THE VINE-PATTERNED WALL BUBBLES OUTWARD as we walk. At first it looks like air pockets trapped beneath the wallpaper, but as we carry on the burls swell ever larger until cankerous growths surround us on all sides. The vines thicken and lift from the white paper in long ropey tendrils, which snake their way down the hall.
The thickening vines begin to choke the white wallpaper from view. Heavy roots and thick foliage lie all around us and the tendrils begin to creep across the ceiling. Their greedy fingers latch onto plastic covers that shield us from fluorescent bulbs, until we find that we’re walking in the shade beneath a dense canopy.
Willow pauses to break out her silver flashlight. Then we creep our way through the gloom.
The vines begin to take on a life of their own. Broad, serrated black leaves stretch out towards Willow and me like beckoning hands. Between the leaves, I spy red thorns with jagged edges, jutting out seven to nine centimetres from the vines.
Above us, small grape-like clusters of fruits dangle from the ceiling. They’re elongated and green, like miniature gourds or melons, despite the bunches. But they sport the same spikes on their rinds as the vines.
Willow nudges me when she sees them and flashes me a malicious grin. She points at the strange green bunches and asks, “Still hungry?”
I say nothing.
I soon realize that the walls seem to have melted away. The vines’ stems have thickened and now hem us in like wizened tree trunks and between their dark boles I see more hoary vines in the distance, wherever Willow’s silver light touches.
Which means we’ve made it to Willow’s forest, I guess.
The entire wood is eerily still and entirely too claustrophobic. The vines grow so close together that I’m reminded of prison bars, hemming me in from all sides—all sides, that is, save for the way onward or the way back.
No deviating from my path, then. Even with an axe, I’d be hacking my way out of this grove for hours. And who knows what I’d find on the other side.
The forest seems to grow older the longer we walk. Where at first there were young shoots and clusters of fruit, now the vines seem ancient and weathered. Some older, pallid vines are even being asphyxiated by younger ones, still blue in their infancy.
I reach out to touch one of the young vines, but Willow slaps my hand away.
“You said they weren’t poisonous,” I growl.
“I said the vines don’t like to be tampered with.”
Willow and I walk in single file to put as much space between us and the thorny walls as possible. The earth beneath our feet—and it is earth, I’m not sure when we left the tiles behind—cuts a well-worn swath through the thicket. I can see that hundreds, if not thousands, of others must have trodden this path before me.
I wonder if they were lost, as I am. I wonder if they made it out.
The vines and their wicked thorns don’t encroach upon our path, but they do splay their gnarled roots across our footing. Both Willow and I stumble slowly down the trail. She keeps her flashlight trained at the ground.
Unfortunately, not even the light helps me as I catch my foot on a particularly knotty root and catapult into her, her only warning a strangled yelp that’s cut short as I collide against her back.
I’m surprised by the impact. I expect to sail through her and feel the wall’s cruel thorns bite into me, but instead I hit the ground hard, while she goes sprawling forward. I gasp as the impact knocks the breath from my lungs.
Willow, somewhere to my left, cries out.
I pick myself up shakily and inspect my right side with my fingertips. Shit. That’ll bruise.
“You asshole,” Willow moans from somewhere in the dark. “Just bring me the light.”
The flashlight is lying against a root, casting eerie shadows up against the vines. I pick it up and find Willow bent double and cradling her left shoulder. She spits translucent blood as I shine the light on her. “Tell me how bad it is.”
Her left eye is closed against a trickle of blood that spills from a cut in her forehead, down beside her nose and across her cheek. The shoulder wound is more serious: a deep gash ripped from her armpit to the top of her shoulder blade paints her arm in a waterfall of red.
The sight is strange, because I can still see through her. I stare for a moment and then I ask her, “You can bleed?”
“Oh, you think?” Willow shouts. “Goddamn you. I’ve been so patient, putting up with your lost puppy bullshit, trying to stop you from making the same mistakes everyone makes, and what do you do? Ugh, and what are you doing?”
“I’m taking my shirt off. We need to stop your bleeding.”
“Not your shirt,” she says. “You’ll need that.”
“My suit jacket then. Don’t know if I can rip it.”
“You’ll need that too.”
I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m only trying to save your life. Of course I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known the fashion police would come calling.”
“Shut up,” Willow hisses, yanking off the scarf from around her neck. “And help me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I do as she asks. It’s my fault, after all. I tie the scarf to her shoulder as tightly as possible. She tries to wipe the blood from her eye with the heel of her right hand. I pretend not to notice when she also spits blood onto the ground beside her, though more leaks onto her lips from her head wound.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You’re walking in front!” Willow bites back, apparently not in a forgiving mood. Willow shakes as she stands to her feet, but pushes me away when I offer her my arm for support. She takes a step forward, before motioning me in front.
“Remember,” she says through teeth clenched against the pain. “It’s not like I have to be here.”