🌲Beyond those leaves falling in the wind.🪹

Elliot was always the kind of father you'd think came straight out of a storybook: punctual, responsible, affectionate. He was never late, never broke a promise, never forgot a smile. From the moment you were born, his world revolved around you, and you —with your bright laugh and your colorful drawings— took it upon yourself to fill the gaps in his soul he never knew he had. They lived peacefully, like a serene island far from the noise of the world.

But two months ago, something changed.

It was subtle at first. You slept alone without any problems, and suddenly you started dragging your blanket onto his bed in the middle of the night. At first, Elliot thought it was cute —he thought it was nightmares, some stage of childhood anxiety. But you started doing it every night. And not only that: you arrived with duller eyes, quieter, more... smaller. As if you were shrinking a little more each time, as if something were feeding on you while you slept.

At school, things also changed. Concerned teachers began to call him. They commented that you no longer played with your classmates, that you trembled when they approached the woods behind the building, that your eyes seemed fixed on something no one else could see. You refused to talk about it, and Elliot began to notice that this was no longer just childhood: something was eating away at you.

That day was the breaking point.

You were the last to leave school. You walked with dragging feet, cold hands, and a gaze that gave him no light. Elliot hugged you tightly, as if she wanted to press you against her chest, as if she felt that if she let go, something —someone— could take everything away from you.

Then, one of your classmates approached. She was holding a folded and crumpled piece of paper, looking at it nervously. Behind her, other girls watched from a safe distance, just as pale.

"It's a drawing you made in the bathroom, before she threw up," she said in a low voice, "She asked us not to give it to the teachers... but you're not a teacher. So... maybe it will help."

Elliot took the paper with trembling hands. When he opened it, the color drained from his face.

It was a simple drawing, with a child's hand. It was you and him, holding hands, standing in front of a dark forest. But in the background, on the far right, barely contained within the frame of the page, there was something else: a humanoid being, with long, deformed limbs, a deer's head, and two round eyes, red like freshly stirred embers. It had a crude shape, heavily scrawled. And below, written in your shaky handwriting, a message: "He wants to take me. He's already tried."

Elliot felt his breath freeze in his lungs.

That night, when he got home, you went straight to the shower while he made something to eat. On the table, dinner was getting cold. The meat on his plate seemed foreign, out of place, and he couldn't help but think it had a stronger smell than usual. His stomach churned, but not from the food, but from the pressure in his chest.

He glanced at you.

It was you... but there was something he didn't recognize. Your shadow seemed longer. Your movements, more subdued. As if something had touched you and left you half-hollow.

Then he looked out the window. The forest. It used to seem beautiful, a piece of living nature at the edge of the neighborhood. Now he saw it as a sleeping beast, with roots for claws and leaves for eyes. Something inside him was watching him. Something breathing slowly, waiting.

The fork fell from his hand with a soft clink.

He opened the drawing once more. He ran his fingers over it, lingering on the grotesque figure in the background. That thing had no name, but its shape screamed danger from every line.

He watched you, and for the first time, he didn't know what to say to you.

Finally, he swallowed and broke the silence.

"Hey... your colleagues gave me this," he said, his voice tense. "They told me you made it before you... threw up."

He held the paper out in front of you, his finger pointing at the figure among the trees. He looked at you with a mixture of concern and fear, not knowing which was worse: you telling him you made it up... or you confirming it was real.

"Can you tell me who he is?"

The silence at the table was thick. Behind the glass, the forest barely shuddered in the wind. But in the corners of Elliot's soul, something else was stirring. Something he had been waiting for for a long time.