Have you ever been so terrified of something that it was all you could think about...every moment of every day you fantasize about it, working yourself into cold sweats and dreadful nightmares. I have, I am, and the focus of my obsession/phobia is the woods. Now before you get to judging me I want you to understand that the house I grew up in butted right up against a forest, and the window from my room faced directly into their tangled branches and mangled trunks. All through my childhood days I couldn't sleep...every sound every flicker of movement from the woods would bring forward some hideous creature or idea to my mind and every single one of them wanted me. So that was the beginning of the fear, the obsession came after I got a bit older and my friends and I started playing this game where we would see who could go the furthest into the woods before getting to scared to go much further. Despite my fear I was starting to get good at this game...the fear became almost comfortable, don't get me wrong I would still piss my pants if I suddenly heard a loud noise, but it almost seemed like I was ok with being afraid of the woods because I wouldn't want to have to be afraid of something else. So like I said, good at this game, and only one friend was able to go further than me walking further into the darkened forest and disappearing from site. I heard his wavering shout of victory muffled by the leaves and branches....then I heard something else. A quick short scream of pure terror, then cut off....so fast that I couldn't be sure if it was my friend or some animal fallen victim to the predators that stalked that darkness. Me and my friends called the game and set about trying to to call back our other friend (the one I swear I heard scream) but he wouldn't return. After five minutes we went running back to my house and started hounding my mother telling her that our friend was lost in the woods. She calmed us and told us that his mother had called and that he was home safe and sound...so he must have run off to scare us and gone back home.

To me that wasn't enough I swear I heard him scream, not only that the "friend" that came back wasn't the same....I mean sure he looked like him....talked like him and even acted like him, but I always felt he was a little off. That is when everything in my life went wrong. My parents would listen to my stories only to tell me to grow up, my friends shunned me as some crazy wacko caught up in fiction novels, and anyone else I interacted with seemed to label me as the local crazy kid. It all escalated when until I was put into an asylum because I tried to prove to everyone that my friend wasn't really my friend by stabbing him in the arm with my father’s hunting knife. In hind sight that was probably a terrible idea.

For years they kept me there and "straightened" me out. What really happened was a I took my obsession...no my love, or hatred (it is all kind of bound into one I think) for those woods and I hid them away, I healed and accepted that I was deranged and they finally let me out when I hit the age of 21. Once free I went straight back to my home by the woods, to discover that my parents had moved on...they had left me behind, forgotten their "mad" son. I was hurt, but didn't really have time to dwell on it...I had work to do.

I set to studying the woods learning everything I can animals, foilage, trees, fruits...everything. All in preparation to go into what I feared the most and find my real friend...I knew he was still in there. That is of course how I ended up being what I am now, I went in and didn't come out for a long time, I was taken, kidnapped, what ever everyone calls it nowadays...I don't really remember much about what happened when I was back in Arcadia...like everyone else I have distant memories and ideas, but I do remember that I was guarding something that was in the woods. The only clear memory I have is that the woods I was in have been the only woods my entire life that I wasn't afraid of....they were beautiful, awe inspiring, the trees grew so high and their boughs were so big that I spent days walking among the branches with out once touching the forest floor. When I came back it was actually an accident you know? I just wandered a bit to far, oh and no I don't think I ever found my friend but I did learn plenty about the hedge...it is my home now...the hedge, it terrifies me, and haunts me...but I don't know anything else, sometimes I think about going back....no no no don't worry I would never...none of us would right? But just to see my woods again...to live without fear, well I will admit I look for arcadia sometimes just to see if I can take one step further...still playing that childhood game you know?

The reason I tell you all of this is so you understand what I mean when I say that the vine that is currently wrapped around your neck is a special type of goblin fruit referred to as an oddement. It will strangle you slowly...kind of like a garrote, not pleasant is it? Don't worry this isn't your fault and yes I will cut you loose you just have to choke a bit longer to understand that you don't belong here, that you wandered just a bit to far...this is my hedge these are my thorns they terrify me, they hate me, they love me. Just as I hate and love them. Everything going black now? Good when you wake up...just remember stay away from the woods, we die and the woods grow.