It had been three days since Zitao had arrived and he liked to think that he had made some progress.

The cardboard boxes that had previously laid in the backseat of his car were now inside of his aunt's living room and slowly filling with an accumulation of papers, books, and other menial items. 

As per another request of his parents Zitao had agreed to sort through his aunt's belongings and set her final affairs in order. Some items would go to charity, others the trash, and the remainder was to stay on the property until he had decided what to do with the place. 

That would be the hardest part, Zitao suspected; making a decision on whether or not to keep the house. 

When he had first passed through the long, dirt drive of his aunt's home he had been met with much less sunlight than he had on the road. The gnarled branches of trees reached out over it and cast shadows on the property; the dark had left a feeling of unease in him that had only just begun to diminish. The woods, which seemed to have wrapped around the house, reached out in places as if slowly converging on it. Vines trailed up the sides like spindly fingers. Without his aunt there, no one had been able to challenge the growth of the swamp.

It was hard to believe that only a little ways back down the drive the dirt road from whence he had came looked like it had belonged in a fairy tale. Where as his aunt's house looked liked the woods had grown a mind of its own and saw this property as a threat, steadily approaching to take it over and remove the blight of unwanted humanity from its lands.

The more he looked at the house from the outside the more he could see the truth in what his aunt had told him long ago. 

"I leave for too long and that place takes what it wants." 

Zitao would be the first to admit that his aunt had had a peculiar way with words, but somehow they were still very apt for the situation at hand. They reflected exactly what was happening to her home only a short while after she had gone from her land.

Now that Zitao was here he hoped to be able to make an effort against the swamp and reclaim the house back from vines and shadows. 

The house, Zitao observed, was ranch styled; only one floor and large enough to give the rooms proper space. The inside as he would later see, reflected this theory.  A porch spanned both the front and back walls of the house and from the front Zitao could see a rocking chair that was undoubtedly a common resting place for his aunt. Unfortunately there were some flaws which Zitao would have to take the time out to fix.

Overall the house was sturdy, Zitao could deduce easily enough from the outside, but needed repairs and a good clearing of overgrown plant life- which he was not entirely thrilled about doing. Not to mention a paint job. He made a note to take a trip to the nearest hardware store and accumulate the necessary supplies to whip the property back into shape.

Zitao expected to spend an extra few weeks here.

Zitao hadn't toured the whole property then on account of wanting to first sort through the inside of the house, which was where he currently sat, placing the last of the filled boxes in a corner of the living room. He had already sweat through one shirt and was currently in the process of sweating through another one; the heat trapped in the house being almost unbearable. He swiped at the black bangs matted to his forehead. For now he would have to suffice with open windows and pray for a breeze.

Hands feeling chalky he brushed his palms off on his pants to see it smear with an earthy red. This place definitely need a good cleaning.

Effectively done with sorting and packaging the majority of the clutter in the house, Zitao was able to see the the appeal of its insides. It had all of the basic necessities that were required of the house, even electricity. Structurally, it was sound and the realization that Zitao would be able to sleep without thinking that the roof would collapse on him greatly eased him.

Yet, what caught his attention most was not the rooms or the layout of the home but instead what his aunt had placed inside it. 

For one, there was an abundance of mirrors in the house. Some were hung on walls opposite the windows to catch the light, others were standing mirrors that caught the reflection of the entire room in which they were placed. Zitao was no stranger to mirrors but being able to track himself step by step through the house with them was excessive.

Sometimes he would be startled by the movement in his peripherals and his heart would start to race, blood bounding through his veins, before he could realize that he was only looking at himself. Not something dark and terrible lurking in the corners.

Zitao wasn't sure as to whether the sheer abundance of mirrors was related to his aunt's superstitions but he knew for a fact that the talismans scattered throughout the house were.

It was...surreal, he supposed, to see them as they were, just hanging in front of windows and over doorways, if not a bit unsettling. They were odd constructions of wire or string; bent, tied, and decorated. On them hung shells, iron, feathers, glass, and even bone. Zitao was positive they weren't human and he knew his aunt would never have the capacity to hurt someone, but growing up in a home sheltered far from these things, from this belief, stirred emotions in him he wasn't sure he wanted to address.

The closer he got to some of the talismans he could smell ammonia or the distinct scent of something that had touched fire, charred and smokey.

Zitao thought that maybe if he knew their purpose he would feel less anxious. This place as it currently was -shrouded in shadow and pressed in by the woods- left a feeling of dread in him. The talismans, and not knowing what they meant, made him feel all the more exposed because they knew something he didn't and refused to impart wisdom upon him. 

As he viewed them, suspended from yellowing ropes and twisting around in the air, he wondered what their purpose was. Luck? Money? Protection? Guidance? They gave no answer, remaining silent in the presence of a stranger, staring at him with eyes of blown glass, ever judging. It made him jittery.

There was a particularly sinister looking talisman in the bedroom where he slept. It looked cruel and terrifying; an agent of malice hanging over him in the night. Zitao could barely sneak a glance at it and the idea of it lingering over him while he slumbered made his stomach turn restlessly. 

After the first night he had removed it and placed it away in one of the boxes, buried beneath paper and wrapped in cloth, but his sleep still remained uneasy. 

He fought with the thought of tearing down the remaining artifacts and placing them into boxes too. To get rid of the heaviness and unease. But his aunt had believed so deeply in whatever she placed them there for, so Zitao would leave them a little longer out of respect.

When observed in the bright, noon sun of a clear day the property didn't appear to be so dark as before. Sunlight forced itself through the reaching branches and made its way to the ground allowing for warm streaks of light to create a dim illusion of pleasantness in the atmosphere of the swamplands. At least until reaching the tree line. 

Where the moderately tamed yard ended and the thicket of trees -wild and dense- began, light reduced drastically. 

Standing on the back porch of of his aunt's -now his- house, Zitao gazed out at the land he planned on restoring and took a sip from his water bottle. The heat had risen considerably and Zitao knew that he would have to go out and face it if he wanted to get any work done today. His first plan of action was to locate the tools necessary to fix the house and beat back the wilderness. The shed on the far left edge of the property seemed to be his best bet.

He was still conflicted about what he was going to do with the house. It had its perks; electricity, low property tax, a place to get away, and surroundings that, if squinted at just right, could be very pleasant. However, there were also the drawbacks. Much of them had to deal with the current condition of the house but Zitao was still reluctant to make a decision. When the house was fixed he would make a decision, he told himself, procrastinating.

Sighing, Zitao placed his water bottle down and emerged from the shade of the porch. With steps sluggish from the heat he trotted over to the structure, overgrown weeds slapping his shins along the way.

The shed was decently sized and Zitao suspected there was a work bench inside, no doubt collecting dust. Its wooden slats were warped and swollen not fitting quite right together and leaving gaps in the framework. The only window was heavily crusted with layers of dirt and pollen, obscuring a view of the inside.

Walking in front of the shed, Zitao made to grip the rusted handle of the door but his attention was diverted. In the woods on the far side of the structure, shrouded behind its shadow, was a break in the undergrowth. Its width was just a little wider than the average human being and the bushes around it grew away from it, having adapted to being pushed aside. The ground was not grassy nor breeding weeds but rather consisted of packed dirt long condensed from the regular tread of feet.

Essentially, it was a path.

Visibility was low past the tree line but Zitao could see that the trail continued deeper into the swamp and away from the house. Unknowingly he had found himself moving towards the path; legs inching forward of their own accord. He stopped before the tree line, gazing in as best he could. Yet he could not see where it led. The path weaved between the trees, going deeper into what he considered uncharted territory, the surrounding growth eating up all light and cutting off sight unless he should move into the brush. 

It was dark, so dark, that it made his gut twist. Zitao had experienced it frequently over the past few days- the drops and turns that his insides did. He felt it when he drove up the driveway and saw the house shrouded in vines and shade and he felt it when the totem above his bed placed its gaze on him in the night. And he felt it now, staring into the swamp and at a path that he could somehow tell - God knows how- would lead him to nothing good.

However, despite this feeling he still wanted to know where the path lead and what it would reveal. 

Zitao was a curious creature. Always had been. 

And to be presented with a situation like this one -that tested the waters between curiosity and better sense- taunted him. As a part of him wanted to leave and another part wanted him to move closer, Zitao lingered on the edge of the woods in silence, contemplating. Looking down he could see the tips of his shoes just break onto the trail and he scuffed the ground, dragging it in the dirt.

He shuffled away from the path, oh so slightly, but then paused and returned his gaze to it again. 

If he went down this, he attempted to reason to himself, he would find nothing sinister or malevolent and would come to understand that this place was, in fact, just a place. Nothing was working against him. He wanted to be able to believe it and rest easy for tonight, to get rid of the sinking feeling in him. 

Zitao's fingers nervously danced at his side.

Nodding to himself in shaky reassurance he set off into the woods, one foot after the other.

The path was rocky and changing in width variably. Every now and then he would stumble over roots and other debris that peaked out from the dirt. This didn't really concern him all to much, at least not compared to the growing absence of light.

The effects of it were making Zitao nervous and on edge. He was surprised that the swamp could keep getting darker and darker, that there always seemed to be a little more light to be taken away. The deeper in he went the more condensed the swamp became. Thickets of trees, bushes, and vines sprung up and blocked him from seeing too far in any direction and the land began to turn moist under his feet, saturated with water.

Water must have soaked into most things around him. It seemed the swamp was in a natural state of decay, trees rotting away in their stumps. A deep earthy scent invaded it's way into the nostrils.

A stagnant air hung between the trees and it made Zitao feel like he was struggling to breathe, his breaths coming out in heavy pants.

Oddly enough this was one of the only sounds that he could hear other than the squelch of his shoes. The chirp of birds had long faded and not even the otherwise noisy cicadas uttered a sound. The wildlife that the swamp had sounded to be teeming with before had seemingly dissipated from the air.

The dark and the quiet were oppressive now, clawing away at the rising terror in his heart.

A chill that wasn't in the air began to creep up Zitao's spine.  

His so-called brave venture into the woods was rapidly dissolving into a journey of revealed stupidity and growing fear. Once again unsure, Zitao paused in his tracks to turn and look at the path behind him and the bend he had just come around. It looked just as desolate and dark as what was ahead of him but he could find peace in knowing there was shelter in wait. However his curiosity, and the need to brush aside silly fears, was still taunting him, attempting to pull him onwards.

Yet, before he could make a move in either direction, Zitao was startled by a break in the eerie quiet of the swamp.

"Hey!"

For the second time since they met and with the same, booming call, Yifan managed to make Zitao jump out of his skin. 

Whipping around with eyes widened in panic, he settled his wild stare on Yifan.

He was gazing at Zitao with once again narrowed eyes and a scowl that he was rapidly beginning to think was a permanently fixed feature on his face. Not that it wasn't a nice face, if Zitao had to admit. Yet, it left him wondering for a second time what he could've done to receive such hostility. 

Yifan was wearing jeans again and they were stained and caked at the knees as if he had been kneeling. His boots were dirty and heavily splattered with mud that had yet to dry. The Saint Benedict medallion dipped down between his clavicles and rested on his bone, catching some of the only remaining light still available and bouncing it through the darkness. 

Grasped firmly within his hands was a faded blue wheelbarrow which he had covered with a tarp. Flies buzzed around it. Judging by the direction he was facing he had just returned from where Zitao was headed.

"What are you doing here?" For an otherwise simple question Yifan's tone made it sound like an interrogation. Zitao frowned.

There was a palpable difference between the encounter they stood in now and the one from a few days earlier. Before, Zitao could at least fathom at why he was at the receiving end of such a piercing glare. He had been on the other man's land, uninvited and unknowingly trespassing, but now he wasn't at fault, he was just taking what was, essentially, a walk through the woods. He wasn't sure why Yifan was perpetuating this coldness towards him.

The blatant terror that had spiked within him before had gone but in exchange that torturous gut twisting sensation had returned.

"I was fixing up the house and I saw a path behind the wooden shed in the back. I didn't know where it lead." Despite not being the guilty party Zitao chose his words as best he could, trying to lessen the glare etched into the other's profile."What's back there?"

Zitao gestured behind the other and at the dark stretch of path behind him.

Yifan glanced back, looking to where he had emerged for a moment, before turning back and speaking. "The bayou."

His eyes slowly flickered to the trees around them. Zitao tried to glance where he was looking but realized Yifan was not focused on one spot. His eyes darted as if searching for something. Then they suddenly snapped back to Zitao's. 

"The bayou," he repeated, "You shouldn't go back there, you don't know your way around. Wouldn't want to get lost out here."

Zitao held his gaze as long as he could before averting his eyes back to his surroundings. It felt claustrophobic; too tight to breathe and yet large enough that he knew he'd be ed if he strayed from the trail. Everything about this swamp, the woods, kept him on edge and jittery, though for what he didn't know. 

Yifan began to walk towards him closing the distance between them as he pushed the wheelbarrow forward, just managing to squeeze in next to Zitao on the path. It was a tight fit as they stood shoulder to shoulder and Zitao wasn't sure he liked it. Yifan inclined his head slightly towards Zitao but trained his eyes past him, out to the wild growth and twisted trees.

"Its dangerous out here, Zitao. There's lot of things that could do you harm. Alligators. Snakes." 

Yifan had concluded speaking but the way his words drawled on past the last flick on tongue implied that the thought wasn't quite finished, that there was one more example he could give. Zitao didn't think he wanted to know what it was; the twisting in his gut had increased and his breath began to catch in his throat. Yifan spared him a piercing glance out of the corner of his eye before walking on past the other and towards a jutting branch in the path that Zitao had not seen from around the bend. He threw one last statement at Zitao over his shoulder. Go home.

Zitao felt the rising need to say something, anything. To feel a little more in control of the situation -whatever it was- and feel less vulnerable.

"H-Hey. What were you doing out here?" 

Yifan turned and gave him a dull look, jaw flexing.

"Crabbing."

Zitao looked at the flies buzzing around the wheelbarrow. Beyond his line of sight Yifan's eyes narrowed.

Out on the porch in the dwindling evening light Zitao sat on his aunt's weathered rocking chair with a theraputic bowl of cereal. Since coming back from the path ealier that day Zitao's mind had almost exclusively rested on Yifan and the swamp. 

He had high-tailed it out of there not long after Yifan had left him alone in the the shadow of the swamp. The land had become even darker after his exit and the thought of venturing in further frightened him more than the other's words had. Although it did frighten him considerably though. 

It was suspicious that what Yifan had said to him came off as a vaguely concealed threat and Zitao kept playing the scene in his mind again to make sure he interperted the events and words correctly. But he was almost positive he did; the pull of stomach and the threat of rising bile convinced him of this. If so, than what were such words issued for? 

Maybe there was something at the end of the path which he wasn't suposed to discover or maybe Zitao was to paranoid and Yifan just had some serious damage in the social skills department. Either way he was still fighting the sense of unease around him.

Zitao sighed to himself and rocked back on the chair, head lolling against the backrest and eyes lazily trained on the woods.

The sun had dipped below the canopy of trees now and only a faint pink light sporadically filtered in between the leaves. Majorily the sky was dark and settled into its role as the night, littered with stars. Zitao looked up at them briefly before his gaze was drawn back to the woods. A faint flicker of movement caught his eyes between the trees.

Standing up, Zitao moved forward slightly to see if he was mistaken or not. When a shadow passed between the trees again, tall and dark, the terror rose up within him again and seized his heart, squeezing. He almost forgot to move. Zitao began backpeddling towards the door behind him and fumbled for the handle as he kept his eyes locked on the woods, unwilling to remove them even for a split second.

When he managed to open the door he practically launched himself through it, momentarily relieved.

That night Zitao slept with all of his doors and windows locked tight.

I am sooo sorry for the ridiculously long time it took me to post this chapter. I have 3 AP classes this year and I've just been bombarded with deadlines. I'm going to try and find my rythym with writing and see the pace that will suit me but I really think the time between updates won't be this drastic again. Anyway, I wasn't that pleased with the chapter but here it is. The last quarter of it was really rough, most likely going to make some edits later. Let me know how you like it.  

Comments, concerns, criticism, questions?

P.S. I'm planning on writing other Taoris stories but would you all prefer I finish one story and then start another or would you not care or even prefer me to write multiple stories and one shots at the same time? Curious.