Haunted Forest
Location
It’s in the south east of Continent T@Ö#Å3 where the land of the living ends and the land of the dead begins. These two areas are clearly divided by a forest - a haunted one that is. Haunted Forest covers a large area bordering East T@Ö#Å3 and Wasteland on one side, and a small clearing on top of a cliff where Gates of Hell are located on the other side.
Description
Dead black trees, as if charred from fires, under a blood red sky illuminated, or rather obscured, by nothing but the black suns give this forest the appearance that makes it clear that all is not right here. The forest seems desolate, as if all life has left it centuries ago and yet you won’t be able to shake the feeling you’re being watched. A bat may fly overhead, a homunculus might sneak past your feet announcing his presence with a creepy whispering giggle. You’ll be in company of the whispers of those long dead - or is it just the wind blowing through the dry tree branches? Glowing red eyes will watch you from a distance - are they demonic entities waiting for you to let your guard down, the souls of those who lost their lives here centuries ago, or just glimpses of the red sky shining through between the withering tree trunks? Bony emaciated hands will grab your ankles, trying to drag you with them to the very depths of Hell - or is it just spiky branches of the dead bushes covering the ground getting stuck on your clothes? You may find yourself followed by shadowy figures, perhaps one of the vampires said to be living nearby, stalking the forest to find their next victim - or are they just shadows of the trees, your mind playing tricks on you?
Even with all these ghostly apparitions watching you, this place seems incredibly lonely. There is no one here to save you if you get lost, only the whispers chasing you deeper into the forest. You’re alone here with your thoughts, doubts, fears, insecurities. Dead, charred and broken trees all look the same, and you can only hope that the glowing red eyes are in fact the red sky, the salvation in the distance. You can only hope to make it back out before you succumb to exhaustion and hunger, and join those poor lost souls that still haunt this forest.
Related Stories
However, you only need to worry about all this if you decide to enter the forest, which most people, understandably, don’t. They only watch the forest from afar, guessing and telling stories about what may or may not live there.
Entrance of the underground and lost souls
One thing that everyone can agree on is that this is the very spot where the Old World ended and the New World began. Some say that the entrance to the underground bunkers, where people would hide in the apocalyptic years, is located in Haunted Forest. This is where people hid right before the asteroid hit the world, leaving all the trees in the area burnt and broken to this day. Not all of the people made it to safety in time though. They are those souls that still haunt the forest today. After centuries of people avoiding Haunted Forest the exact location of the entrance of those underground dwellings was forgotten.
The Dreaded Homunculus
Haunted forest is also the origin of the legendary dreaded homunculus. You see, genetically “modifying” the old humans into a new species of mole people was anything but easy. People faced a lot of difficulties and have gone through a series of failed experiments before finally “modifying” themselves into mole people. Freaks living in T@Ö#Ä3 are one of the remnants of these less successful experiments, but it is said that one more of these failed species survived to this day. This is the dreaded homunculus. A misguided attempt to cross humans with chickens through some, well, questionable tactics that yielded some, well, questionable results. Small, white, vaguely humanoid beings were far from what people believed a new intelligent species should be. They seemed emotionless, cruel even and not exhibiting any signs of possessing any significant intelligence. As such, people decided to destroy them and never speak of them again. That should be the end of it, but many today still believe the homunculi survived in Haunted Forest to this day. Some claim to have seen them, even as far away from Haunted Forest as Ä+*4~ and Fairy Gardens, but to this day no one had been able to provide any definite proof of what they saw. On a related note, it is believe that killing a homunculus, should you encounter one, will surely bring you bad luck. The general belief is that homunculi are just a myth, a species that may have never existed to begin with, but just a symbolic figure - a way to sum up all the failed species from the past and a warning against frivolous genetic ”modification”. All of the modern day sightings are disregarded as a hoax, a story made up for attention or a straight up delusion. As long as no one dares to enter Haunted Forest, we’ll likely never know the truth on the matter.
Why would anyone go in there?
There are still rare occasions and reasons for people to enter the forest though. Most commonly, these are the dead, passing through here to the other side, to Gates of Hell. These are accompanied by Silver Man and Woman, the only ones who know the way through Haunted Forest. The ones who made it back from Hell are the main source of tales of Haunted Forest and the things they witnessed while passing through.
Others who enter Haunted Forest are the killers of T@Ö#Ä3, hiding the corpses of their victims here. And it’s a good spot, no one will fare to go here to retrieve the dead, even Silver Man and Woman won’t venture too far away from the known paths to get to the dead lost in here. But it’s important to be careful if you choose to hide your victims here. If you stay too close to the edge of the forest, the dead might still be found or be able to escape to the nearby Graveyard. If you go too deep, you run a risk of staying lost in there forever yourself.
Of course, there are also those people from Wasteland and City of T@Ö#Ä3 who dare each other to enter Haunted Forest. They claim to not put much stock in all these stories about ghostly entities haunting these forests, the legends of the dreaded homunculus and the vampires supposedly residing here. Surely all those stories are just old wives tales. But yet, only the bravest actually dare to go in. It’s not that they’re scared, no siree bob, but why test your fate and taunt the dark forces of Haunted Forest so recklessly?
But, is it all true or no?
Haunted Forest sure has a creepy aura around it contributing to it’s mysterious reputation. Not all people agree about the legends related to it. While some believe in them wholeheartedly, others believe it’s just a creepy looking forest. A perfect fuel for people’s fears and a good source for scary stories, but nothing more than that.
Whatever the truth about Haunted Forest may be, one thing is clear: the forest represents the divide between the living and the dead. It’s the realm of the undead, where all the myths, legends, your worst fears and nightmares can come true. It’s the place where life meets death and venturing into the depth of the forest will only lead you to meet your own death so you’re well advised to stay out.
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