It was then that he learned that animals too could catch his illness. It was a good thing Darwin never made contact with his skin. He tried to avoid the pen ever since that night. Passing it now made him adjust his gloves.

It was time to finish his chores.

The rest of the day was spent maintaining the tower, the grounds, the traps, and other things that needed tending to. This included maintaining and cleaning the tower. The tower itself was small, barely breaking the tree canopy with the tip of the red shingled roof. The stone wall was flecked with holes from rocks that had been chipped off from the beating of time over old stone. Any dislodged rocks were used to build a small fire pit to cook foods, particularly rabbit when he was fortunate enough to find one in a snare. These small things all needed doing everyday, so Hari filled his days with menial tasks to distract himself from his boring and dead home.

The forest itself was alive, but only by the grace and mercy of the sunlight and water that passed from beyond the forests' reach. The sun granted the tower floor, the trees, and the water with light and warmth. The water ran clean and smoothly unaltered due to its never changing and ever flowing route in through the spring, and out through the creek. These two things remained unaltered by what afflicted the forest.

The sun began to fall in the sky. Warmth began to fade and the air retained a crisp and chilly quality.

It was time to watch the sunset.

He made his way to the pegs at the edge of the forest, part of the routine he has occupied mindlessly for as long as he remembered. But it was part of the illusion of function; of life that distracted him.

He liked to pretend he lived in a nicer tower in a beautiful windswept meadow with pastel soft flowers littered about his feet. But he was stuck in this cursed and dying forest; the trees slumped slowly from being exposed to his touch, the soil had grown grey with malnutrition, the grass retreated from his every step, the sun and water the only things he couldn't have slowly ruined overtime due to the gift of intense separation. Sadly, where he knew he belonged was here in this ugly tower in these ugly woods. After all, he afflicted these trees himself. He afflicted his clothes, he afflicted these plants. He would have made the meadow ugly too.

At the ring of pegs, he stood just inside the invisible wall the wooden pegs formed. Hari stretched out his hand, as if to press his hands against firm construction. Pausing his fingers before they passed the wooden pegs, he still couldn't cross the threshold no matter how much he longed to.

They were simply wooden stakes driven into the ground around the perimeter of the forest, but held a magical barrier that kept him here that he couldn't see. Worn from the elements, the wings that were carved at the top of each peg reminded him they were just wood, crafted by someone years ago, placed there as a function and a form. He recalled though that the pegs didn't seem particularly magical. He guessed appearances were deceiving.

But these wooden stakes weren't just wood, Hari knew. Nanna had said she had endued the pegs with a magical barrier to contain his disease, using the last of her magic to keep him safe. Nanna said as long as the source of the infection doesn't break the barrier, the world was protected from his blight. So he couldn't cross the threshold no matter how much he longed to leave. As the source, It was his purpose to stay inside the ring of pegs and prevent the disease from spreading. She said they were there to protect him because "birds fear lions", whatever that meant.

He sat at the edge of the forest, sitting on a small overgrown log soft from the moss that overtook it's bark. The countryside was blank with rolling hills of grass, empty and silent as it flowed past the horizon. He sat to watch the sun go down past the sky after the day was over, a ritual he and Nanna established back when they first arrived here; the earliest memories he seemed to have in his mind anymore as the disease took a stronger grasp around his mind.

He looked down at the cross beside him. The overturned dirt that was once placed before it was now a flat bed of grass with a weed growing at the base of the wooden place marker. Nanna was still here to watch the sun leave the sky- that's what he told himself anyway. She left one day when going out for supplies and never returned, and he assumed she died. Hari didn't cry when she didn't come back. He buried her things as a replacement of a body. Her belongings were the only spirit she left behind other than the pegs.

Endless, the pegs formed a border between him and the world. They were meaningless to an outsider if they were to stumble upon them, but an impregnable wall when presented from the forest line. Locked in the cursed grounds, he was slowly dying and losing his mind.

Routine was life for Hari, and the reality was his routine kept him here standing tall like the tower despite the gradual chipping. He was grounded, a bird without wings. He tightened his gloves, compulsively making sure they hadn't slipped off of his fingers somehow. But the reason why he was grounded here anyway was the same reason the forest was dying:

He was cursed.

As long as he remained here, he was doing what he needed to do to be alive, and containing it from spreading in order to keep the world alive too. He was told that the curse was transferred by a touch of his skin, infecting the minds of anything he touched. Nanna made him wear gloves to prevent accidentally contaminating anyone.

The curse alters your soul, warps your idea of right and wrong. You lose your humanity. She said once you turn a certain age, you're lost to it. He was just waiting out the days until he was overwhelmed by his disease. Nanna always told him the curse made him a monster. He knew that much as true. Nanna told him what he was, and what he would do if left to be free.

He knew the consequences if he left. The curse would spread. The land would fall to the same devastation as the forest; drained of all life slowly until there was nothing left. He had to stay here, he had to stick to his routine, and he could never pass the ring. It was his purpose as a diseased beast.

The pegs cast long shadows as the sun fell behind them, caging the forest in long prison bars along the tree line. He saw a trail in the road in the countryside, slowly leading up to the foot of the forest. He imagined when he and Nanna arrived here on horseback, they would have come up that winding trail, determined and tired from the ride from wherever they came from. He imagined because he could no longer remember the day he arrived. The curse had stolen that memory from him.

All he knew was that this was where he belonged, and even his own memory couldn't change that, for he couldn't remember anything before his arrival to the forest. He was so young, and Nanna told him he didn't need to know- that he is better off forgetting, so he did. He didn't want to remember anyway, and the curse made it slip from his mind anyhow.

As the sun's last light vanished behind the hills, the last spark of day washed away with a dark blue blanket and white stars. A cold tear fell down his cheek. Just as routine was life, he often fantasize about the day his routine would finally stop. The world would be saved, the land would reclaim its former glory, and he would be freed from the ring and the heaviness of the forest.

But Nanna cared for him despite his abhorrent falterings, pushing aside her hatred for what he was and giving the last years of her life in keeping him safe. He wouldn't waste the life he took, the life spent trying to save a nonredeemable child. It was his purpose, after all. He couldn't go against the only thing he knew was right no matter how much he wanted to.

"Don't worry, Nanna," he whispered with furrowed brows, looking out into the darkened fields.

"I won't leave. I'll stay alive."