Place of the Veil

by Tyler Hoseney
(Washington)

I know of a place far within the Wood No One Enters. It is a place of shadow, and a place of conflict. This place that I speak of is known by the Others as the Io'shaea, or just the the Place of the Veil.

Within the raging mists the barrier that separates the conceivable world from that of the dead is frail and broken. It is an immense conflagration of life and death, hidden away within the Wood. The trees there are misshapen and dying, but they still cling to life even as their wood leaves them, or the branches that were once part of them chip away and turn to ash in the oblivion.

Nothing yet everything lives within this place. Men and women long past their time suffer as they wither and rot into nothing, while even then they live on. I once visited this place, long ago. I witnessed the neutrality of what I used to call evil, and marveled at its perfection.

Io'shaea is not a place to fear. It is the eternal story of nothing, that somehow keeps one interested. The mutations suffered by those who wander too far are but blessings compared to what lies behind the gates of mortality and death, for these things destroy what's left of the mind and leave the soul but an empty shell of its true potential.

If you are reading this you are still a twisted ignorant child, but a fraction of what you may become. Though if we all walked the Wood, all of this would be rendered useless and petty, but another asset to the human intellect.

Look upon the World now. Gaze upon its beauty, for it is fleeting. For each one to find the awesome bliss of Io'shaea is another step at its destruction. Perhaps it will choose you. But I deem you all unworthy, another pathetic animal content with the mindlessness of society. Bliss awaits...you just must find it.