uncannyvalley

You set out while the sun was at its zenith, believing that you would only be a while in the woods. A short jaunt, you thought with a smile, twigs snapping beneath your shoes. You spotted many beautiful flowers and small, skittering beasts amongst the sun-dappled forest floor.

Your amusement and awe were short-lived when you realized you were a bit turned around, and the little path you thought you could follow back to civilization was no longer visible. The forest was rapidly darkening, and to your dismay, fat raindrops started to land upon your head and shoulders.

Attempting to keep a cool head about your situation, you carefully walked the way you thought you'd originally come, only to find yourself deeper and deeper in the now dark forest. The birdsong that drew bemusement from you not several hours ago was gone, replaced only by the steady sound of rain.

Your pace picked up, a thread of panic trilling in your chest. Teeth chattering, your clothing was soaked and your feet began tangling in the underbrush as you pushed forward in near blackness. You couldn't remember the safety warnings your parents told you in case of situations such as these, your thoughts were rattled and scattered.

The scant flickering of a light caught your attention and you found yourself tripping your way toward it, much like a moth. You drew closer and closer, finding yourself standing before a small cabin. The light that brought you there was a lantern, an old, rusty-looking thing positioned near the door.

You rap on the wooden door with wet knuckles, hoping there may be a kind soul inside that would allow you shelter from the rain. Perhaps they might point you on your way out of the winding forest.

The first series of knocks yield no answer, but as you raise your hand again, the door creaks open as if pushed,

"Hello," you whisper, poking your head inside. The light inside the cabin was low and you sensed no movement, so you shuffled inside quickly and closed the door behind you. You noticed first the musty smell of mildew and dust, wet dirt, and something unfamiliar. You stood in the doorway for a moment, not wishing to track puddles about the small home, but your curiosity was piqued.

The cabin, from what you could discern, only had the room you stood in, as well as a mostly shadowed room where you could see what appeared to be the edge of a quilt-covered bed. The rest of the bedroom was cloaked in blackness and you paid it no mind, for there were much more interesting things before you.

To your left was a cold, unlit, old stone fireplace. It was charmingly crooked, as though cobbled together by bare hands. On the ceiling were tied several bundles of dried herbs, motionless despite the drafty wind that crept in. To your right was a weathered wooden table with equipment you couldn’t name, all glass and liquids, and strangely glistening meat parts. Something was actively boiling in one of the flasks, giving off a pungent scent that made your throat hurt to breathe in.

The only other sources of light were from the cabinet behind the table. Small glowing things drew your attention and caused you to walk forward, wet foot prints be damned. The shelves of this massive cabinet were lined with hundreds of crystals of varying colors, some dormant and some appearing to smolder heatlessly where they sat.

A shiver ran down your neck that had nothing to do with how cold you felt, but you couldn’t place why.

Beside the crystals were numerous stoppered bottles with dark liquids, inexplicably sloshing liquids, crawling, shadowed, indeterminate things, and strange entities that tapped quietly on their glass prisons. You stared closely, trying to understand what you were looking at, but none of the containers held any kind of life you were familiar with.

Your gut twisted, your breath stuttered as your heart rate skipped along like a rabbit. You were uneasy, standing still in the room.

The feeling of being watched made the hair stand up on your forearms, and though your eyes were wide in the dark room, you couldn’t see what caused your discomfort. You could barely hear the rain outside, the gentle whistle of the wind blowing in from beneath the front door you entered, and a small, nearby window that you only just noticed.

Turning to better see the window, two yellow eyes stared back at you and gave you a start. A dark cat sat on the sill, watching silently as you perused the room. Relief flooded your body upon the realization, and you huffed a laugh at how silly the situation was. The stillness and shadows of the cabin only unnerved you, as one is usually afeared of the unknown. The nearness of a purported companion, the calm feline, set you at ease almost instantly.

You returned your attention to the curious cabinet, the twinkling and glittering crystals pulling you in. Now that your eyes had better adjusted, you could see various insect-like creatures sealed in individual bottles. As well as what you could only describe as body parts.

You could discern black, bristly legs, glass-like wings, chalky pieces of what might be bone fragments, and tiny piles of what looked like deep red organs from unfortunate tiny animals, all stacked upon this strange shelf. If your memory served you, from childhood tales of yore, you’d describe these things as ingredients, as if for a potion.

As you looked onward, the feeling of being watched increased. It had never left you, you only believed it had when you spotted the cat.

Your eyes darted to the window again, expecting to see the lounging feline as before to draw comfort from. The yellow eyes watched you, just as before, but something was amiss. The black body of the beast was… odd. Stretched, as though bipedal. No. You couldn’t understand what you were seeing. Was it a trick of the light, what little of it that there was? Something wasn’t right about the shape of the cat and you couldn’t stop staring.

Again, your heart galloped in your chest as your brain tried to suss out the new input of information. You couldn’t understand, but there was a wrongness settling about you. You felt frail with fear the longer you looked.

This bent and stretched creature was vile, and it beheld you with its unblinking, sickly-colored eyes.

The sound of a gentle sussurra, as if a snake’s shed skin were being dragged about the floor, snapped you from your stupor and drew your attention to the darkened doorway of the bedroom.

In the deep blackness, behind the bed, you could see the glint of black marbles.

They sat within a pale white face, smooth and strange and not quite human.

Its wide, flat mouth was upturned at the corners, as though permanently, perversely amused.

You were never meant to be here.

You should have never stepped inside the cabin.