4t d’ESO “The screaming wood” Guillem Graell i Graell

“The screaming wood” Guillem Graell i Graell / 4t d’ESO

LLENGUA ANGLESA_1R PREMI

The scream from the forest was what awoke Nero. He had been travelling by carriage for the last 15 hours from London. Yes, a long travel, however there was no faster way of travelling in the year 1666 but it was worth the trip to the small village of Thanatos and Nero knew it. Nero looked around the forest trying to see where the scream came out but he saw nothing. Nevertheless Nero was too excited and impatient to get to the village of Thanatos. “You idiot don’t stop now, keep going” he said to the coachman, and the carriage began moving again until it reached Thanatos.

“Good evening Lord Nero” said a villager making an exaggerated bow when he saw Nero “We’re pleased to see you here however that is a waste of time the project advances as plan”. “No it doesn’t” answered Nero “the vanishing of villagers in this last days suggest another thing. I’ll stay to supervise the end of the project and you’ve cleared all the forest, alright?” “Yes my Lord, you can go to the castle of Lord Tiberius inside the forest, here we don’t have a place for you”. So Nero travelled some more time until he reached the castle of Tiberius. Nero was waiting for an effusive arrival. However, no one went to see him. “This idiot of Tiberius believes to be above me” said Nero for himself “but he’s not, we share this project equally, he’ll see now”. He jumped of the carriage and went to the door of the castle while he said “Tiberius opened this damn door now!” But when he reached the door he saw it was ajar. He opened the door and entered the castle, it was dark and quiet, and there didn’t seem to be anyone there. Nevertheless Nero couldn’t believe that, Tiberius had to be there, the two had a common dream, a common goal. He couldn’t have left without warning so Nero started exploring the entire castle, room by room, but all of them were dark, quiet and with no one there. He had few rooms left to explore when Nero suddenly heard a scream which seemed to emerge from the forest. He ran to a room to see what was going on outside and from there he saw a big shadow among the trees of the forest, only a second and

168 then with a last scream the shadow disappeared. Nero stayed confused for a second and then he looked more closely at the room where he was, Tiberius’ bedroom. But that was not what caught Nero’s attention only the fact that the room had no window; it was as if someone had ripped it off and on the frame of the window there was a crow that watched him as if it despised him but Nero didn’t care about that. “Excellent” said Nero for himself “someone must have kidnapped Tiberius. The project is now only for me”.

Nero settled in the castle that had belonged to Tiberius and for the next few days he went to Thanatos to oversee the project of cutting down the entire forest to build a new palace for him and Tiberius, well now just for him. He just went to the castle to sleep which he did in Tiberius’ old bedroom. It was nasty, every day Nero heard screams in the wood and every night some crows came in the frame of the window watching him as if the crows despised him. The first night two crows came, the second night three and so on every new day that Nero spent in the castle. But actually Nero didn’t care of the screams or the crows, he had settled some villagers to protect the castle and he was only motivated by his imminent new palace. So Nero spent the next days thinking only in his new palace. At least until the sixth day when as a habit he heard the screams of the forest, but this time and only for a second, Nero saw again the big shadow among the trees. Without thinking, Nero jumped out of the window and went to the forest to see who that mysterious being was. He ran for hours through the wood without knowing where he was going only guided by the screams that he still heard. Until suddenly he heard a voice talking to him “Finally we meet, Nero” said the mysterious being. He was very big and muscular. However, he also had a very pale skin tone and with lots of wrinkles as if he was extremely ill. “Forgive my appearance please, I am not in my best moment”. “Who are you and why should I care?” answered Nero “Oh yes sorry, I am the Soulwood, the spirit of this forest. I hope you’ll be more understanding with me than the other, Tiberius I think he was named”. “Please I don’t have time for you, tell me what you want and I’ll see what I can do”. “So be it, I have a choice to make to you. You can stop your project of destroying the entire forest and may be friends with me or you can keep destroying this forest and despite the fact I’ll be very sorry I’ll kill you like I did with the other”.

“And why should I pay attention to you, it doesn’t bother you that I destroy the forest right?” “Yes it does, my life is tied to this forest, the more the forest suffers, the more I’ll suffer”. “Oh I didn’t know that, my apologize Soulwood. I’ll stop the project immediately”. And Nero left the forests to return to the castle knowing that not only he wouldn’t stop the project but he would also burn the entire forest right know to kill the Soulwood. “You idiot” said Nero to a villager “assemble all the villagers and meet me here in 30 minutes. We’ll go to haunt a monster”. And the villager went to look for the other villagers. Meanwhile, Nero sat in his bedroom to wait, it was there that he noticed hundreds of crows resting on the trees. “Ha, they are already prepared to collect the remains of that damn spirit” said Nero for himself. Nero didn’t remember that the path to the forest was so long. He and the villagers had been walking for hours to reach the centre of the forest. When they finally arrived it was very dark. “Burn it all now!” screamed Nero and the villagers threw the torches that they were carrying in the nearest trees. The forest started burning immediately and at the same time some shouts began to be heard which made all the villagers tremble with fear. The roots of the trees came out from the ground and grabbed each of the villagers. With one last terrifying scream the roots of the trees squeezed the villagers and they all stopped breathing. “You” said the Soulwood “Nero, we could have been friends, live the two us in peace, together. Now we’re all going to die and you’ll not be as lucky as the villagers” and with a last effort, the Soulwood made that some other roots of the trees held Nero in place and kept him trapped waiting for the fire to consume them all. “Know the pain, feel the pain” said the Soulwood crying with his last breath “I’m sorry forest; I couldn’t protect you of them. I’m sorry villagers you shouldn’t have been involved in this.” And little by little the forest burned and the screams kept quiet little by little while lots of crows flew and croaked from the sky.