Esa was often right. It wasn’t something he liked to think about, but his intuition would always worm in, like larvae digging into the fruit of his flesh. Whatever he was worried about would come true, like his very own Murphy’s Law, taunting him with the knowledge of what would come but never the opportunity to do something about it. These fears scared him not because they were terrifying or horrific—no, no, they scared him because all his worst nightmare could come to life.

And this was his personal hell—the place he swore he would never come back to, not after everything that had happened, everything he had lost. It was hard to think, and there was a weight on his thoughts.

It wasn’t complicated. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t—

“Esa! Are you going in with us or not?”

“Of course he isn’t— you can stay outside, Esa, and just not—”

There was a fine line between bravery and rashness, and it should be respected. Too bad not everyone saw it that way.

“It’s just that I have a bad feeling about this…”

“You always have a ‘bad feeling’ about something,” Lain spat out, with his hair sticking to the gleaming sweat on his forehead.His exhaustion added venom to his words, and under his breath he huffed, “It’s almost like you think everyone’s out to get you.”

Anything that can go wrong will do wrong. That is the way of the world.

“What? Do you have dance practice?” Mei asked, and something akin to ‘again?’ stopped just shy of her lips. She leaned against the flaking bark of an oak, and seemed right at home against the mud with her sturdy clothes and heavy-duty boots.

“No—No, I don’t. I haven’t gone in a while—”

“Really now?” Lain unhelpfully added in, which both of them ignore.

“Listen, we shouldn’t, things that —there are things that shouldn’t be disturbed and – you know what happens. I don’t want to end up like—” her name remained unspoken.

(“We are still investigating the circumstances that led to the disappearance of the girl a few weeks ago. I’m sorry, but Miss Lowe still hasn’t—”

“Her name was Robin, officer.”)

Those words quieten Mei and Lain, and the forest sharpens into focus. The cloudless night stretches and stretches—civilization seems so far. The chill of the winter seeps in, and the herbal smell of evergreen smears over their clothes—Esa wonders if they’ll ever get scent out. If they’ll ever get out.

The sky heaves over him, the storm heavy. It seems to break under its own weight. It makes Esa want to run off, towards the faint lights in the distance, to sprint into the safety of somewhere else—anywhere else, just not here. His legs burn from coming here with Lain and Mei and the only thing he feels is a distant ache. Like something came in and scooped his brain out.

“I…” Lain starts carefully, and he’s always understood more than Mei; he understood how her death had really affected him and despite his warning, she had still gone. Hopped and skipped, really, into that temple.

Mei’s irritation takes a softer edge, and she looks upward to the stars. It’s funny, the almost contradicting mess that Esa, Mei, and Lain make up. Robin was the one that rounded their ends, and now it’s like they’re a broken record, scratching over the same repeating notes. Lain shifts around, and for a moment, every inch of forest seems covered in bugs—crawling under dead leaves or lurking inside the bark of sick trees.

“Esa. I know that you miss her. We all do, but it’s been four years. You barely talk to us now and it’s like…”

“… we don’t even know you anymore.” Lain finishes lamely.

Esa braces against the truck of a tree, keeping the weight of his legs. They hurt like they always seem to these days, an ache that doesn’t go away. The truth is that he hasn’t felt like himself for a long time—now especially. He feels like a live wire, as if every single part of him has been cut open and left to dry. The temple—if one can even call it that—looms nearby.

“Do you know what happened in that temple? Like really know?” Esa looks to Mei and Lain, meeting their eyes with a desperate look. “She convinced me that it’d be a nice ‘adventure’ and we’d be in and out— right before the pillars collapsed onto themselves! I was stuck there for who knows how long! Days for all I know. All I could hear was insects humming and—at least I got out! She wasn’t so lucky.”

“Esa.”

“The bugs and their larva, they crawled all over and—” Esa couldn’t get the rest of the words out.

“No one’s asking you to go inside—just come see the ruins. It’s not the place you think it is.” Lain looks ahead, and Esa knows Lain is also trying to persuade himself, “Fear twists up what you see and feel.”

“The only way to move on is to face it. You can’t hide here, you need to come back to the real world again. After this you can finally move on.”

Mei’s right—she always is. Esa looks to Lain before looking to the trees again. The dirt underneath his shoes tug him down, trapping him to the ground. There’s no escaping it—the only way through is forward. He gets up and they go towards the temple.

This is the only way, a voice whispers in his head.

It must be, Esa thinks.

But why does he still feel so uneasy?

The journey to the temple itself seemed submerged with a haze. One step after another. The forest grew darker, with the moon hiding behind clouds. Mei and Lain murmured about the oddness of the trees, trying to include him as well, but their words washed over him. A rush of cold passed through him, and his doubts slipped away.

He reaches the perimeter of the temple’s old ruins. Four years. Has it really been that long?

Mei looks over the ruins and she is shaking. Esa doesn’t think she even notices how her breathing accelerates or how Lain inches closer to the trees in the forest, or how his hands are slick with sweat. It doesn’t matter. None of it did.

Esa doesn’t understand why it took so long—and neither do they.

“Something’s wrong with this place.” Mei’s usual steady tone falters—she’s scared.

“Esa was right.” Lain.

A humming can be heard in the background. Esa moved his hand to massage his scalp, only to come away with blood. The pressure that stopped him from dancing—which had turned his body into stone–was gone.

The only thing wrong was why it took so long to finally come back here. This is his home, Esa realises.something brushes against his hair and inches continuously down his back like some sort of hoard.

“Esa? Esa!” Mei cries frantically, “there’s a swarm out here—we need to leave or else we’ll be trapped!”

The larvae finally crawl out.

I was right, Esa thinks, before collapsing. The last thing he hears is Lain and Mei shouting. Insects cover the ruins and now, his job is done. He is nothing more than a messenger—the carrier.

Writer – Areeba Zabrina
Editor – Ally Chu
Artist – Sophia Pu

–August 2024–