought the spiders to him. You're a nuisance. Fancy not even knowing your name. Fancy being mean to the mouse after he was only trying to help you. Fancy being that person."

"I'm... I'm not ashamed," she protested.

"But you are, otherwise you'd admit you're a horrible, despicable person who only ever brings suffering to those who care about them. You couldn't even tell the fox who you were. Everyone else here knows who they are. Why don't you? Are you ill?"

"No! I'm not ill!"

"Maybe that's why you fell," it continued, in it's dull, droll voice. "Probably lost your balance in the dark. Something not right in the head."

She felt like she was drowning, she lashed out again and her fist only met earth, her knuckle sending a wave of pain through her body.

"Look at you now, lashing out against the ground, just to feel some modicum of control. But you don't have any, do you? No control whatsoever."

"I'll... Be fine," she squeaked.

"No control. Your friend didn't even come back for you, did he? He must have realised you lost him by now. He's probably celebrating the fact you're gone. He probably thinks you didn't trust him. Why else would you go off on your own into the darkness."

"Reginald..." she murmured quietly. "Please... Come back. I didn't mean to be mean."

"Too late for pity now," the dark whispered insidiously in her ear. "You're going to starve here. You deserve a painful, drawn-out suffering now. You deserve a slow, agonizing death. After all, what's the point in living without friends; without movement, without hope."

"Come back to me, Redge," she pleaded, curling up in a ball.

"He won't remember you. You'll become a story he tells the fox, of the hare he came across in the forest. The girl who couldn't remember her own name, and got lost somewhere in the dark. He'll sit and wonder if it could be the same girl he shared words with once, many years ago, then dismiss it. The mouse will talk of the way her lost spirit still roams the woods, bound here forever after her death. How he still hears her calls for help, but of course, he remembers the harshness of her words, and he remembers how scary she seemed when she told him to go away. Well, he went away, and he will keep away, won't he?"

She sniffed and rubbed her watery eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"No, you didn't, but you still did it, didn't you?"

"Yes," she murmured, shakily.

"You deserve all of this, don't you?"

"I do," she whispered.

"You won't ever be better than you are now, you know. You'll get older; weaker. Your eyesight will fade, though it won't matter. Your hearing already isn't what it once was. You're one of a million and a billion more dead besides. You're not special."

"So what are you going to do?" she asked, blinking through the tears and staring at the darkness.

"Me? I'm just giving you the gift of truth," it said.

"Hiding in darkness," she said, "Some truth."

"Darkness is truth. The light simply blinds your mind by distracting your eyes."

"What manner of beast are you?" She said.

"Never mind me-"

"I want to know, you who know each and every one of my sins. You who rejects me in every part of me, yet still is stuck in the same pit as I."

"I... This isn't how you're meant to feel."

"How am I meant to feel? I'm hardly about to reject myself." She brushed the tears from her eyes.

"But what about-"

"I accept it!" she declared.

"And your-"

"That too!"

"Where you-"

"All of it!" she shouted. "I'm not ignorant to my faults! I don't believe anyone should be! I take them all and I carry them with me and I - Move - Forward!" she declared. Her mind turned. "Just because I have evil in my past doesn't mean there isn't good in my future!"

"But there will be evil too!" the darkness protested.

"And I will accept that too!" she shouted.

"Living is suffering!" it protested.

"Well call me a masochist because I'm right here doing it!"

"I won't go away," the darkness said.

"You're right," she said, "Because I'm taking you with me," and with that she reached out her hand, imagining the darkness coiling along her fingers, snaking along her wrist and sliding up her arm then rearing back like a snake before tunnelling through her breast into her heart. She gasped as she imagined it filling her up, moving through her body like a sharp poison, where her soul and her passion met that coldness and the void. "Though I may never conquer your fear with hope, I shall always be a light in the dark," she whispered to the silence. She was alone.

"She! She!" came a voice some moments later.

"Redge?" she said, relief pouring over her.

"She! Reginald is sorry," the mouse's voice said. "I fell down a pit. Are she okay?"

"She is fine," she said with a chuckle, "I'm glad you're alright."

The mouse gave a little squeak of appreciation. "Feeling better, aren't she?"

"Trying to," she said with a bit of a grim, thin-lipped smile, but she didn't know if Redge saw it in the darkness. "Can you help me out of here?"

"Where?" he said.

"I fell down," she explained. "I can't see anything and I'm stuck in a pit."

Redge blinked, then let out a titter, "Well, if you call a pit to be leaning against the side of an overgrown tree root then sure," he teased.

She blinked and stretched out an arm. "I could've sworn..." she whispered, as she found nothing but cool air, even as she stepped forwards. Where before there was earthen wall there was simply nothing.

"Strange beasts in this forest," Redge said, carefully. "She should follow me," he said.

"Yeah..." the hare said. "Yeah, there definitely are. Listen, Redge, I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier."

"Hmmm?" the mouse said as he began to move around her. "This way,"

"When I told you to go away," she continued. "It was rude of me,"

"To tell the truth, she, Reginald does not really remember. Knows you didn't mean it anyway. She should forget about it."

The hare nodded in the dark. "Alright."

"But thank she anyway," he added. "This way."