002. the woodsman isn't coming

[honkinbigteeth]

Video (It is more funny than the written thing because I didn't want to transcribe every insane thing Emily says and does in this extremely dark scene, so watch it if you want).

You skip through the woods, a light hearted spring in your step. It's a beautiful day, and you have a basket of treats in one arm and a bouquet of fresh flowers in the other, and you're going to visit your favorite person in the world, grandma. The sun is close to setting; you were meant to come straight here and get here with the light, but you met a friendly wolf in the forest, and though you knew you weren't meant to, you decided there was no harm in taking your time. After all, grandma is always encouraging you to break the rules, letting you drink black tea and stay up until 8 PM. She won't mind.

You approach the cottage and you open the door. It's dark inside, no candles lit, and there's a large shape lying on the bed. Grandma hasn't been feeling well, the purpose of your visit, so you aren't surprised to see her there, wearing her nightcap and gown. You come inside.

"Grandma, it's me! I brought cinnamon toast rolls and lollipopcorn, just like you like! That's popcorn on a stick, by the way. There was a bunch of broth in here, but I dumped it, and brought only the good stuff that's going to help you heal, because I know you're not feeling well."

"Well, okay, dearie," says your grandma, her voice hoarse. "You - you dumped all the broth?"

"Yep! It was weighing down my basket, so I dumped it in the river! But I did pick up fresh flowers along the way."

You start setting out the bouquet of wildflowers for her.

"That's lovely, but I hope you didn't stray off the path to get them."

"Oh, okay Grandma, I did," you admit. "But it was only because I followed a caterpillar chasing a butterfly. They were together because one of them had changed, and - "

You start to notice suddenly Grandma is looking a little funny. Not just sick, that you expect, but her ears are kind of larger than normal, furry and wolf shaped.

"Grandma," you say, suddenly. "Your ears are honkin' big."

"All the better to hear you with my dear," she says.

When she speaks, you notice the big white teeth in her mouth.

"Grandma, your teeth are honkin' big."

"All the better to eat you with, my dear."

"What?" You're confused, for a second, and then you watch Grandma get up. The sheets on the bed, her cap, her nightgown, it all falls away, and without the cottage getting better, you're looking at a wolf that seems to tower in this space like an ancient monument. Its gaze is completely neutral. It is enormous and powerful, and it rests on the bed. There is a hum expectantly in the air, like something is supposed to happen. Something is supposed to unfold in this space. The Wolf said all the better to eat you with, but it makes no motion to leap at you. In fact, you notice that although it towers over all of you, it is lying down on the bed, almost docile.

You feel frozen here. "What did you do? Where's my grandma?"

The wolf regards you with its red eyes. His voice is nothing like your grandma's, it's a deep rumble.

"I've eaten her. She is in my stomach now."

"Why?"

"I am a wolf."

You have no rebuttal to that, so instead, you start thinking, trying to think of what's supposed to happen next. "Okay, well, the Woodsman's going to come along, and he's going to show you the sharpest side of his ax."

The wolf doesn't seem threatened. "Perhaps he will," he says, neutrally. He makes no move to get up. And you also stand there. You feel frozen in terror, rooted to the spot, but more than that, you don't want to leave. That humming feeling in the air, of something meant to happen, remains, and the longer it persists, the most you're aware that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. This isn't supposed to be happening to you. Something else is supposed to happen, and until it does, you simply can't leave this moment.

Time passes, and you don't move. You stand there waiting for whatever it is you have the inkling is supposed. Hours turn into days, and you still can't move. You're shaking, your vision starts to blur, you feel the weakness in your body. Exposure, dehydration, lack of food, all of it while you've been frozen in this moment of terror for too long.

And still the wolf regards you, still as stone. After this small eternity, he looks at you, and says, simply, "You are dying."

Your voice trembles, small with your weakness. "No, I'm waiting for the woodsman."

"If you cannot eat, you will die. This is the law."

Your heart beats like frightened prey. "What would you have me do?"

"Go to the fireplace, and there pick up the ax by the wood that rests at its side. Come to the foot of the bed, raise up the ax, and split my skull. When I am dead, eat of my flesh, and you will be strong enough to wander the woods on your own and return home."

He says this so neutrally, as though it would be easy, but the thought of it makes you sick with the wrongness of it, even as your gaze slides over to the fireplace and the ax lying in the pile of wood and your stomach burns.

"That's... ridiculous. No, I don't even think I could lift up an ax. That's not, that's… I'm just a little girl, and a nice one at that. No. No."

You couldn't do something like that. That's not who you are. You'll just have to wait for someone to come along to help you, or else you'll -

"The woodsman is not coming," the wolf's voice rumbles.

Your heart is hammering in your chest so hard it feels like you can't breath. "He often comes and stops by. If we just keep waiting, I'm sure - " It all feels so futile, but what you're being asked is more than futile, it's impossible. "This is not my place. I can't have any part in this."

The wolf sighs, his heavy hot breath so close by. "My teeth were made to eat you, and one day I will."

"So then eat me!" That's it, right there. The thing that's supposed to happen. This wolf, this monster, is meant to eat you, and there's nothing more you can do. "Just eat me and get it over with!"

"It is not your time," he says simply.

"It was my grandma's time, and not mine?" you point out, like it's a winning argument, but he is unmoved, and nods his large head.

You feel angry, now, at being asked to do this, at this creature that doesn't seem to know the role it's meant to play, what role you're meant to play. "Well, I don't trust you, because everyone told me not to trust you. So if I can't trust you, then what you say isn't true, and the Woodsman is coming. So I will turn my back from you to the window to behold the entrance of the Woodsman."

"Do as you will," says the wolf.

You turn and look out the window, baring your back and neck to him. Your hunger is such that your vision is blurry. You can't see much out in the woods. But you don't see the woodsman. You see a bird swooping in and eating a worm. You see creatures out there, hungry, eating and eaten. But you don't see the woodsman. And the longer you wait, starving and dying, the more your personality starts to fade from you and you're just hunger, and instinct takes over.

It's not really you doing it, something deeper and animal is what moves to the fireplace, but when you pick up the ax, there's a moment where you know. You realize that once you do this, you're never going to be able to undo it, you'll never be able to go back. But that thought is drowned out once again by your stomach, and you heave the ax over with a strength you didn't know you had and split the wolf's skull. The moment before the ax comes down, the wolf lays his head down like an animal going fully to sleep and flattens his ears against his head.

And then there's hot blood pouring from his split skull, and it smells strongly and you pool your hands in it and drink. You tear the wolf's body apart with the ax at first, but the more blood and flesh you drink the stronger your body feels, and eventually you're tearing at its corpse with hands and teeth, and you eat the blood and flesh and even the bones, piece by piece. When you're done, there's nothing but the dark cottage, and the bloodied bed, and you, alive, your senses sharp, the weakness gone but the hunger remaining. With blood dripping from your mouth and down your body, you finally pull away.

And you wander off back into the woods.

But here, at this point, your memory goes strange. There are two memories, one layered on top of the other. In the memory underneath, your hunger fades away and in a daze, you wander back through the woods, back towards the cottage where your family awaits, and you try to pretend this didn't happen for a little longer. In the memory layered on top, your hunger remains. You go in a different direction. You find the woodsman's cottage, deeper out into the woods, and when you find him sleeping by the fire, you devour him too.