The Loneliness of Stars

  ***

  The silence awoke me. I sat straight up and looked around. The sound of the sentry’s pacing, the wind blowing through the trees; everything had stopped. I stood up, and I noticed that there was no one keeping watch. Looking at the bodies, I found that both Stephen and Vincent were missing. I considered waking Michaela or Mikhail, but decided to let everyone sleep.

  I knelt down to look at the ground, near the end of our camp that was farthest from the entrance. Two pairs of faint footsteps were present in the dirt, leading down deeper into the forest. I hesitated, then ran down the path, following the footsteps.

  The path sloped downwards relatively steeply, but not steeply enough that I was slipping down it. As I ran down, it began to curve to the right, first slightly, but then sharply. The trees on either side began to close in on me, until I could barely fit through them facing forwards.

  It was then that I realized that I couldn’t hear anything. Not my own breathing, not the sound of my footsteps, not the sound of my clothing brushing against the trees. It was completely silent. I shook my head, and pushed those thoughts out of my head. They weren’t important.

  I thought I saw something move far ahead of me. I slowed to a walk, peering intently at a dark blotch in front of me. I was so focused on whatever it was that I didn’t pay any attention to the path in front of me. I stepped forward with my right foot, and it failed to reach ground. I looked down in a panic, and saw a hole about a meter long in front of me. I yelped in alarm, but I heard nothing. Flailing wildly, my momentum carried me forward into the hole. I stretched my arms and caught the opposite edge of the hole with my hands. The rest of me fell down into the hole, and my weight caused the ground that I was holding onto to collapse, and I fell down into the hole.

  It wasn’t a particularly long drop – maybe two and a half meters – but it still hurt when I landed. Wincing, I hurriedly stood up and looked around me. I was in some kind of circular pit, about three meters in diameter, surrounded by the tree roots. I quickly moved as far away from all of them as I could. The pit was fairly well lit by the light from Antarct. “Jak!” I heard someone shout behind me.

  I whirled around, to see Stephen, held in place by the roots. They were slowly lifting him up, towards the bottom of the tree above him. Looking up at the tree, I saw that there was a cavity of some kind, like a mouth, with sharp points lining it. It was a bright red color, dripping some kind of similarly colored liquid. Stephen’s eyes were filled with terror. “Help me!”

  I ran to him, ignoring my fear of the roots, and began to pull on the nearest root, attempting to pull him back down to the ground. My efforts had no effect whatsoever. Frantically, I looked around for something that could cut the roots.

  I found Vincent instead.

  He was standing behind Stephen. As I looked into his eyes, he leapt forward at me, sending me flying into the clear space in the center of the pit. He pinned my arms and legs down, and looked down on me. “Come to rescue your friend? It’s too late.” He smiled the most twisted smile I had ever seen. His body blocked my view of Stephen, but I heard him begin screaming.

  Vincent closed his eyes for a moment, and a true look of happiness cross his face. When he opened his eyes again, they were filled with anger. “I was intending to kill you all one at a time, enjoying your exquisite agonies as I slowly killed each one of you, but it appears that your damnable curiosity is going to alter my plans.” He got off of me and grabbed my arms. I kicked out with my legs, my feet slamming into his groin. He let go of me and fell backwards, clutching his nether regions. Stephen’s screaming abruptly stopped. I looked up at him, to find his head lodged completely in the tree, and his body motionless. Blood flowed down from the tree’s cavity. I clenched my fists in anger, and looked back at Vincent.

  He had recovered, and looked at me with pure hate. “Your curiosity was always your fatal flaw, Jak. I knew that one day it was going to get you killed – it seems as if that day has come. And I shall make you die slowly – even more slowly than he whose death you did not let me enjoy!” A mad glint entered his eye, and he charged me.

  34

  “Very few people understand what a sadist is… I do. I am one. The common cow thinks that a sadist is merely one who enjoys inflicting pain upon others, but that is only half the truth – a true sadist gets it on when we sees others in pain – it is the most sexually stimulating thing in the world.”