Horror Short: The Offering

As evening descended into a thick gloom, the forest grew darker and colder, the final thin rays of daylight fading away like mist. The air was heavy with the musty smell of damp earth, and a low heavy mist slithered across the forest floor, weaving between the twisted and gnarled roots of the ancient looking trees. A pregnant woman lay on her back in a small clearing, her body trembling and marred with pain. Her bare feet were rough and caked with dirt, the skin painfully cracked and bleeding. Her clothes were stained and tattered, her hair tangled and filthy. She could have been homeless, a drifter lost in the woods, but there seemed to be something deliberate about her being here in this specific place and time. A dark and twisted purpose.

Two cloaked women knelt on either side of her, their faces hidden by deep crimson hoods. They murmured to themselves or to one another, soft, inaudible words, their voices blending with the rustling leaves and the distant sounds of unseen night creatures. The language they spoke was foreign, twisted and ancient, the syllables slipping through the air. The woman in labour could not understand their words, but the tone was very clear, urgent, and filled with malice. 

She cried out, a low, guttural sound of agony as the contraction seized her. The cloaked women moved closer, their knotted and curled hands reaching out to support her, guiding her through the pain. There was a tall, very thin man standing a few feet away. He remained still, watching, waiting. His face was obscured by shadow, but there was a discernible sense of anticipation in his posture, as if he were a hidden predator biding his time before the strike, waiting for the right moment.

The woman’s cries grew louder, more frantic and pained, as the baby began to emerge. Her body convulsed with the effort, and for a moment, it seemed like she might lose herself to the immense pain. But then the baby slipped free, its newborn wail piercing the air like a sharpened knife. The cloaked women moved quickly, almost gliding along the ground, catching the newborn in their rotting hands, whispering their strange, hissing words as they meticulously cleaned the child with practiced efficiency. Twisted, dark midwives.

The tall man stepped gracefully forward, his movement swift and eerily silent. A dancer in the dark. From the folds of his cloak, he drew a long, rusted blade, the metal tarnished and stained with age and what appeared to be blood. He knelt beside the woman and the baby, the blade catching the final shimmer of the fading light as he lifted it high above his cloaked head. With one quick, fluid motion, he cut the umbilical cord, the severed flesh curling slightly as the cord fell to the ground below.

The baby’s cries grew louder, filling the clearing with a desperate, frenetic energy. The man ignored the woman’s pained gasps, focused entirely on the innocent child in his hands. He walked toward an ancient and haunting tree that stood at the edge of the clearing, its twisted trunk gnarled and thick, the bark scarred and darkened with age. The tree loomed over them, its branches stretching out like skeletal wings, reaching for the night sky..

The man knelt on one knee before the colossal tree, holding the baby close to his chest, gently like a proud new father. With his free hand, he reached into a hollow at the base of the tree, his fingers brushing against something hidden deep within. He withdrew his hand, now smeared with a reddish, ashy substance. He studied it for a brief moment, then licked his thumb, tasting the strange earthen mixture before smearing it onto the baby’s forehead in a deliberate and ritualistic pattern, like an artist’s brush to canvas. 

The man began to speak, his voice low and guttural, the words resonating with an unnatural power, reverberating with a demonic intonation. The air around him seemed to hum, to vibrate with energy, the fog thickening, coiling tighter around the clearing, almost choking it. The baby’s cries faltered, the sound choking off into a faint whimper as the man placed it into a hollow within the tree. The hollow was lined with strange, branch-like veins, their surface slick with a thick, oily sap. 

The man grasped the veins with both hands, pulling them free from the tree. They stretched like living tendrils, alive with a slow, pulsing movement. He wrapped them around the baby’s umbilical cord, twisting and knotting the dark, silky branches around the newborn’s fragile little body. The dark sap oozed over the baby’s skin, seeping into the fresh wound where the cord had been severed.

As the sap touched the baby’s soft flesh, a dark, creeping tendril of shadow and darkness began to move through the cord, spiralling and wiggling its way into the baby’s belly. The child’s tiny body convulsed, and then, as if by some unholy intervention, the baby stopped crying. Its eyes fluttered open, the once light blue orbs clouding over, turning a deep, impenetrable black. The darkness seemed to spread, veins of shadow crawling beneath the skin, expanding and forking pathways, tracing patterns across the baby’s body.

The baby’s mouth shuddered and curled into a faint, unnatural smile, its expression almost ancient, one of eerie satisfaction. The cloaked women stepped back, their chanting growing softer, more reverent and hauntingly joyful. The thin man stood, his task complete, and the baby was left in the tree’s embrace, the dark webbed veins holding it fast as they began to tighten, drawing the infant deeper into the dark hollow.

The tree seemed to shudder, its branches creaking like an old house as the baby’s body was absorbed into its truck, its branches, and crown, the flesh melding with the bark, the dark veins spreading out like the roots of a tree in search of sustenance. An ancient hunger. The fog thickened, swirling around the tree, obscuring the scene in a cold blanket of white. And then, with a final, shuddering motion, as if exhaling, the tree stilled itself, the clearing silent once more.

The woman, now free from the excruciating pain of childbirth, lay still on the ground, her breath coming in shallow, broken gasps. The cloaked women turned to her, their faces always hidden, but their intention clear as day. They now had no use for her, and the strange man had already turned away into darkness, his work complete. They moved toward her with slow, deliberate steps, their vile hands reaching out to claim what remained, to fulfil their own dark hunger. 

As the darkness closed in on the woman, her vision began to fade, vignetting at the edges, the last thing she saw was the twisted, otherworldly tree. It stood like a dark sentinel, ancient and malevolent, feeding on the poor, innocent life it had been given, the life that was stolen. Its roots burrowing deeper and deeper into the soft earth, spreading a vile darkness that would eventually seep its tentacled veins into the heart of the small town that lay just outside the forest. Oblivious. 

The tree stood there forever as a grim monument, a silent guardian over the forest, its roots infinitely feeding on the life of the child, the cruelest of sacrifices. The darkness spread like a stain across the land. The shadow of the tree reached into every corner, feeding on the life and light that remained in the world, until all was consumed by fear and darkness.