Slime

The woman walked on, tree branches giving way reluctantly to let her pass.

It was the dead of jungle and it was night, but she felt content. The woods were silent and soft. There was a breeze that made her inhale deeper than ever, and then there was the moon somewhere. It was intense, it was beautiful.

She brushed back her hair and smiled. To walk at night in chilly perfumed air. So alive, so vibrant. So new. She had never walked out into the woods alone, but she was glad she had to-night.

Something brushed against her hand, timidly. She turned her head and saw it was a small dark branch. Its touch was insistant but soft, so she just untangled herself politely and walked on. There was a thicket coming up and it smelled like it had flowers, although how could brambles have flowers she didn't know. She walked to it, when the touch returned.

Somehow she had felt it was the same touch. It was on her arm now, moving up towards her shoulder. "Moving". "moving". Not "crawling". Not. Even if her skin was crawling under the touch. She brushed the branch away again, more firmly this time, suddenly aware of the stillness all around.

No one even knows where I am.

The branch coiled around her arm. She shouted faintly and broke it, then ran. She ran slowly, she still didn't believe that she was in any danger. It was just a forest snake. Must have been. And if she ran away with enough determination she would show it she doesn't mean it any harm.

She stumbled and fell, then looked for the cause. Her leg was held by two coiled branches and she noticed that wherever they rubbed on her white skin they left sticky traces of mud. They moved slowly, radiating with disgusting pleasure. Up her leg and slowly, slowly, towards her thigh.

She stood up and freed her leg, then continued to run. The forest hit her with trees and leaves, hurt her feet with branches and shouted in her ear as she ran. The serenity seemed a joke now. The moon was watching her through the trees, probably laughing. She felt the need to laugh. She was so stupid.

There was the flower bush!

She stopped and looked back, where nothing moved anymore. She breathed. It had abandoned the chase. She smiled at the flowers, then laughed. Still shaking, she bent down to smell one. It was pink and delicate and so friendly. She circled the bush, sniffing at flowers as she went. This was the forest she had left for, the forest of dreams and scenty air. The bad thing was left behind.

Or was it..? She caught a movement in the corner of her eye. Was something crawling towards her on the path? She couldn't see anything, not even by squinting. She froze and tried to listen, tried to move closer to the flower bush. Her ears were so bad, wait, was that a twig snapping?

A bird started chirping in seductive trills just above her head and she hated it.

The flower stem grabbed her neck before she realised what was happening. It had a long, long stem and it went around her neck two circles, now three, now four. The sickly sweet smell filled her nostrils, because the flower head was so close. She groaned and tried to pull it away but it was already coiled. It dripped mud on her breasts, her stomach, the dirt seeped over her legs and inside her skin, while the flower stem closed around her neck in a loving movement.

The moon lit the path and she saw that the snake branches were near her feet and climbing on her. The more bold one was already around her waist. Her clothes were dirty, her skin was dirty.

She couldn't bear to rip off the branch that strangled her neck. The flower smelled so beautiful still. Over the rot and decay underneath, the flower was pink.

But this flower is betraying me.

... Stil, such a nice smell..

Then there was the sound she had forgotten about. People.

They can't see me like this. I have to crawl and hide.

With the sticky snakes over her body, she tried to kneel out of sight. She was embarrassed. But they saw her and came to her shouting. One of them took the knife and sliced the flower from the stem, allowing her to breathe. The other untangled the branches. They both held her up.

"Are you all right?"

She stared at them. "You cut off the flower."

They stared back, speechless.

"You cut off my flower. I needed that flower. Its smell made me feel alive."

They stared.

She picked up the broken flower in her palm. It was smelling of decay more and more. But she insisted that it was the same pink perfume. They had killed it.

"I hate you. Go away."

They left. She knelt and cried for the broken flower. She knew that it was no use trying to recapture the pink scent from the rest of the bush. All the forest now smelled of decay.

And the snakes crawled on her legs, her waist, her breasts, on her face and inside her mouth. And each time people came along she hid ashamed, so they had to send the whole village after her and burn down the forest.

And she was taken out, helped into a bath, held and smiled at. Then she was tucked in her bed and slept. And ate, and lived on. But her skin remained stained in places and whenever she saw a flower she would start to cry.