Lullabies and Moss

God, I'm the stupid American tourist--backpack full of shiny shit I don't need, now hours deep in the Black Forest as the daylight wanes, totally lost. Such a walking cliche. I can hear bird calls. I hear the snap of twigs. But I hear nothing human. "Fuck." I need to figure out what to do next. I go through my options. I could [[pull up a map on my cell phone and find my way out|Cell phone]]. I could try and [[build a shelter|Build a shelter]] for the night. Or I could [[keep going|Keep going - daylight]].

I pull my cell out of the front pocket of my jeans. It still has a full battery, but what use is it when there's no reception? How can I be in the middle of Europe with no reception? I'm one of those idiots in a horror movie, I think, holding the cell up to the sky. If I was home watching myself on Netflix I would be laughing right now. 'Who told you to go into those stupid woods in the first place, genius?' Google maps tells me to wait, that it's loading, and then it tells me hey guess what, that's not going to happen. Sorry. No connection. I go over my options again. [[Sleep out here|Build a shelter]] or [[push on|Keep going - daylight]]?

This was just supposed to be a day hike! I didn't bring a tent. Damn it. But I did bring a jacket. And that poncho I bought back at Potsdamer Platz is still in my backpack. I find a tree with low branches nearby and drape the jacket and the poncho in such a way that they'll provide some measure of protection against the elements. Already the temperature is dropping out here. I don't have any blankets. I have no way to start a fire. It snowed last night. I take a step back and look at my mangy shelter. It might work? It might not. The question is do I trust my handiwork to keep me alive through the night? More choices. Endless choices. It's funny how when things are going well it seems like you're not even making choices at all. I look over my shoulder at the setting sun. Do I [[sleep here in my shabby little tent|Night falls]], or do I try and [[navigate my way out by the setting sun|Keep going - daylight]]?

The sun sets over my left shoulder. I don’t remember which way I came in, and my mind is screaming with anxiety now, but if I just keep the setting sun over my left shoulder, and just keep going, then eventually I should hit. . .something. I remember, suddenly, a picture I saw on Wikipedia of the vastness of the Black Forest. Fuck me sideways. Just pick one direction and go. I’ll stumble across something. I sigh and shoulder my backpack. This is turning into some real Blair Witch Project shit. Going straight in one direction is simple, but hard. I have to cross streams, scrabble up ravines, all while night falls around me. But eventually my plan pans out. I find a house. A cottage hidden in a little copse of trees. It’s rustic as hell, surrounded by a garden, with a stone well out back. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. I could [[approach it|Approach the cabin - daylight]]. Or [[slink around back|Slink around back]]? Maybe no one’s even home.

It gets cold so fast when the dark comes. Animals come alive in the dark. Sometimes I see the blotting blackness of their shadows drift past my shelter, and I shiver from more than the cold. The chattering of my teeth melds into all the weird sounds of the forest. I eat all the powerbars in my backpack and drink all my water, as much to give myself something to do as anything else. Sleep never comes. Time becomes weird—hours slide by, but minutes creep past. Then comes the singing. An ethereal, beautiful voice slithers through the frigid air. At first I think I’m imagining it, but the song is in German, and I only know a handful of words in German. How could I have imagined an entire song in German? Maybe I should [[find the singer|Find the singer]]. Maybe the singer could lead me to warmth and food and out of these godforsaken woods. Then again, who goes wandering around the Black Forest in the middle of the night singing songs? [[Maybe I shouldn’t find them|Stay put]].

It’s not hard to catch up with the singer. The song pulls me towards the singer, guiding me, like a net. It’s dark as hell now, but I don’t even trip over weeds and tree roots. It’s like the tendrils of the song have found a clear path for me. The closer I get, the better I feel, the warmer I feel. It’s like when I played Hot/Cold as a kid, but literal. Literally getting warmer as I approach the singer, who is still singing. The song wraps around me, growing louder, swarming my senses. I can see the singer now. They stand on a rise up ahead; a lonesome figure in a hooded coat holding a lantern. The lantern casts blue light out into the forest. They are close enough, now, that I could [[call out|Call out to singer]], but far enough still from me that I could just [[keep following them unnoticed|Follow singer unnoticed]].

The song grows louder. I shiver against the hard bark of the tree, curled up tight, sucking my own warmth from my own body in a fruitless enterprise to keep from freezing to death. Curled up there, the singer passes by, and I go unnoticed. But the tendrils of the song linger in the woods, curling through the icy air. The song flits through my mind, soothing me. In spite of the cold, and the terror of the woods, sleep finally calls to me. Do I [[fight it|Fight the song]], or do I [[succumb to it|Succumb to the song]]?

I shake my head. I clench my fists to get the blood flowing. No. No good comes from falling asleep in a freezing night, especially with some weirdo singer wandering around. Although maybe that weirdo singer has a spare coat or something. Look, definitely staying in my little shitty shelter is not working out. I should move on. Walking will get the blood moving, keep me alert. I slip out of my shelter. I pluck my jacket from the tree and pull it on. I slip my backpack on, too. The poncho, the empty powerbar wrappers, those I leave behind. I follow the last threads of the singer’s song. They pull me through the woods, guiding me. It’s bizarre. Wait, that is really bizarre, being led around by a song I can’t even really hear now. Do I really want to [[find this singer|Find the singer]]? I don’t know. But otherwise I’m [[wandering around the woods in the dark and the cold|Wander the woods in the dark]].

There’s no fighting it. Not for me, anyway. Sleep overtakes me. I dream of witches, gingerbread houses, trolls. Fairy tales, but the old and brutal kind of fairy tales. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that I’m the tree I’ve curled myself against-—something old and ancient and rooted. I never wake up, but I keep dreaming, so I must be here somewhere still, somehow in this forest, in the Black Forest. Sometimes that song weaves through my dreams again, and I press up to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite break the surface. I just keep dreaming. It’s all one long, cold night. One long cold dream from here on out. You succumbed to the Black Forest's lullaby. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

Look, I’ve seen enough horror movies to know you don’t go towards the creepy-middle-of-the-night singers. I saw The Wicker Man. I know what’s up. I go the other way, and I just walk, my hands shoved in my armpits, my teeth chattering. It’s horrible, slow progress, because I’m tripping over every damn root and bush in the Black Forest, but at least I don’t feel that weird song in my bones anymore. Maybe I can just keep walking until morning. But then I find a house: a cottage hidden in a little copse of trees. It’s rustic as hell, surrounded by a garden, with a well out back. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. I could [[approach it|Approach the cabin - night time]]. Or [[slink around back|Slink around back - night time]]? Maybe no one’s even home. God, I hope it doesn’t belong to that creepy singer.

Something about the beauty of the song, its resonance, pushes me to call out. “Hello! Hey, hi!” The singer turns. I can’t see the singer’s face. They ask me something in German. “English? Do you speak English?” I ask. The singer comes towards me as I go towards them. “A little English,” the singer says. Their voice doesn’t give their gender away; it lands just plausibly between man and woman. Just before I can get a look at the singer’s face, they hoist the lantern up in from of me, blinding me with the blue light. The light in the lantern is so bright, so white-blue, and it wiggles, bouncing in the glass like a thing alive. Like a…like a giant firefly. “Ah, you are so young yet,” says the singer. “So deliciously young.” And then they sing. This time, I can’t fight it. The singer’s lullaby overtakes me. I crumple to the ground I dream of witches, gingerbread houses, trolls. Fairy tales, but the old and brutal kind of fairy tales. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that I’m loam and the rich soil I’ve fallen into—something dark and full of potential. I never wake up, but I keep dreaming, so I must be here somewhere still, somehow in this forest, in the Black Forest. Sometimes that lullaby weaves through my dreams again, and I press up to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite break the surface. I just keep dreaming. It’s all one long, cold night. One long cold dream from here on out. You succumbed to the Black Forest's lullaby. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

Where are they going? What are they doing out here in the middle of the night? My mind swims so heavy with questions that I’m not as careful as I should be. I make a wrong step. A twig snaps; the sharp sound echoes in the frigid night air. The figure ahead of me stops; turns. The blue light of their lantern floods the undergrowth between us. A voice clear as a bell begins to sing. The song wraps around me like a net, like a blanket. The creature’s lullaby overtakes me. I crumple to the ground. I dream of witches, gingerbread houses, trolls. Fairy tales, but the old and brutal kind of fairy tales. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that I’m loam and the rich soil I’ve fallen into—something dark and full of potential. I never wake up, but I keep dreaming, so I must be here somewhere still, somehow in this forest, in the Black Forest. Sometimes that lullaby weaves through my dreams again, and I press up to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite break the surface. I just keep dreaming. It’s all one long, cold night. One long cold dream from here on out. You succumbed to the lullaby of the Black Forest. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

I go up to the front and knock on the door, my German phrasebook already in hand. The door creaks open. “Guten tag—” A voice clear as a bell begins to sing. The song wraps around me like a net, like a blanket. The phrasebook drops from my hand. I look up. Moss-green eyes. Hair the dark brown of tree bark. A youngish, weathered face. A person with no age, no gender clasps my hand and pulls me across the threshold, still singing that song. Spellbound, I let them do it. The door closes behind me. The put me in a chair, gently push me down to sit in it. Sleep tugs at me. The song is a lullaby. Part of me knows I shouldn’t, knows this is some trap, but it’s too late. The singer’s lullaby overtakes me. I dream of witches, gingerbread houses, trolls. Fairy tales, but the old and brutal kind of fairy tales. I never wake up, but I keep dreaming, so I must be here somewhere still, somehow in this forest, in the Black Forest. Sometimes that lullaby weaves through my dreams again, and I press up to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite break the surface. I just keep dreaming. It’s all one long, cold night. One long cold dream from here on out. You succumbed to the Black Forest's lullaby. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

I think twice about just sidling up to the front door of this cottage. Who lives in the middle of this forest? Wouldn’t they need a permit? Why would you live out here? There's no electricity hook ups or anything, no modern conveniences. I’ve seen The Hills Have Eyes. I’m cold and scared, yes, but this is not the time to be stupid, too. I creep around back, into the garden. Or what I thought was a garden. Instead of familiar vegetables, the garden is full of herbs and plants I don’t recognize. Things I’m not sure are even edible. I find a shoot of violet flowers very deliberately coaxed through the eyehole of a rabbit's skull. “What the fuck.” The words slip out of their own accord. My hand flies to my mouth to keep any more from leaking out. I glance around. I get awfully curious about the [[cottage windows|Cottage windows - daylight]].

I crouch and crawl over to the cottage windows. Just as I glance through the window, a lantern flashes to life inside. Shit. I duck down. So that means someone is in here. And I’m trampling their garden like an asshole. Great. Maybe it’s not too late to go around front and ask for help and shelter for the night like a grown-ass person. I catch my breath. I start to scurry away, but movement inside the cottage catches my eye a second time. It’s the person inside. But they don’t look like any person I’ve ever seen. They are green-skinned, a dark and textured green, like moss on trees. They have long, pointed ears. They are naked, and their body is neuter—neither man nor woman. Or both at the same time. The person in the cottage turns to a shallow stone bowl and splashes clear water on their face. Their green, mossy skin turns brown and freckled. The lobes of their ears shrink and turn rounded, like mine. Brown hair grows from their formerly bald skull. Still otherwise naked, the transformed person pulls on a pair of boots. They take a cloak off a peg near the door of the cottage. They pick up their lantern, which glows with blue light, and they leave the cottage. Holy, fuck, what was that? Ok. Ok, what do I do now? Do I. . .do I [[follow that—that person|Follow singer after they leave the cottage]]? Do I [[go in their cottage|Go in the empty cottage]]? Holy fuck, what did I just see?

I don’t trust that cabin. Who knows what’s in there? I don’t really trust that. . .mossy fake human person, either, but, hell, I’m curious about them. I creep along the edge of the cottage. I follow behind the creature, trailing the swinging blue light of their lantern as they make their way through the forest. Where are they going? What are they doing out here in the middle of the night? My mind swims so heavy with questions that I’m not as careful as I should be. I make a wrong step. A twig snaps; the sharp sound echoes in the frigid night air. The figure ahead of me stops; turns. The blue light of their lantern floods the undergrowth between us. A voice clear as a bell begins to sing. The song wraps around me like a net, like a blanket. The creature’s lullaby overtakes me. I crumple to the ground. I dream of witches, gingerbread houses, trolls. Fairy tales, but the old and brutal kind of fairy tales. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that I’m loam and the rich soil I’ve fallen into—something dark and full of potential. I never wake up, but I keep dreaming, so I must be here somewhere still, somehow in this forest, in the Black Forest. Sometimes that lullaby weaves through my dreams again, and I press up to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite break the surface. I just keep dreaming. It’s all one long, cold night. One long cold dream from here on out. You succumbed to the Black Forest's lullaby. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

I push the door of the cottage. It’s unlocked, and swings open soundlessly, the hinges well-oiled. I close the door behind me and shove the bed up against the door to barricade myself in. After the shit I’ve seen tonight I don’t really want to hang out with the cottage’s resident. I set my backpack down on the floor. There’s a heavy desk beside the window that could strengthen the barricade. I shove it, too. In the dark, I hadn’t noticed there was a basin of water on top of it; the basin slips and water spills out across the floor. I grab my back pack out of the way, but it’s soaked through. “Aw, man.” But still, the desk gets shoved up beside the bed. It’s cold in the cottage, but not freezing like it is outside. I curl in the far corner, wrapped up in a blanket stolen from the bed, and eventually fall asleep. In the morning, I wake up to sun streaming in through the window. My backpack is covered in moss, as is the floor where the water spilled from the basin. When I shove the furniture back from the door and slip out, there’s a map pinned to the outside of the front door. It’s the map that gets me out of the Black Forest, but whenever I hold it, I can hear the lullaby, a shadow of it, an echo, the way when you hold a seashell to your ear you can hear a memory of the ocean. You escaped the Black Forest unscathed! Want to find out the other endings? Play through again from the [[start|Start]]. You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

I knock on the cottage door. No answer. Maybe it’s been abandoned? It looks sound enough. I try the door—unlocked. I edge in and close the door behind me. It’s hard to see in the cabin, but it doesn’t look so abandoned now that I’m inside it. There’s a bed. I set my backpack down on the floor and wrap a blanket from the bed around me, to warm up. There’s a basin of water; the moonlight pours in through the window and glints on the water’s surface. There’s a— God, I’m thirsty. I drank all my water back when I was shivering in my makeshift tent. I lick my lips. I bet it’s cool and refreshing. My fingers ache to reach out and take the basin, to drink the water. I lurch forward and grab the basin. The blanket falls from around my shoulders. Some of the water sloshes out onto my legs, chilling them further in the already cool air, but I don’t care, I have to drink the water, I have to. I drink it in great gulps, like I’ve been wandering deserts. Oh, it’s the sweetest, purest substance in the world. I feel it slip down my throat, into my stomach, feel the relief pour through my entire body. [[I drink the basin dry|Drink the water]]. My shirt and chest are soaked through. I lie back, sated. I fall asleep.

I think twice about just sidling up to the front door of this cottage. Who lives in the middle of this forest? Wouldn’t they need a permit? Why would you live out here? There's no electricity hook ups or anything, no modern conveniences. I’m cold and scared, yes, but this is not the time to be stupid, too. I creep around back, into the garden. Or what I thought was a garden. Instead of familiar vegetables, the garden is full of herbs and plants I don’t recognize. Things I’m not sure are even edible. I find a shoot of violet flowers very deliberately coaxed through the eyehole of a rabbit's skull. “What the fuck.” The words slip out of their own accord. My hand flies to my mouth to keep any more from leaking out. I glance around. I get awfully curious about the [[cottage windows|Cottage windows - night time]].

I pick my way through the creepiest garden in all of Germany and peer through the cottage windows. Only blackness stares back at me. I think the cottage is empty. All signs point to this cottage being the homestead of the lullaby singer, and the lullaby singer is out singing lullabies. I could [[keep wandering|Keep wandering]] and risk freezing to death, or I could [[hole myself up in the empty cottage|Go in the empty cottage]]. At least there I’d be out of the cold, at least for a little while.

I wake to a creature with wide brown eyes and moss-covered skin peering down at me. It frowns at me. “Wake up,” it says. It doesn’t speak English, but somehow I understand it anyway. I blink at it, refusing to understand. It pokes me with its toe. “Wake up, you stupid young thing.” “Why do you look like that?” I ask. “Because I was stupid and thirsty once, too.” The creature holds up a mirror to me. I, too, have moss-skin now. Large eyes with irises the color of tree bark. Pointed ears. I start to scream. The creature pulls the mirror away and thwaps the back of my head. “No time for that now. You’re moss-folk now.” “Moss-folk? Until when?” “Until ever,” said the creature. The moss-folk. “What?” The moss-folk grinned. “Black Forest magic. I fell prey to it, ah, three hundred years ago? It’s not so bad when you get used to it. I’ll show you the ropes. Help you build a cottage of your own when you’re ready. Far, far away from mine.” You fell prey to Black Forest magic. Go back to the [[start|Start]] and play again? You can find more interactive fiction by B R Sanders <a href="http://brsanderswrites.com/other-things-by-b/interactive-fiction/">here</a>.

Nope. All of this is way too weird for me. I keep going, push on into the darkness. But the cold gets to me. It’s hard to fight back tears. And then the damn lullaby creeps up again. I feel like I’m being hunted. I feel like that creepy singer is tracking me through these woods. I can’t see where I’m going, and that singer lives here in these woods and has a lantern. The song gets closer. I see the glow of the lantern again. The song grows loud enough again that I could [[confront the singer|Call out to singer]], but far enough still from me that I could just keep [[following them unnoticed|Follow singer unnoticed]].