In The Woods

"What could possibly have made you drive us here?" I asked my fiancee as I awoke with a bump. "Talk about total desolation. I bet we can't even find a hamburger out here." The bump was apparently from the Jeep leaving the road.

"Come on Caite, where's your sense of adventure?" I cringed at the words. It sounded like a line from some cheesy horror movie. "Wait 'till you see what I'm going to show you!"

My boyfriend, David, loved driving out to remote places to hike around. I like the outdoors more than your average American but I'd never understand the sort of pleasure he got from it. I think he was one of the great explorers in a past life.

"I hope you brought a picnic lunch, unless this mystery item is edible?"

"It's no item," David said, "and there are sandwiches in the back. I got your favorite at Subway, turkey with provolone and jalapenos."

"It's 'haa' not 'jaa.' Oil and vinegar? Lettuce, tomato?"

"Thought that went without saying, and an Irish chick shouldn't care about how to speak Spanish!" David said, as if schools in Washington had Gaelic classes.

"Are we almost there?" I asked. We'd been off-road for nearly ten minutes now.

"Give it time."

---

We'd gone over 45 minutes from the road by the time he stopped. Given how overgrown the track was I hoped there was plenty of gas to get home. Certainly nobody would be passing by anytime soon! The scene where we stopped was foreboding. We were at the edge of a field and about to enter a very gloomy woods. The trees had branches like giant, green arms with moss like hair hanging down from every inch. The moss gave a dark green glow to the area as we were devoured by the trees. I looked behind us and could no longer see into the clearing.

"I hope you know how to get back out of here," I told David. "I know I couldn't!"

"I did bring the GPS, Caite. Even so, I've been out here a few times before."

It wasn't long before we reached a small cabin. It was hard to tell what it was aside from the still intact windows. The moss covered the mound like a blanket, though it still seemed structurally sound.

"I certainly hope we're not spending the night there!"

David ignored me and started to light his lantern. "It's inside," he said.

Opening the door required obvious effort on David's part. "It's heavy," he said. The moss was thick; the cabin must have been ancient. Peering inside, I realized the place was totally empty. The cabin was small enough that I didn't even need the lantern to see. "This is just the portal," David said with a wry twist to his mouth. "Don't freak out, but you're in for a total change in how you see the world."

David said a strange, quick word that sounded a bit like "chicken salad," only garbled and run together. Directly in front of me the cabin floor opened up into a dark pit. I now saw why we needed the lantern. "Only the entrance is dark," he said, "the town is bright enough to turn off the lantern."

I was freaking out. There was no impression of it and David continued on as if everything were commonplace. To tell the truth, I was in shock. Word wasn't out yet on how the entrance opened, I could chalk that up to some sort of voice activated code. The fact that it was there at all was the problem. I was able to unfreeze myself as I saw the light growing smaller below me. I scrambled down the thick stone steps until I was close to David again.

"Watch out there," he said. Perhaps I got a bit too close. "We're almost there."

Ahead of us a dim, jagged light shone. "That's the place. They're interested in meeting you."

"What?" I was confused again. "Who is?"

"The Cryst, of course." I could tell he was enjoying this. "You'll see. They're friendly but I was their first human contact in about 100 years."

"But how did you find the entrance?"

"The keyword is carved into the floor back there. Freaked me out the first time it happened." I grabbed his free hand, this place was quite unnerving.

We reached the end of the cave which opened out into a large cavern. David put out the lantern and I was blinded until my eyes could adjust to the dim light. Slowly things came into view. The glow had a greenish cast, possibly carried through a crystal vein from the surface, though there was no evidence of that possibility. Even odder was that the green glow seemed to pulse with a kind of natural rhythm. Outlined in the light were giant stalagmites. They were easily ten to fifteen feet wide and taller than a house. In fact, it seemed that they were houses, complete with doors and small round windows. Only after I'd taken all of this in did I see the Cryst.

I clutched onto David's strong body when I saw them. I truly wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't seen them moving. The creatures were crystalline of sorts and pulsed slightly with the same green glow of the cavern. The crystal skin was translucent and had a soft look. Their shapes were somewhat fluid, though always with a sharp looking edge and, as they noticed David and I, they changed smoothly into a bipedal form.

You must be Caite, I heard in my mind. There was no language, not in English and certainly not of that odd language David spoke in the cabin. David has told us much about you. We welcome your service.

"What do you mean by service?" I asked out loud. This was just about the oddest thing I'd ever seen and I was starting to think I was dreaming.

You will join with David as our envoy into the human world. In return, we will give you objects that your kind finds valuable.

I assumed the valuables would be very valuable since these creatures lived underground. I was still a bit wary, though. "How will I be your envoy? Are you coming to join the surface world?"

By no means. The sun above would shatter us. We cannot help but absorb its energy. You will become one of us as David has. A hybrid able to live on the surface and carry our message. You will have some power over earth and plenty of wealth to help complete our task.

"What if I don't want to? I want to be myself, not some half Cryst half human."

You have little choice in the matter. David had much the same concern.

One of them must have gone behind me out of view. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck and passed out.

---

I awoke slowly and sporadically. I saw the floor of the cabin shut in front of us. I saw part of the car ride home. I saw my house and family. None of it was very clear, but it was more than clear that I was doing the walking. My body was at least - for now I was just a passenger.

I woke up more fully and clearly in my bed the next morning. I had control of my body again and did the morning necessities. During breakfast I felt the Cryst part of me waking up and taking over. It swatted my mind away as if it were nothing at all.

If this is going to work we're going to have to work together, I thought.

We will merge slowly. Eventually our spirits will become one and we will act with one mind. This will happen more quickly if you try to act as I am acting. For some reason you faltered at breakfast.

I wasn't sure I wanted to be one with the Cryst, but I didn't have much of a choice. I could either fight it or work with it.

---

YEARS LATER:

A protest speech put together by David and Caite Haswell was performed by the couple in Los Angeles. This is a portion of the speech's end:

"The pollution of the environment must end! You are destroying people and animals you know nothing about! If it continues, this community will be forced to take action. They have remained silent for over 100 years and now have the means to stop you. A small taste of what they can do has been arranged for you. <start low level earthquake> You all know this cannot be timed. Nor can a bomb cause widespread tremors. <another small shake> The pollution will end now."

The panic that ensued went as planned for David and Caite. They were brought into the federal authorities. The above is Caite's story compiled from the bits and pieces told to us. David was more close mouthed. I personally believe that both of them are trapped under the Cryst influence and that Caite is still trying to fight it in some ways. Eventually we realized they were impossible to contain and nearly impossible to kill - the latter has yet to be completed.