Don't do it Hans, please don't do it.

She's made that plea for days now, ever since I've told her my plan.

She begged me not to go at first, until she saw the same things I did.

A nearly empty pantry, and the brave smiles of our sons, despite their growing stomachs.

She saw that I had no choice.

To put her mind to ease, I left it new.

The sun is high in the sky, revealing the acres of tree stomps around me.

In front of me stands the red woods.

I don't know how it got its name.

It's what my family always called it.

The shrubbery around it is the same green and brown you would expect to find at any forest.

Thick and dense, untouched by my family all this time.

And opening is there.

A circle of empty space just wide enough for me to step through.

It's so pitch black that the entrance looks like the mouth of some wild untamed beast.

I swallow and step into the darkness.

The trees loom high above me.

Their branches and canopy of leaves are so thick that it might as well be midnight.

Growing up as a boy, the woodland was filled with noise, chirping insects.

Singing birds.

And the scurrying of animals big and small as they tried to survive off the forest.

The same as my family.

...