Do Not Lose Hope

I am as without hope as I am without words, and yet I recognize that I must record what happened. Whoever finds this… <i>if </i>someone finds this… I beg you – <i>fight! </i>The people of First Light trusted me and my scouts to hold such dangerous, wild forces at bay. And I have failed. It now falls to you to protect this land. I was out walking last night, crossing over the trail by the South Gate as I had done many times since that night, hoping to repeat a chance encounter I had earlier in the month. That night I got my wish. For as I walked, I felt the strange presence once again. And this time, my shadow made itself known. What I saw defies imagining: it was Clara, sure as the night is long. Or rather, some monster that had borrowed her shape. Her body was fibrous and wooden; her skin, a course layer of tree bark. Her face, features I had witnessed a thousand times before, was a tangle of brambles and thorns, blank and expressionless. I hesitated, stunned to inaction by what I saw. It was a grievous mistake. Roots sprung from the earth, wending and winding their way about my limbs and torso. I struggled vainly, unable to scream as the air was crushed from my lungs. As vision failed me, I knew that death would be the price for my bewilderment. But I was wrong. I awoke, held fast in a cage that burst forth from the very ground. Around me, similarly restrained, were many of our missing neighbors. I know not where we are, nor what fate awaits us, but the twisted simulacrum of Clara still stirs, somewhere off in the dark. -Magistrate Gladis Bond