The Watering Hole

Wanderin' through the woods for days, we stumbled on a water hole. Surely no man had seen this land before, and it would be many years 'til t'was seen again. But there t'was, and there were we. So we took a drink.

We probably could'a gone further, but we had been lost. We hadn't seen a crick since we'd entered that God-forsaken land. It looked like a lush haven, but the further we traveled, the more we understood.

We wouldn'a left the farm if we'd had another option. We wouldn'a left the women-folk behind, but we had no choice. They couldn't'a made it through. That we knew. But someone had to, someone had to go get help.

The longer we were lost, the more death we found. The deer that first day, ribs showing the hunger it felt. Bugs flocking on its corpse, crawling, consuming its flesh..and their own dead.

The meadow had seemed safe. It seemed the ideal lan, so that's where we began. It'd been a long journey, but it hadn't been as treacherous as it should have been, it hadn't been as fearsome as we later learned it to be. It wanted us in its clutches, lured us in with fresh game and a promise of new hope. It wore a mask, fooled us for just long enough. We built our house, we called it our home. And then it changed.

So there we were, pa and I and the water hole. We should'a known better, from all we'd seen, we should'a been more careful, more afraid. But we were tired and careless. We thought we were out, but we were wrong. And now we know, we can never leave, never can get help. They're always going to be trapped, somewhere in that forest.

And now, so are you.