"I bury my angst into this glade... this place known as the Deepwood Shade."

It must have been so long ago that the memory is quite hazy...but I'm pretty sure that at some point, this used to be...a happier place. If I dig deep enough, I feel like I can remember...children's laughter. Seeing...young families, enjoying picnics. Enjoying each other. I remember smiling.

I haven't seen a smile, or heard laughter, in a very, very long time. Instead, I feel like those memories have been replaced...replaced by pain.

I also remember being surrounded by others like me. But my earliest memory is that of the buzzing--that awful sound--followed by the disappearance of my brothers, until I was the last of my kind.

I don't know why I was cursed with this ability...with this...thing, that perhaps some might consider a gift...but you see, one day, someone confided in me. Their pain. Their suffering. She approached and placed her hand upon me, and relayed to me her story.

The man that she loved and trusted...had betrayed her. She felt used, distraught. She didn't know how to move forward. She had just given birth to their child four months prior, and now, she was at a loss as to what to do next.

I felt this story seep into me...and, something stirred. Something began to wake within me that I'd never noticed before. Something...terrible.

Weeks later, a young man placed his hand upon me, and he, too, injected his pain...right into me. He'd been sexually abused...by his own grandfather. He felt confused...lost...damaged. This had already happened so many times that he couldn't remember a time that he didn't feel damaged. He was in pain. He was depressed. He considered suicide...especially after his grandfather had moved in with the rest of his family. I was shocked at just how pained he felt...and, by how much of his pain I felt. I could feel that something terrible stirring within me once more.

I don't know why people take it upon themselves to confide their pain in the trees...the grass...the land. But, for whatever reason, this happened. A mother having to bury her own daughter...a young man who'd found love he'd never before imagined, only to watch it disappear as she cast him aside for a person he thought had been his friend...a woman whose brother used all sorts of means--including legal--to try to take away everything he owned, over something most people would have written off as trivial...a young girl, ridiculed and harassed, cast out after she'd revealed to her friends that she was a lesbian, now feeling that she had nowhere to turn.

What did I know of suicide, or someone considering it? These thoughts...accumulated. They piled on. Dozens of people, then hundreds. All on the verge of giving up. Depressed. Forlorn. Full of emotions. Why did they choose to pour them into me?

I had brought happiness to so many...through my branches, my flowers, and the gentle breezes it seemed I could control. Why was I deserving of so much pain? Was this my fault? Was it fate? Karma? Had I done something terrible in a previous existence?

Finally, I felt...that I couldn't listen any more.

Another one came to deliver a shot of pain. I could tell from a distance...her eyes had already welled up with tears. She was heading straight for me. I didn't want any more pain. I'd taken on all that I could.

No...no more...no more pain...make it stop...stop it...STOP IT!!

...and then, nothing.

I noticed that the woman was lying flat on her back, several feet away. Did I...knock her backwards? She had a look of shock in her eyes that I'd never seen before; it was as if the only soul she trusted had suddenly betrayed her.

And...

...this felt wonderful to me.

What... was this feeling?

Like an enormous weight had been lifted off of my shoulders...like I'd been trapped in a maze and finally found my way out. I felt liberated. I felt that I was in full control of myself. This was the moment that separated my past from my future...starting now, I resolved not to suffer any more.

These people should work on picking themselves up. After all, nobody's here for me, right? I've been alone ever since my brothers were cut down. Everything I've accomplished during my life happened because of me...I've never relied on anyone. This brings me a sort of satisfaction that one wouldn't have, had they only relied on others. My shelter and shade exist because of me. The fruit on my branches was the result of my work. So what if something miserable happened to you? I lost all of my brothers; I'd had no way to protect them, no way to avenge them and no way to give up on myself, either. Is that not upsetting? But I picked myself up, because I had to. And yet, eighty years later, the inability of hundreds of others to do the same has turned me into a dumping ground for human misery.

I'm done being dumped on.

The woman was still dazed, but had begun to lift herself to a sitting position.

I've heard it said that we can only truly lift ourselves once we hit the very bottom. Perhaps I should speed up the process, then, I thought. Now that I knew it was possible...

...I knocked the woman right back down again, using a gust of wind she never could have expected...and that I never believed I could actually control.

She quickly rose to her feet, screaming, and ran away at full speed. Within mere moments, she was gone. And, she took the pain with her. I'd been saved. I felt the greatest sense of relief that I'd felt in a long time.

That was how it started. From that point forward, I pushed away anyone who would impart that pain on me.

I was approached by a lost-looking girl who looked like she had a story to tell. Uninterested, I pushed her backwards.

A young boy who appeared to be alone...not just physically, but in every respect possible. Welcome to my world; you'll get no sympathy from me...you'll have to look for someone else, I thought. I sent a chilling wind down his spine, so that he'd be properly deterred.

An old man who'd been abandoned by everyone left in his life. Surely something led to this; perhaps, you should have thought about some of your actions before you committed to them? But I wasn't going to learn the details. I shoved him with a strong wind, as I would have shoved anyone in his position. How was I to know that his body wasn't strong enough to handle it? A snapping sound filled the air in the clearing... his now-broken body sank to the ground.

Yes, I made an example out of him, I suppose. There were only a couple of witnesses; I know for sure that THEY wanted nothing to do with me, after that. But what to do about the corpse?

That was when I began building the graveyard.

It's amazing what can be done with a bit of wind. Graves can be dug relatively easily. Stones can even be chiseled, if you try hard enough. Using the force of the wind to push one stone upon another makes short work of this task.

I'd had so much contact with those humans that I began to understand them fairly well. This understanding never went away; I was able to fully harness it to see into their minds, even before they shot their pain into me. I'll never forget the look on that first face... when I showed them their grave, before I'd buried them alive. Now that was especially satisfying.

Actually, it's fascinating, knowing just how simple the human brain really is. It controls everything in their pathetic little bodies, after all...from those awful, painful emotions, to just the physical movement of their limbs. You just alter one small thing in that little mass, sit back, and watch the fireworks. Once I figured out how to flip the switches, playtime began. The first experiment resulted in a man so drunk with giddiness that he lost all concept of reality...to the point where bashing his head against a rock seemed like great fun to him. I was thoroughly pleased that he'd enjoyed himself. Next I found the buttons to push to make a person think that they're glued to the ground beneath them. Mind over matter, indeed. The screams of terror that came out of that woman were shrill at first, but I tweaked those too, until they sounded like music. I always did enjoy music, after all.

But then I found my favorite parlor trick of all. Flip a few switches all at once, and the caged bird loses all concept of horizontal movement. They just physically aren't capable of it any more. The look of confusion, then the look of frustration and the way it transforms into terror...is splendid. Absolutely splendid!

I don't remember when the sky started turning grey, but I'd stopped paying much attention to it by then, so I also don't remember how quickly the transition occurred. Now, it's just grey here all the time. Fine by me...I don't need something as bizarre as color to do what I do. What is color, anyway? I have no control over it, so why does it matter?

At some point, I began receiving fewer visitors. The number slowed to a trickle... but it never completely stopped. I don't suppose it ever will. That's fine by me...

Bring me your pain, your suffering. Bring me your misery. I'll merely transform your thoughts and emotions into the physical manifestation--death--that you seemed to want anyway, as far as I can tell.

Yes, what was that name they gave me? I've grown quite fond of it.

Come to the Deepwood Shade. After all, it's quite a nice place to sleep.

Sleep.

Forever...