Chapter 18.

Pity

Suddenly the wind seemed to freeze and drop to practically zero degrees, the cold was so terrifying that the young people's tears seemed to turn into crystals and then the boys began to see hallucinations, there were some pieces of furniture that spoke and came closer as if they were watching them, but they had no eyes although the voice of a person could be heard, also the sculpture that was in the middle of the fountain got off it and looked at them while walking from one side to the other and commented to the furniture what must have happened, that strange conversation was something completely crazy, but probably no one in the town knew what was happening.

One of the youngest boys took advantage of the moment of conversation between the furniture and the sculpture to move silently without the trees or their roots noticing him, and when he was already reaching the exit of the forest he glimpsed a little hope and ran out of the forest encouraging himself and telling himself that he had succeeded, when suddenly everything around him seemed to spin and then he realized that what he was doing was running on the trunk of a tree while the branches held him up, and the tree asked the furniture what would happen to these young and strong boys, so they could clean the castle, they had spirit so they could go unnoticed in the eyes of the Beast, but there was a drawback, and that is that the forest was also hungry, so reaching a reasonable conclusion between the furniture, the sculpture and the trees, they decided that it would be solved with a race, they would release the boys in the north pavilion behind the castle and whoever managed to get there first would live and could leave the forest, but those who fell and did not If they could arrive on time, they would satisfy the hunger that each one had, but at that moment Bastian entered the forest and upon seeing the comfortable meeting they had and their new guests, he simply snorted: no one leaves the forest, ¡EAT THEM!

Having heard the orders, the boys screamed at the horrible appearance of the Beast and begged for mercy, but the Beast grabbed one by the neck and snapped it and immediately the boy fell lifeless to the ground and then Bastian gave the last order: put the heart and head of the boys on a silver platter, you can eat the rest of the body except the head and heart, remember to leave the skin aside to hang it like a flag at all the entrances to the forest, IT IS AN ORDER, without hesitation before the words of the Beast, the furniture, the sculptures and the trees took the boys, the screams that were heard were horrible and nature was stained red while the rain silenced one by one the voices of the young people who bravely entered the forest, what many did not know was that the forest was connected with small magic portals to other realms, but in each realm to which the forest was connected it always kept the same name: the forest of lost tears.