Going Green

In the labyrinth of the woods, a girl got separated from her parents when she decided to run up ahead. She waited twenty minutes before she started back for them. Bushes became brushes and the ferns grew into a fen. Her Sesame Street fanny-pack containing a box of raisins and a half-empty water bottle got caught in the vines growing around her. She was able to save the half-full water bottle before the vines engulfed her pack and suffocated Elmo's smile. The day sunk into night and the girl saw a pale light in front of her. As she headed toward the illumination, the mush floor suckled at her left shoe. Next to go was her right shoe. The swamp rose to her knees as the light grew closer and a faded into a darker shade of blue. The trees around her loomed ominously as her feet bumped into roots growing in the undergrowth she waded through. And still the light grew larger. Something skimmed past her right leg and she shot her hand down to brush it away. It had no blood coursing through it's veins, but it was alive, a branch or a root. She continued to wade further, the muck up to her belly button. The light was almost within reach when something hit her left leg. Again, she shoved her leg into the brown mud below her only to feel another lifeless root. When she tried to bring her hand back up to bat the flies around her face, the root became a tentacle and pulled her further into the earth. Seeking nutrients it made its way between her fingers and up her wrist. The terror rendered too much and she was left voiceless. He eyes did the shouting for her. As the root embedded it's way further into her arm, her right ear was submerged. Roots began swarming around her legs, sliding under her toenails and up her dainty legs, piercing her hips, crawling into her belly button and entering through her ear. Her hair turned into vines and attached themselves to the branches above them, entangled. Mosquitoes birthed from her nostrils like a running faucet. Lily pads expelled from her mouth and the light rose. From her black pupils a stem drew closer, finally giving birth to flowers. Her skin became wet, brown, disintegrating into mud. Then she noticed the warmth coming from the light, it guided her limbs.