The Bloodwood crouched low to the ground, its clawed roots sunk deep into the flesh of the earth. Darkness was creeping over the hills on all fours like a black dog with moonlit eyes that snarled and bared its starlight teeth at the two figures that stood quietly atop a hill. There was a man-- more like a collection of bent and warped bones—standing next to a boy with a shock of amber hair and constellation of pimples across his forehead. The pair scanned the forest for a moment then began to walk towards it.
The old man bore an axe over his shoulder like a cross, the burden of the tool weighing heavily on his arched back. The boy carried nothing, his arms swinging by his sides as he walked. The boy tried to shake the feeling of dread that stalked him as he made his way towards the forest. He forced himself not to look at his master every time he took a step and instead focused on the empty air in front of him. The temptation to grab onto the sleeve of his master’s shirt- as he had done so many times before- was overpowering yet he resisted the urge and made his arms remain by his side.
The darkness was so complete, so thick it was nearly tangible. The sky was dripping with starlight but their glow was not welcoming. If anything, the pinpricks of light seemed to him like the luminescent eyes of a wolf. Or the gleam of firelight off of a mongrel’s teeth.
The trees rose out of the ground like spears; ripping into the sky with their jagged, misshapen boughs. Bark as pale as the skin of a corpse stood stark against the pitch filled sky and wine colored leaves danced in the foul wind. The boy stopped his advance on the forest and covered his mouth, gagging on the cloying scent of rotting meat mingled with the copper tang of blood. The old forester did not look back at his apprentice and kept moving forward, his eyes peering into the depths of the perverted forest. He stopped suddenly and brought the axe down from its perch on his shoulder, dropping the weapon to the ground. He turned to the boy who stood behind him and growled softly in his throat.
“Pick it up.” He said.
The boy stared at him for a moment, clenching his fists. The old man was surprised that the boy had not already p----- himself with fright. Many had done so before him.
No. This one had a stout heart.
The boy heaved a deep breath of the sickening air and threw his shoulders back, walking towards his master. He scooped up the axe as he walked and approached the first tree that crept out from the thicket. He stood before it and touched his axe to its ashy flesh, marking the target for his swing. He lifted the axe to his waist and prepared to throw the entirety of his weight into his swing when the old man’s voice cut through the deathly stillness.
“No!”
The axe dropped from the boy’s startled hands and landed beside him, its blade buried deep into the ground. He spun around to face the forester, his chest heaving with terror. The old man walked to him and picked up his tool, shoving it back into the child’s clumsy hands.
He lifted his shaking hand and pointed deep into the forest with a crooked finger.
“There.”
The boy followed the gaze of the old man and shivered. He felt his fear rise and willed it downward. He would not allow it to swallow him. He trusted his master. He trusted the man’s sharp eyes and quiet intelligence.
The apprentice lifted the axe and walked farther into the trees. He heard the old man hobbling behind him and felt the vice around his heart begin to loosen. No harm would come to him in this evil place.
The forest seemed to devour every sound he made. Each breath, each footfall—swallowed down the cavernous maw of the starving forest. Its hunger was unending. Dark and lustful—indiscriminant in its consuming of any living being that should wander into its open arms. The boy pushed away his memories of sitting down at the feet of his master while he regaled the child with the gruesome legends that surrounded the great forest. Wives tales. Foolishness. That is what the forester told him at the end of every story.
And yet he couldn’t shake the caress of foreboding as it made its way down his spine as a cold sweat.
He heard the uneven footsteps of his master stop behind him and turned to look at the old man who again pointed into the forest.
The boy followed the direction of the man’s outstretched finger and came upon a black tree.
Dead.
Its leaves lay in piles at its roots which were shriveled and dry, reaching up from the ground like the hands of drowning men. The boy stepped over them and came to stand before the sickly black trunk, placing the blade of the axe against the dead wood. He squinted in the half-light and hauled the axe backward, aiming for a knot in the trunk.
The old man watched silently as the axe hit its mark. The dull sound of the impact seemed to reverberate through the trees. It seemed almost as if it were a cry of pain. The boy yanked the axe from the wound in the tree and hefted it, bringing the blade above his head to strike down on the splintered wood. The axe sliced through the air, its blade singing with exaltation as it imbedded itself in the wood once more. The boy tugged and tugged on the handle but the axe remained stubbornly planted in the trunk. The child’s struggle went on for some time before he finally threw himself into his pull, freeing the axe at last.
A spray of water followed the tool, soaking the boy and causing him to fall on his hindquarters in surprise. The water seeped from the tree in rivers while the apprentice struggled to rise from the muddy ground, his hair falling into his eyes and blinding him. He raised his hands to wipe away the unruly strands but only succeeded in filling his mouth with the water that dripped from his sleeves.
No. Not water.
It was blood that wept from the gaping wound in the tree. It was blood that coated his tongue with copper. The revelation drew from him a deep and primal scream as he doubled his efforts to rise out of the mud. Unsuccessful, he sank deeper and deeper into the frothy mixture and turned to reach for his master.
“Help me! Help me! Please!”
The old man simply stared at the writhing boy and turned his back to him, striding a few paces further into the forest.
The surprise was blatant on the young man’s face when he realized that no aid would be coming from the old mass of bones that bobbed away from him into the woods. No one was coming for him. He screamed louder, grabbing for anything that might help him escape the sucking mud that pulled him deeper and deeper into the earth. Blood filled his eyes, ears, nose. His whole world was blood. Hot and red. Fear. Fear like nothing he had ever experienced gripped his entire being.
He was going to die.
“No! NO! NO!”
He screamed over and over and over again until the blood in his throat was his own, not that of the weeping tree that still poured its stolen blood out onto him. The boy screamed for what seemed like hours, fighting the Bloodwood as it drew him deeper and deeper into it. Finally, he went silent.
The old man stopped his retreat into the forest and turned around, peering through the hungry darkness towards the area where his apprentice lay. The forest had stilled and the moon cast its dappled light down through the trees onto the glowing face of a woman. She knelt down to the apprentice and cleaned the blood off his face with a pale, moonlit hand; pushing his hair back into place above his blemished brow.
“Help me.” The child whispered as a line of his own blood dribbled down his chin.
The woman placed her hand on his chest lightly then suddenly plunged it deep into his torso. His eyes bulged from their sockets and she tore her hand  from his chest, taking with it his still beating heart. He slumped over backwards, his empty eyes staring deep into the old foresters’.
White pus now issued from the wound and dripped down the soaked trunk. The woman stood silently before it and gently placed the child’s heart inside the gash, murmuring a few quiet words then placing her hand over the cut. A red glow briefly illuminated the dark forest then subsided, leaving the gash in the dead tree completely healed. The woman watched as the tree began to wake from its dormant state, black bark falling like lead from the trunk and vibrant red leaves springing from the grasping braches. The shriveled roots sprang to life and slithered towards the mangled corpse of the young apprentice, wrapping around his exposed torso and dragging him fully beneath the ground. The woman stood silently again for a moment then turned to face the forester. She approached him slowly and stopped before the old man. He stared into her eyes when she placed her hand on his cheek, rubbing a thumb over his worn skin. He kept his dark eyes trained on hers as she moved her fingers across his lips. Suddenly she grabbed hold of his chin and heaved him off the ground, staring into his very soul with her silvered eyes. Her fingers dug cruelly into his flesh and he suppressed a cry of pain as her lips curled into a snarl.
“He’s not strong enough.”
She forced his head to stare at the tree which already began to wither and die, rejecting the heart that beat within it. The forester went cold, his limbs shaking as icy fingers of terror trailed down his back. The woman released his face, casting the old man to the ground where he lay, his own figure withering and shriveling in the putrid night air. He watched his skin curl back from his fingers, revealing bone and tendon. His face tightened as his flesh pulled taut over his sharp cheekbones, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a ghastly grin. He screamed in horror as he watched his body decay, rotten tears streaming down his ripping cheeks. With the last ounces of strength left in his rotting form, he threw himself after the woman and caught onto her skirts.
“I don’t want to die,” he sobbed, shoulders shaking as his bones grew more and more stark against his dried skin.
Stricken suddenly by the weakness of his decrepit form, the man dropped his meager handful of the woman’s linen dress and remained still as she placed her hands on his shoulders. An eternity seemed to pass, each moment stealing a hysterical breath from the forester’s blackened lungs. Suddenly, that same red glow began to emanate from the woman’s ghostly form and flowed into the old man. As the light grew brighter, the man’s age began to melt away. Hair as gold as the sun sprang from the crown of his head and fell in a curtain over his face. The warped bones straightened themselves and even laying prone, he grew in height substantially. The blackness in his eyes ebbed away to reveal palest blue and his weathered skin stretched over lean muscles. The woman removed her hands and stepped away from the man. He laid still for a moment more, reveling in the new brutal strength of his body— savoring each stretch of muscle as it elongated while he stood. He smiled to himself. A brilliant and charming smile that did little to disguise the wolf-like cunning behind those blue eyes. He looked up at the woman and laughed, leaping towards her and catching her in his arms. His newfound youth giving him gall.
“Thank you!” he planted a deep kiss on her white lips but she rose up and struck him across the face.
He staggered back, his hand cupping his flaming cheek. He glared at the woman a moment and leapt for her again, catching her wrist in his crushing grip.
“I did what you wanted. I brought you a heart. I deserve to be repaid.” He hauled her close to him and with a lascivious smile, kissed her once again.
She retaliated with the ferocity of a snake, striking him to his knees and grabbing his arm. Her fingers elongated into talons which she drove into the tanned flesh of his wrist. He roared with pain and tried to escape her grasp but only succeeded in driving her talons deeper into his arm. He knelt, defeated.
“I gave you your youth. Do not forget, Ramiel, who it is that should be doing the repaying.”
“I gave you the heart.” He growled with rage.
She twisted her talons into his flesh once again, drawing from him an agonized scream.
“If it weren’t for me, you would be rotting with the rest of your kind. If it weren’t for me, the Bloodwood would have taken you long ago. You deliver the children, Ramiel. Then you go.” She ripped her claws out of his arm and disappeared in a flash of light.
The man knelt cradling his arm to his chest then stood abruptly, whirling around and making his way back to the foothills, his mind tumbling over itself in a frenzy of thoughts. But one rang clear above the tumult in his head.
Fifteen years. That was all the time he had until he lost his youth. Age one hundred years in fifteen. That was the deal. Unless, he brought a child. She would make the child part of the forest and he would be young again. He feared death. He feared its ripping hands and suffocating darkness. Young forever. And all he needed was the right heart. All he needed to do was find it. A hunt. A game. He smiled to himself as he walked up the hill.
Let the game begin.