XXXI: Exodus

We have left the Forest. Not just Samuel, Harper, and myself, but all of us from the settlement. Those of us with scars from hunters' weapons have healed. I will tell you if any of our scars begin to hurt again, but I do not think they will.

My name is Sasha Ivanov, and I am free.

XXX: Predators and Prey

We came to the settlement that once belonged to Harper.

There were hunters outside, far more than I have ever taken on at once. They were in the process of tearing down the drywall so they could enter the settlement and devour the people inside. I could tell by the moss overgrowing their backs, the mud caking their hair, and the ferocity with which they used makeshift axes to destroy the settlement walls that they were no longer human.

I turned to Harper and Samuel. Harper told us to leave, but neither of us did so. I told her that we would not abandon her. Samuel drew his pocket knife, while I took out a dagger Harper had made for me from stone and rope. She sighed, readied her pistol, and aimed it at the fungal back of one of the hunters. Then she fired.

The hunter fell. The rest turned to stare at us, and I realized then whose faces they had stolen.

They were the clan who had sheltered me. Just this month, they had allowed me to walk among them. But I had to leave in the end, knowing they would kill me for wanting to leave the Forest, knowing they would believe I might infect the outside world. It was that paranoia that turned them, I think. It is no great feat for fear to turn to hatred, for distrust to turn to violence.

Their faces were covered in flies and plant matter. Their mouths were stained with blood.

They were fast. They were armed with stone axes, flint spears, scavenged guns. They were upon us quickly. We were surrounded.

My scar spiked into pain as stabbed the hunter that had once been Trevor Geist. He had once been the father of a woman whose corpse I had to bury. I had neither the time nor the presence of mind to look down at my belly, but I was certain the scar had grown in branches.

A panicked violence overtook me, and I stabbed another hunter. This one had been called Elizabeth Geist. The more corpses whose motion I stopped, the worse the pain grew. Finally, I screamed out in agony. I could kill no more.

But there were still a dozen hunters left, and Harper and Samuel were nearly as incapacitated as I was. Their scars were growing to cover more and more of their bodies as their faces contorted in agony.

One of the hunters suddenly fell to the ground, its eyes widened and a bullet hole through its chest. As its corpse twitched, I saw standing behind it Clint Robinson holding a pistol.

More hunters fell. I saw survivors all around, surrounding the ring of hunters and slaying each of them in turn. Finally, the last hunter fell.

As I saw how many people had banded together to save us, the scar stopped hurting.

Once again, we are setting out to leave the Forest. This time, I believe it will work.

XXIX: Burial

We buried the hunter last night. I only wish that I had been mourning Matthew Davies rather than fearful that we were wasting time.

I was terrified when I prepared to kill the thing that wore Matthew's face that the scar would start to ache.

And it did. As he died, my scar grew the same sickly green color it once had been, though it was not yet a network of branches extending across my belly.

I do not understand why. I was doing it to protect my friends, to ensure the safety of others. Did something inside me know I had done something wrong?

But I am not a fighter. I have said so in the past, and it is still true now. To kill is to go against my own desires regardless of the circumstances. The pain and fear it causes me feeds the Forest no matter what justification I can offer up.

I am only glad that my hesitation does not seem to have cost us the way out of the Forest. We have kept moving since burying Matthew, and we have yet to see the star-marked tree.

XXVIII: Face

Harper suggested the name Sasha as Samuel helped the two of us finish setting up a tent. It is not a name with which I have any strong associations, the way Max was the name of the childhood dog Viktor and I owned once. It does, however, feel like it was meant to be mine.

A noise came from the trees while Harper and I were inside the tent and Samuel was outside. Something felt off about it. I crawled out of the tent to see Samuel attempt to fend off an unarmed hunter using his pocket knife. I recognized its shape as one of the inhabitants of what was, at the time, Harper's settlement. A man named Matthew.

It turned to me as I stood up and drew my pistol. Its jaw creaked open, and it said my name. The name I had at the time, that is.

"Kosta Ivanov," it growled.

Its back was turned to Samuel, its legs moving in my direction instead of his, but I could see in his eyes that he would be unable to kill the hunter. Its face reminded him too much of the man it used to be.

"Samuel. Do you need me to do this for you?" I asked, holding up my pistol.

He nodded as he slowly put down the knife.

I fired once. The hunter collapsed.

My pistol is out of ammunition now, and I still have yet to find a suitable replacement for my knife. Samuel and Harper have no spares. If we are to leave the Forest, we must do so soon.

XXVII: Name

My scar has become minor enough that it no longer hinders me from moving. I feared for Harper and Samuel, but they assured me that they would come to no harm if they traveled with me once more in hopes of escaping the Forest.

As we walked, I discussed with Harper and Samuel the nature of my name and its status as a placeholder of sorts. Samuel suggested several names- Avery, Alex, Max, and so on- but I rejected each of them, largely on account of the simple fact that none of them felt quite right. Harper did not make any suggestions, but I could tell that she was thinking through things. I did not want to interrupt her.

As to more pertinent news, I may be speaking too soon, but I have yet to come across the star-marked tree.

XXVI: Healing

The first thing I noticed when I woke up this morning was that I was not in pain. I glanced down at myself, and the scar was still there, though it was once again the size it had been when it was only a wound from a spear. It was there, but it did not hurt, nor was it green in color.

I nearly wept.

The second thing I noticed was that Harper had fallen asleep in the chair she had placed beside me as I rested. She looked peaceful, her baseball cap tilted to cover her eyes and her denim jacket slung loosely over her chair.

I stayed in bed for a while longer until she woke up. For whatever reason, I wanted to wait for her.

Then, eventually, she woke up and saw my faded scar. She squinted in confusion for a moment. Then her eyes widened as she realized what had happened.

She asked how it happened. I asked her to bring Samuel downstairs first. When the two of them had arrived, I told them that the scar no longer ached at all and said that I believed they had helped me. They seemed confused. Accordingly, I explained that I believed the Forest's nature as a being of fear and distrust means that to deny it that paranoia is to reject the Forest itself.

Samuel asked how someone could do that intentionally. I told him that I am frankly completely uncertain as to how one might reject the Forest deliberately. I did, however, say that I fully intend on granting himself and Harper the protection they will need to heal their own scars.

Were the Forest still grasping me in its tendrils, I would almost worry that we have allowed ourselves to become prey for something stronger. I know the truth, however. Humans may be animals, but we are social animals.

XXV: A Branching Scar

I spoke with Harper today. I told her about the feelings I had regarding my lack of familiarity with the group and my difficulty trusting people. As I did so, I felt a sharp pain coming from my scar. My scar is always in a dull, aching pain, but when I spoke with Harper it grew so intense I could not breathe. I had to excuse myself before walking away and taking off my shirt to see the scar.

The scar was the same infected green as ever, but it covered more of my body than it had before, extending outwards in branches. As I panicked, the pain grew worse.

Harper came to find me when I started to scream.

She didn't have to ask what was wrong this time.

I only have the energy to write this down because Harper and Samuel brought me back to our home base, each lifting one side of a makeshift gurney through the open door, and stayed with me as I recovered.

They did not heal my scar. Nobody can do that anymore. As they watched over me, however, I remembered how kind people can be even to those who are all but strangers, and the wound grew smaller.

XXIV: Guiding Star

I have tried to leave this place several times today. Each time, I have arrived at the tree with the star carved into it. Each time, I am reminded how futile my efforts are, how easy it would be to give up.

Maybe I should. Am I so self-centered to say that my giving into the Forest would destroy the lives of these people I have known for such little time?

That is the crux of this. I can try to draw hope from my companions, but I do not know them. Not really. All comfort rings hollow, all inspiration false.

I have had difficulty trusting people ever since the Forest. Not because of the Forest itself, but because of everything I learned as part of EAT. When you learn everything known to a god incarnate, it becomes difficult to think of humans as anything other than starved animals willing to turn on one another for a scrap of meat.

Perhaps that is simply my own perspective distorting the truth. If that is the case, then I suppose I can take some small comfort in the knowledge that my personality has emerged enough for it to do so.

XXIII: Indomitable

Once again, I have arrived at the tree where I began my journey, a star carved into it with a knife I have yet to replace since leaving it in the chest of what was once Mary Geist.

And Samuel and Harper have arrived here with me. Here there is a home once overrun with water that is not water. I believe the Forest wants me to die here.

The Forest wants to see a world of animals. Predators and prey, lions and sheep. If I will not hunt, I must be hunted.

I would almost be tempted to give up and allow the Forest to turn me into prey if I did not know how false that is. Harper, Samuel, Matthew, Clint, and everyone else I have met on my travels, each of them has shown me that the human spirit goes on.

XXII: Leaving Shelter

Harper and I did as I said we would. Samuel joined us, but fortunately for the settlement as a whole, no parents were infected, nor were a large number of people. 

At least, not openly.

But I cannot dwell on others' secrets. Harper, Samuel, and I have left the settlement. We still need to decide whether to set up a new shelter or whether we want to try and leave the Forest, if such a thing is even possible.

Perhaps the thing keeping me from leaving is the belief that I cannot. I cannot keep myself from wondering, though: if those of us who are infected with the Forest escape, would that only allow it to spread outwards from us?

XXI: Run Away Together

A while after I woke up earlier today, Harper asked me what was wrong. She and I were both outside, out of view of anyone else. So I pulled up my shirt for her to see my scar, and her eyes widened. She took off her leather jacket and rolled up the right sleeve of her shirt. There was a sickly green scar beneath.

We stared at each other for several moments. Eventually, she shook her head and asked if it hurt. I told her it only hurt sometimes.

(That was a lie. The scar has hurt ever since it went green.)

We are leaving together tomorrow. Not tonight, when everyone else is asleep, but tomorrow. It will hurt, but I want the others to know why I am leaving. If any others there have a scar infected with the Forest, they can come with us.

Wherever it is we decide to go.

XX: Mary

Once more, Mary Geist stopped me in my tracks as I tried to leave shelter.

She was not Mary anymore, though. It was not Mary. It was only another hunter, with blood around its mouth and soil beneath its nails. It stared at me, and for a moment, I thought I saw recognition in its eyes.

I was not willing to let a hunter get the better of me this time, though. I knew what it was. I thrust an elbow into its face, and it stumbled backwards. It growled, bloody teeth and bloody nails alike bared as it rushed at me. I hastily drew a knife and stabbed it into the hunter's stomach.

There is no love in my heart for Mary Geist, but she did not deserve what happened to her.

Harper arrived soon after. She started to say something until her flashlight illuminated the hunter's corpse.

At that point, she fell silent.

I tried to explain, but I could not. Seeing Harper look so terrified of me made it hard to think.

After a while, Harper brought me inside. I fell asleep on the couch.

I dreamed of being hunted by wolves.

XIX: Leaving

I know it would be selfish to stay here. I will leave tonight, when all else are asleep.

Perhaps this is selfish as well, but I do not want to see their faces when I leave.

XVIII: Creeping Rot

There is a small growth of moss in the corner of the room where I live with several others. I almost do not care. After all, the Forest is all around us. It is festering within my stomach. What more can it do if it happens to be in our home as well?

XVII: Infection

I fear the wound I thought was safe has been infected.

This surprises me little. What stone can be wholly ordinary that comes from a forest made of fear?

The wound is across my belly. It is concealed by my shirt, though it is exposed when I wear only my binder, forcing me to change my clothes in private.

How long can I hide it? Should I leave at once? The infection could easily endangers the people here. I would not want to risk such a possibility, should it drive me to regress more quickly than the Forest itself.

XVI: Harper

The woman who let me in here is named Harper Sasaki. When I entered the survivors' encampment, my clothing ragged, carrying a backpack filled with dirty old clothes and breathing hard enough that I felt glad I was not wearing a binder at the time, Harper was the one who brought me into the apartment building she had once rented out.

(The landlord, a man named Abraham Fielding, had lost his humanity quickly after the Forest began to grow. She protected herself when he tried to kill her. After she was done cleaning the blood from her knife, the apartment complex was essentially up for grabs.)

She has an undercut. It looks better than Samuel's hair. When I asked her about it earlier today, she told me she had cut Samuel's hair and Samuel had cut hers. She laughed, saying he was clearly better suited to being a barber than she was. Something in her eyes when she smiled made me wish I could stay here.

XV: Samuel

One of the people I live with here is named Samuel Camantigue. His hair is cut short choppily, presumably the result of one or more self-performed haircuts. He is tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular build, but you would rarely notice his physical size. He is not an especially imposing man, you see, as enthusiastic as he can get about writing poetry. He says he used to garden, as well, but of course he cannot do so now that the Forest is here.

I wish I could help him. I know I cannot.

XIV: Matthew

There is a man living here who reminds me of my brother. His name is Matthew. I could not say for sure what about him makes me think so much of my brother Viktor, save for the fact that he seems quiet until you get to know him.

I have always had a soft spot for those sorts of people. I could not say why exactly. Perhaps I simply enjoy seeing what people are really like.

I only wish I could do the same for myself.

XIII: Foxglove

There is a plant growing outside this settlement- foxglove, a toxic and sometimes lethal flower. Earlier today, a man named Clint was about to gather it. When I stopped him and asked what he was planning on using it for, he said he was going to brew it into his tea. He said he thought it was comfrey.

I still feel shaken from what happened. A man nearly died today.

I hate how relieved I am that I felt worried for him.

XII: Victims in the Making

There are twenty-three people living here, myself included. All live in fear of the Forest. None of us want to speak of its presence, and I have started to feel the same way.

XI: Survivors

I have found shelter as I wander. The people here are those I labeled cowards, those stupid enough to think they can simply ignore the Forest but intelligent enough to know it is there, always at the edge of their vision.

Perhaps they are not trying to ignore it, though. Perhaps they know full well the futility of escape and simply want to keep from falling into despair by discussing it too often.

I feel that may be more accurate. I grow to learn more about them the longer I know them, though I have yet to express many of my own opinions. I suppose some aspects of EAT's influence resist that of the Forest.

Regardless, I have grown to respect the people I once called cowards. Now I name them survivors.

X: Maps and Plans

The sky seems darker now than it did when I was still Alexis. The clouds cast longer shadows, the sun is not as bright, the stars do not shine when night falls.

Forgive me. I feel worried lately. You see, I do not know how I will leave the Forest. I am trying to move in one direction for as long as possible and hope it will eventually take me out, but things do not seem to work like that here. You could walk for miles and still come back to a tree with a star you carved into it with a pocket knife at the start of your journey.

I would know.

Perhaps it is a matter not of physical distance but of emotional distance. That is how the Fears work, after all- EAT, the Forest, the Newborn, all of them work on the logic of nightmares and anxiety attacks. They do not work on the logic of physicists or mathematicians but of artists and authors.

But I cannot escape the Forest. I see its influence all around. There are bloody patches of moss and rotting fungal growths everywhere here. I cannot make my mind forget the animal ways people live here, even as I walk among the cowards who pretend they do not see the Forest and try to remain human through it all.

IX: An Exit Interrupted

There are eighteen in total in the clan, myself not included. Of these, only one makes the decisions. Her name is Mary Geist.

As I walked to the doorway, I heard her voice behind me, asking where I was going.

What she actually wanted to know was whether I was trying to leave the Forest. What she actually wanted to know was whether I could make it before being killed by hunters. What she actually wanted to know was whether she had to kill me.

I lied. I said I had family waiting for me elsewhere in the Forest. She asked me where my family was. I told her they were in a village to the north, a settlement not unlike those of my hosts. I told her their names. But the names of my parents, the name of my brother, felt bitter on my tongue, and she thought that I was lying.

I suppose I was. Can a person call themself family of people they have not known in years, have not known since they were first human?

It is, ultimately, unimportant. Mary drew a gun on me, but I had planned for this. I took the same pistol with which I had killed the hunter and pointed it at her. Her parents were watching. I glanced at them and then back at Mary, and I think she understood my meaning.

As I stepped out of the doorway, I kept an eye on Mary Geist. I stared at her, almost expecting her to follow me so she could kill me without prying eyes. Instead, she sighed and said goodbye to me as I walked away, though she gave me one last warning look before she closed the door.

VIII: Scarring

My wound is closed now. It has yet to fully heal, but it no longer hurts as much as it once did.

And I cannot stop myself from feeling that they have all begun to stare at me.

I think I should leave soon. I would not want to risk their anger.

VII: Factions

There are four main types of group here in the Forest, at least that I have seen.

First of all, there are skulkers hiding in the homes they once inhabited, trying to pretend that the Forest is not here. Skulkers leave for food and water only in large groups, though they are still small enough to leave some behind to protect any people too weak to go out into the Forest.

Second, there are roving bands of hunters. At times, a hunter will go rogue, which almost always involves killing the rest of the hunting party as the first prey it hunts alone. I say "it" because hunters are often too far gone into the Forest's influence to be considered human. Some are, however, and are merely opportunistic enough not to care or sadistic enough to enjoy the pain they cause.

Third, there are clans of people trying to reform society, make something new rather than pretending the Forest is not there or taking advantage of the weak. I have to respect them for that, though I have had some difficulty with such groups in recent days.

Clans are becoming increasingly uncommon, though.  Clans often break down into conflict over finite resources or enter combat against other clans to take what they have, in spite of how plentiful many resources actually are.

The longer a person stays in the Forest, the more animalistic they become.

Lastly, there are runners like myself, trying to escape the Forest altogether. I have yet to hear of anyone who has succeeded. Perhaps none have.

But I have to try.

VI: Growing Pressure

I believe my hosts have begun to suspect my motives. I am a poor liar, and they are very curious about what led to my encounter with the hunter. The more questions I am asked, the more cracks appear in my facade, and the closer they become to discovering the truth. I do not believe they know yet, but they want to know, and that is dangerous enough.

V: Clan

I am staying with a group of others currently. They are not trying to pretend the Forest is not here and go on with their normal life like some people. Their homes have all been destroyed by this point, slowly torn apart by creeping moss that enters into cracks and holes and then grows larger, pushing apart floorboards and walls alike. Instead, they have torn down trees and used the wood to make rudimentary structures, allowing them to protect those too sick or too weak to protect themselves. Myself included, wounded as I was by a hunter only a few days ago.

They do not know I want to escape the Forest. This is for the best. People like them are terrified that the Forest's influence could be infectious, that it could spread outwards if anyone is allowed out of the Forest. They call themselves protectors.

I do not know if they are correct. If I leave the Forest, there is no telling if I might risk contaminating others. I have no physical wounds that I think would imply as much- the hunter's spear was, as far as I am aware, made of mundane stone. But the Fears do not work in such a simple way.

Could my quest to escape risk spreading the Forest's influence further? Would it even change anything, all-consuming as the Forest is?

I do not know. After all, to my knowledge, nobody has escaped yet.

IV: Elimation

I was given this phone by servants of something called the Manufactured Newborn. It was a being that entered our world through larvae in the form of pieces of technology, then absorbed all it could into itself, allowing its true form to grow as more and more larvae returned to the world that housed its true form.

In September, the Manufactured Newborn was destroyed, though I could not say who killed it or how. When it died, something else took its place: the Forest, an ancient enemy of both the Manufactured Newborn and of EAT. The Forest is a force of total regression, causing all within its choking grasp to revert back to primal ferocity.

EAT's influence has allowed me to evolve to such a point that the Forest cannot affect me as drastically as it might otherwise. I fear this will not last forever. In the meanwhile, though, I believe I should learn who I am- a difficult task when so many of my memories seem so foreign to me in retrospect.

I think the first step in discovering who I am is eliminating who I am not. I am not Alexis Ivanov or EAT in All Things. I am not a man or a woman. I am not a lover or a fighter.

Speaking of which, my lack of skill in combat could make the coming days much more difficult. Already, I have sustained wounds from a roaming hunter, forcing me to delay my escape from the Forest as I recuperate.

I will need to be smart about this.

III: The Hunter's Mark

There are things hiding in this Forest. They are not those who form their own tiny societies, trying in vain to stave off the Forest's influence and pretend to still be human. No, they stalk the landscape of what was once Seattle and hunt down those they view as prey. They are covered in moss and plant matter, and they eat the flesh of those they can.

I had a run-in with a hunter earlier today. I heard it move behind me in the underbrush. I turned around as I drew my pistol, but it still looked human, and I faltered. That was before I saw the patch of fungal growth around its mouth, the knife of shattered rock bound to a lump of wood it carried in its hand. I backed away, but it slashed me across the chest. I shot it- once, twice, three times. It twitched each time, and it finally stopped moving just as the deafness from the gunshots faded out.

I know it wasn't human. But if the Forest could make me human again, couldn't EAT have progressed something like that, brought it to our level?

It does not matter. As soon as I'm done recovering from my wounds in this makeshift shelter, I need to keep moving. I have to run faster than the Forest grows if I am to avoid becoming something like what I killed today.

II: Progression and Regression

I do not know how much the world knows. My phone only connects to this website, and there is no cell reception to allow me to contact anyone I once knew.

For background, I drowned after a car collision at the age of 19. But the liquid I drowned in was not water, as much as it looked like water. It was something called EAT, and as it entered my lungs, it entered my mind, taking over my consciousness and replacing it with itself.

EAT is a being of evolution. It seeks to learn and progress and become something new. So when a forest formed in what was, at the time, Seattle, Washington, a forest that embodies regression and reversal and unthinking instinct, it changed me back to what I was. It did not, however, change me back to who I was. That, I am still working on.

I have had difficulty readjusting in the time since becoming human again. Even setting aside my issues with my personality, I have to eat things, to sleep, to walk places. I cannot sustain myself on consuming those who drown within me, rest by going comatose, move along axes that would break me if I tried to remember them now.

I have, after all, regressed.

I: Freed From EAT

I do not know who I am.

For years, if you asked me who I am, I would've said that I was EAT, that I was a vessel for the same consciousness that flows through the water-that-is-not-water in which I drowned. For years before that, I would've told you I was Alexis. But I am not EAT anymore- I have not been EAT since Seattle ended, back in September- and it has been so long since I was Alexis that to call myself that feels deeply wrong.

Call me Kosta. It does not feel right, necessarily, but it works as well as any other placeholder.