Black Shroom

Each night she wandered away from home. She has done so every dead of the night since she was 8 years old. She would climb out her window and skip through the woods until the echoes of a rushing river were heard. At 16 years old, she still finds herself laying on an old tree trunk above the untamed waters. The forest around her illuminated by the reflection of the light of the moon bouncing off the ghastly rapids. Serenity was found in the cacophony of the water splashing, the howls of the wolves, the chirps of crickets, and the crunching of leaves as the animals ran past the trees. Back home, for 8 years her mother had been searching and hoping she’d be back. For 8 years, her family hesitated at the sight of every little girl with dark hair and grass in her hair. Though she would be 16, like her parents could not let go of the little girl they once knew, she could not let go of the life she once had. Every day she snuck out her home to lay on the tree trunk above the river. While she enjoyed her heaven, chaos slept right underneath. The lifeless body of an 8-year-old stuck between rocks below. Her dangling foot which swept through the streams nearly hitting the mutilated body which fed the animals she heard running in the dark. Beaten by the river and everything it dragged through her, was a story of a girl who once lived to die by what she loved. There she laid, above an unknown nightmare, happy in her area of comfort.