The One Who Walks Beside You

The One Who Walks Beside You

I first encountered him at the edge of the jungle,where the trees begin to breathe and the wind forgets its name.

The last light of day was fading behind the canopy. Beyond the treeline stretched a darkness that seemed deeper than night itself. I had been staring into it for several minutes when a voice spoke beside me.

"You shouldn't cross alone."

I turned and found a man standing there.

Or something that looked like one.

His face carried the easy kindness of a stranger offering directions. His clothes were ordinary enough to be forgotten the moment you looked away. There was a warmth in his eyes and a musical quality to his voice that made him feel familiar, though I was certain we had never met.

"The forest changes after dark," he said.

I laughed and asked what that meant.

"It takes things."

The smile remained on his face.

"Not people. Not always. Sometimes it takes memories. Sometimes names. Sometimes the reason you entered in the first place."

The words should have frightened me.

Instead, they intrigued me.

When he offered to guide me through the jungle, I accepted without hesitation.

We walked beneath a ceiling of leaves that hid the sky. The path twisted constantly, vanishing and reappearing among roots and tangled vines. Whenever it disappeared, he found it again without effort.

As though he already knew where it would lead.

He talked as we walked.

Stories flowed from him endlessly. Tales of rivers that whispered secrets to drowning men. Birds that learned the voices of the dead. Trees that bent toward sorrow without ever breaking.

I listened.

I laughed.

I forgot to be afraid.

Hours seemed to pass.

Or perhaps only minutes.

Time felt strange beneath those trees.

Then I noticed something.

Whenever he spoke, the forest grew silent.

The insects stopped.

The birds stopped.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

The moment he finished speaking, the sounds returned.

I told myself it was coincidence.

A little later we stopped beside a stream.

The water was still enough to reflect the moon above us. As I knelt to drink, I glanced at the surface.

I saw myself.

I saw the trees.

I saw the sky.

I did not see him.

The reflection beside mine was empty.

A cold feeling settled in my stomach.

When I looked up, he was standing exactly where he should have been, smiling patiently.

Watching.

For the first time, I wondered who he really was.

So I asked.

"What should I call you?"

Everything stopped.

The silence that followed felt enormous.

For a moment he simply stared at me.

Then his smile widened.

Not with joy.

With effort.

The corners of his mouth stretched farther and farther until the skin around them trembled. Something shifted beneath his flesh. His shoulders twisted. His arms lengthened with soft cracking sounds.

His neck bent sideways.

Slowly.

Unnaturally.

A dull orange glow appeared beneath his skin.

The light spread upward through his throat and into his face.

His head became a furnace.

Fire burned behind his features, illuminating them from within.

Yet somehow the worst part was his chest.

The flesh parted soundlessly.

Where his heart should have been sat a smooth gray stone.

Cold.

Motionless.

Ancient.

The thing before me no longer looked human.

It lowered itself toward the ground and began to move with a fluid, boneless grace. Smoke curled from the earth wherever it passed.

I ran.

Branches clawed at my face. Thorns tore my clothes. The forest seemed determined to hold me in place.

Behind me came the sound of fire crackling where no fire should exist.

Never closer.

Never farther.

Always the same distance away.

I ran until the ground vanished beneath my feet.

Then I fell.

The river caught me.

The water was freezing.

The current dragged me away as I struggled to breathe.

When I finally surfaced, I looked back toward the shore.

He stood at the river's edge.

Watching.

The flames around his head writhed in the darkness.

He reached toward the water.

Steam hissed upward.

But he did not enter.

He could not enter.

For several seconds he remained there.

Then he stepped backward into the trees.

And disappeared.

Years have passed since that night.

I still do not know what he was.

I only know that some things wear the shape of kindness not to comfort you, but to lower your guard.

If someone offers to guide you through the dark, and their stories are too perfect, and they never tell you their name, do not ask.

Walk away, if you still can.

Sometimes, when rain falls hard enough to drown the sound of footsteps, I hear someone walking beside me.

Never ahead.

Never behind.

Always beside.

And sometimes, just before sleep takes me, I remember something impossible.

I never told him my name.

Yet when I ran, I heard him call it.