I wrote this story quite recently, and I've written another story similar to it called Playing Poems. It's on Iron Wyvern, but I will post it on here at some point in time. Anyway, they are similar because the genre could probably best be described as "Little Boy Dark Forest" fiction. Enjoy.
"Gonk! Are you there? Gonk!" The little boy peered into the darkness of the forest trees. He saw nothing within that dark forest, but he had just seen his pet rabbit leap into those bushes inside it. "Gonk!" he called, stumbling forward into the bushes. He tripped over a root but caught himself by grasping onto a thin ash tree. Rollo was a little boy of four years of age. "Gonk!" he exclaimed. "Where are you? Gonk!"
He began to feel that Gonk was never going to come back to him, and the thought made him pause for a second. But then he thought: Gonk is my friend. Gonk is just playing hide-and-go-seek. Rollo ran farther through the bushes with an earnest expression on his little face, calling, "Gonk! I'm going to find you! Gonk!"
Rollo suddenly realized that it was really dark inside the forest. He couldn't see very well. Gonk had the strategic advantage, but Rollo knew that he had to keep looking. To give up was to accept defeat. Defeat was unquestionably bad. Gonk would come out and taunt him.
"But Momma says I need never go in the forest on the west edge," Rollo intoned solemnly. "She says it's bad and I could get lost or aten. If I got aten I couldn't find Gonk."
Then another thought came to him: what if GONK got aten? That would be worse. Rollo called, "Gonk! No more hide-and-go-seek! You're gonna get aten by the monsters!"
There it was, at last. Spoken. He had avoided the thought, but once he spoke the word he shuddered and realized how alone he felt, and how dark it was, and how cold the wind blew. When Rollo had walked into the forest, it had been late evening. By now the sun was probably nearly down.
But Rollo was brave, and reluctant to give up. If Gonk was lost, he had to help Gonk get back out of the forest before the monsters eated them both. "Gonk!" he yelled again. He tumbled through the waist-high grass and underbrush, wading into a sea of darkness. He caught his pant-leg on a thorn, and he had to tug at it to get it unstuck. By now, he was on the verge of hysteria, a little child lost in the woods pursuing something that was too far gone to be retrieved.
He finally freed himself from the grasp of the thorn, but the momentum sent him sprawling onto the ground. It jarred him, and as his eyes searched the darkness it suddenly occurred to him: I'm lost. "Monsters, don't eat me," he muttered. The uttering of this sentence sent him over the edge. Rollo curled up on the ground, rocking back and forth. "Momma! Gonk! Daddy!" he shouted, his voice a frightened wail. "Momma! Daddy! Gonk!" A fleeting thought told him that more noise would ward off the monsters, so he began yelling hoarsely at the top of his lungs. He didn't even hear an echo; nothing came back to him except the silent absorption of the darkness around him. He was the only living thing in the world, other than the monster.
In his imagination, he thought up a giant reddish pig of a creature, with snorting nostrils and stamping hooves. It had two long tails like a lion, and its great huge teeth dripped with saliva, but its eyes were the worst: glowing yellow lights, like lanterns or furnaces. Those fires could only be kept going with the blood of little boys and bunny rabbits.
At this conjuration, Rollo buried his face in his hands and sobbed, wailed. He looked around as the warm tears trailed down his dirty cheeks. He could see no light, anywhere.
He heard a rustle in the grass, the snapping of a twig. "Hello," said a voice.
"Hello," Rollo answered, hiccuping as he stopped sobbing. "Who are you?"
"My name is Jeth," said the voice. "Who are you, little boy?"
"I'm Rollo," said the little child, shivering with a sudden cold he felt, blowing softly over his skin and raising goosebumps. "Rollo Tanner. I was looking for Gonk, my rabbit, and I got lost. Can you help me?"
"A rabbit?" Jeth asked. "Why yes, I think I saw one just a while ago. I have good eyes in the dark."
"Really?"
"Yes, little child," Jeth assured him from the dark. Rollo couldn't actually see anyone, but he felt a cold breeze and he thought he felt the presence of someone near him. "Follow me," Jeth commanded, taking Rollo's little hand. His touch was cold, so cold that at first Rollo flinched and tried to pull his hand back, but the person in the dark held him firmly. Rollo felt the freezing grip burn into his wrist as he was pulled along through the forest.
Before, he had stumbled through blindly, but with Jeth, though Rollo walked and thought he felt his feet touch the ground and the grass brush his sides, it was as if he was gliding over a soft silky surface; he felt no root touch his foot, and never tripped.
As they passed along, a strange orange light developed, so dim that it made Rollo's eyes strain even more than they had in the dark. He thought that he could see the vague shape of the form in front of him. He could tell it was a human form, but Jeth seemed too tall and wispy to be a normal person. Rollo didn't mind saying so. "You're tall," he giggled, wriggling his wrist under Jeth's firm grip. "And you're cold."
"Do you know what manners are?" Jeth asked, genuinely inquisitive to Rollo's naive ears.
The little child answered in a heartbeat. "Yes I do. Don't burp or toot or pick your nose or--or--or--or, uh, poop your pants." At this he giggled uncontrollably. "I think I pooped mine," he announced cheerily. "Did you know that you're cold?"
"Yes," Jeth answered. Rollo smiled at the darkness.
"That orange light is a little brighter," he said. Now he could make out the silhouette of Jeth's face, thin, with a sharp curved nose. He looked down but didn't see individual legs or feet, just a black shadowy form, like a long dress or skirt, gliding across a silvery glinting ground. It was almost as if...Rollo thought...he was made of shadows.
"Are you sure my rabbit went this way?" he asked, noticing the cruel curve of Jeth's nose again.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure. What was its name again?" asked Jeth absent-mindedly.
"You didn't remember it?" squealed Rollo. "You don't care about Gonk after all! You're just a gonna sell me, uh, take me and sell me to the gybsies!"
"Of course not," Jeth denied, his grip tightening on Rollo's little wrist. His hand was icy, even colder now it seemed, and upon Jeth's tightening it, Rollo suddenly cried out sharply.
"Can't you be quiet?" Jeth sneered. "We're almost there."
As he said this, the orange light grew brighter, and Rollo saw Jeth's face clearly for the first time as they descended into a little hollow. It was pale, paler than the moon, and there was an evil glint like that of a curved scimitar in the figure's eyes. This was no friend of Rollo's.
"We've arrived," Jeth cackled, and turned to the boy.
"Help!" Rollo yelled. "Help help!" He began screaming as loud as he could, until an icy numbness stopped his throat from uttering sound. His numb mouth jabbered and moved, but no sound came out.
He looked down and saw that ice had covered the ground, a thick layer, and Jeth rose like a phantom out of its expanse. He was a monster, his cruel face reflecting in the orange light.
The light came from a small den in the dirt wall of the hollow, an evil ghoul-light, and Rollo knew enough of local lore to recognize a ghoul.
"Ha! Annoying child!" Jeth smirked, tossing Rollo into the den. The little boy landed right next to the large crystal that was the source of the eerie orange light. It glowed and pulsed and throbbed when he came near. Tears rolled down Rollo's cheeks as he silently sobbed; he was going to be devoured by a ghoul.
"I am the Jethraxx Nokt," announced the ghoul, ducking into the little den and grasping the ghoul-light. "Terror of Kings, The Phantom of Dark Ice, the Kolwolf. Foolish child, I will strike you down; and who is there to save you?"
Rollo stopped staring up at the phantom, and instead his eyes looked past. He uttered a single word. "Gonk," he said.
"Boy!" raged the Jethraxx Nokt. "Be silent!"
"Gonk," Rollo insisted.
The ghoul seemed to be a little smaller, and his light faded a bit.
"Gonk, you found me!" Rollo repeated, and scurried forward, out to the opening of the den. The phantom was gone now, and what illuminated the hollow instead of the crystal was the glowing tail of the little rabbit, silver in the night. "I was hiding, and you were seeking," Rollo muttered. "I was wrong. Can you lead me out of here?"
He patted his rabbit's fur, and Gonk led him out of the forest and into the dawn.
