text: YOU MELTED INTO THE GROUND UNTIL the earth decided to release you. You had long lost the right path and the trees had shaken along with you as the cold had made your body shiver. Your feet had started to ache long before the tired sun had set but you had still had wandered onwards for a while after that. It was when you had knelt down, weary, that the grass and mud under you had welcomed you downwards. You didn’t struggle because you weren’t cold there. Your coat of dirt and roots and moss kept you safe and warm until the smiling moon came out. It smirked like it knew you and you shrunk into yourself, afraid, under its half-light. Growing up you had never been a frightful kid but the half-hidden face of the moon made of you a frightful adult. You looked at it, unable to look away and saw the guilt and shame of your life reflected on it. A dreadful mirror. It made your body shake. Your chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. You felt you were dying. You cried. Whimpering like a little kid and in whispers you begged forgiveness to your parents for all the times you unjustly blamed them for your shortcomings. You begged for forgiveness to your siblings for all the times you envied them when they were better than you. You begged for forgiveness to your friends for all the times you neglected them and took them for granted. You said their names, all their names, like a long prayer and only when you felt true regret under the watchful eye of your silent judge, the earth around you loosened its grip and you stood tall over solid soil again. You looked down at the hollow space where your body had been, your shape still carved into the ground. You were confused but bowed and thanked the silver moonlight for taking pity of you and asking the earth to release you. Light as air you walked, continuing your search for your cabin after that encounter with the warm ground and the frightening moon. You walked on and on, paying so little mind to the chilly air that you no longer felt the cold gripping your bones as you did before. You were calm, reassured that you were heading in the right direction and that your watchful guardian above was showing you a path of silver light that would guide you home. But the trickster moon fooled you. Its bright light showed you a way to a cabin that wasn’t your own. “Why?” you asked as you glanced up, seeing its unflinching half smile. “Have I not been forgiven yet?” The moon stayed quiet, silently judging you. Then, in a second its crescent smile grew and grew, turning full and white and faceless in just a couple of heartbeats. You stared at it in shock, your heart beating quicker, fearing the moon again after the calm it had given you before. Running, you made your way into the foreign cabin. The door was open, calling you inside, welcoming you into its near darkness. “Is anyone there?” you hesitantly asked to the darkness, your voice hollow, quiet like a gust of nighttime breeze. You squinted your eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the dark. Only a window let some of the moon’s light in and you stayed away from it, frightened that it could perceive you through its glow. You were no longer sure whether the moon was a friend or a foe. Perhaps it was neither, or perhaps it was both. You curled up by a corner and warily examined the cabin, knees to your chest and arms around them. It was empty. It smelled of dust and loneliness. There was only a wooden door, closed and ominous, directly across from the entrance to the cabin. Part of you wanted to stay as far away from it as from the moonlight, but there was also a part of you that was intrigued by it, that wanted to know what was on the other side. The door called to you. It called to you and then the walls echoed its call, whispering your name in a way that made your skin crawl. The sound of your own name surrounded you and you grew more frightened, worried that your regret hadn’t been enough, that you had not yet been forgiven. “Please stop,” you whimpered almost soundlessly, burying your head between your knees. You were shaking, fearful and dejected, sorrow and fright easily taking over. “Please,” you begged again in whispers. The door continued its harrowing call and when you looked up your eyes widened in shock and horror. The cabin had shifted entirely. It was brightly lit by moonlight, its glow painting the murmuring walls, the floor, the roof. The lonely door was still there, but it looked at you in a new form, metallic and cold. And before you, bathed by the veil of moonlight that flooded the room, was a woman of white and silver, earthy and ethereal all at once. There were no features on her face, it was a blank mask of emptiness. “It calls your name because the door is yours, child,” she spoke without a mouth and saw you without eyes, reaching a bony white hand to touch your face. You trembled, feeling those skeletal fingers on your skin. The woman of white, dressed in silver and light, was oddly soothing and terrifying all at once, every bit the inquisitive and watchful judge she’d been when she watched you from above. “The door is yours and you must open it,” she insisted with a calm voice that echoed all around like a multitude of different voices had joined in one. “The time has come.” “The time for what?” you asked, afraid, but getting up from your corner all the same. You looked up at the woman of white, tall and slim as she was, two heads taller than you. You felt small and insignificant before her and in her expressionless face you could imagine her giving you her half smile. “Time to leave.” You glanced at the door, which nearly vibrated with the urge to be opened. Your whole body shook, sensing the nothingness that would greet you once you turned that knob and faced what no human ever wishes to face. You looked back at the woman and she gave you a solemn nod. Hesitantly, forcing your feet to carry you to the end, you reached for the door. It needed no key to open, just your hand around the doorknob. But your hand didn’t touch anything, it passed through it like it was made of smoke. You stared at your own immaterial palm as it formed again, forcing yourself to swallow a panicked cry before you looked back at the woman of white. She was gone and when you turned back to face your door it was gone too. You weren’t in the cabin anymore. That shifting place existed only somewhere beyond your body, in the twisting corners of your mind. You were still in the ground, surrounded by mud, sinking deeper and deeper. The earth never decided to release you. You understood it was truly time to leave, but Death wasn’t a door. Death was a faceless woman of white and she was the last thing you saw as you sank. A frightening blank face shining in the night sky. The trickster moon had fooled you twice.