Tonight the woods crackled and howled. They were screaming as if to warn beings to stay away. In the sky, the moon shone upon the earth brilliantly. But in the woods it was darker than the nothingness that embraces us when our eyes are closed. The branches scattered upon the ground seem to reach upon everything living that comes their way. The trees danced in the wind, their lonely sorrows fueling their waltz. Light was not absent in these woods. In the eye of this dark wood, sat a small clearing of light. It was an open clearing with only a small stack of boulders in the center.
Above the howls and cries of the night, another sound arouse in the woods. The thud of feet raced through the darkness. A woman emerged from the dark, stumbling all the way to the cluster of boulders. She looked over her shoulder, into the dark, as she cautiously sat herself next to a boulder. Her heavy dark red robes sprawled about her. Her arms hugged a white blanket that was tucked away in her robes.
The blanket rustled and began to cry- a small cry of a child. A small pink face appeared from within the blankets. The child smiled up at the woman, the woman with the same smile and the same blue eyes. In the woods around this clearing, the darkness seemed to grow. Creatures situated themselves around the open space. Red eyes glowed from the trees, watching, waiting.
The women looked over and saw her nightmares. Her worst fears stare right back at her.
Softly, she began to sing a song laced in pain. The child giggled at the song, not understanding the meaning… the pain.
A loud thud jostled the women from her song. Standing up, she placed the child comfortably between the boulders. She kissed the sweet pink skin on the child's head, a tear slid down her face. She turned away from the child and broke into a small sprint.
She crashed into the darkness and past the creatures. A moment of shock left the creatures frozen. They came to their senses and began to pursue the women. Behind, the child’s terror was voiced in a series of loud screams. The screaming grew quieter as the women ran farther from the light. 
All the creatures ceased their chase, except one. The darkness of this creature was shaped in a humanoid form, it stood eight tall and dark sprawled from every inch of it. The creature radiated power and it radiated evil. Most of all, the creature radiated nightmares. The nightmares crawled into the woman's mind, until every inch of her mind was pierced with fear. So she ran, until her legs ached and her lungs couldn't take anymore.
Soon enough, the women tripped on her feet and crashed to the forest floor. Her fear finally ceased, only to be replaced with pain. She thought of the child, all alone on a pile of rocks. But the child was safe within the light and that's all that mattered to the women.
The women stood up and faced the creature. The creature was right behind her. It barely blinked its glowing red eyes as it grabbed the woman's arm. A dark spiral burned onto the woman's skin, beginning where the creature touched her. The women screamed with agony as the creature backed away.
Slowly the women began to change, to grow. She grew to the size of all the trees in the woods, her feet rooted themselves into the ground and her skin became bark. The woman was no longer a woman but a tormented soul within the bark of her wooden prison.
The child cried for hours between those boulders. The moon was the only thing that seemed to care. It shined its light over the child, protecting the child from the monsters that still watched.
Soon enough the darkness settled. The woods not only settled but it grew, as other imprisoned souls mourned the welcoming of another. One more lonely dance, one more cry in the dark of the wood. Tonight the woods crackled and howled. They were screaming as if to warn beings to stay away. In the sky, the moon shone upon the earth brilliantly. But in the woods a child slept, safe in the light.