Forest of the uncanny

Disclaimer: This story may have some grotesque themes and graphic imagery, so do not read this if you are sensitive to somewhat graphic imagery.

The sun was shining fiercely on to the emerald grass, the grass was evenly cut and showed a consisting pattern of this throughout the land. The distance saw lines of trees separating the land from other bits of land. One of these areas of lands, had a small isolated cottage with a stable in the back which lived a euphoric farmer and an equally happy Mule. The former was named "Neil", the latter was named "Eli". It was lunchtime and Neil sat on a brown wooden bench and munched on a carrot. He held out his left hand, where another carrot was, to Eli - he rushed with a boisterous gallop. He quickly bit the carrot and proceeded to gnawed it down. Neil took another carrot out of the metal bucket next to him and held it out to Eli, and that too was bitten and eaten.
"Eli, do you want to have a walk in the forest today?" Neil asked looking at the sky, "The weather's pretty nice, no?"
Eli nodded ardently as he was chomping down another carrot.

As Neil finished his carrot, he jumped onto Eli's back and off they went from the muddy pathway that connected the small field leading into the gravel road. As they followed the trail, there appeared a series of trees adjacent to them, there was an opening in the forest with a muddy path. Neil got off and took Eli with him and walked into the forest. There were many pathways leading into many different areas, some of the trees had small brown mushrooms growing on them. Some of these mushrooms were alone in the dirt. Flowers of varied warm colours were disseminated through the forest in different shapes and sizes. Eli put his head down and started sniffing the flowers, but he quickly wrenched his head around rapidly in response to the strange and strong smell.

"Let's follow the trail with the colourful flowers" said Neil. Eli and Neil followed the trail of the flowers. As they walked through the muddy path, they saw a few other people around. They seem to really like the place... although a little bit too much. They saw one young girl hugging a tree and treating it like it was a real person and another of an old man kissing his wife. Eli and Neil proceeded anyway, in fact they rather enjoyed the happy nature of the forest.

"Y'know Eli, I think we should live here someday" mentioned Neil, "Wouldn't you think so?"
Eli nodded with a somewhat flustered look on his face, as he contemplated about where else he could have had those nice carrots he had at lunchtime, or even where else he could have had some nice apple pie other than home. However Neil was too enthralled in the forest and Eli was also starting to feel an infatuation for the forest, as his thoughts were starting to wander all over the place.
"You mind if I go to that tree?" asked Neil, "It looks really cool!"
Eli nodded with a look of prudence. Neil ran off into the forest, leaving Eli behind, Eli didn't mind this too much since he was used to Neil running off on to walk on his own or when he hangs out with his other friends. And Eli knew he would always come back. Always. Even in the most dangerous of times.

Eli wandered around in the forest, he looked at a group of children in Victorian clothing. They seemed like they were playing with jubilation. One of them went up to Eli.
"Can I ride on you?" she asked eagerly, jumping about.
Eli nodded happily and stood still so she could go on. Eli walked around with the girl laughing.
"This is fun!" she yelled with incredible joy, "Run faster"
Eli was a bit nervous since she was not annexed very strongly to him. Eli shook his head.
"Come on, you are so boring!" She moaned, banging on the back of Eli.
Eli grunted, and suddenly that girl slapped him hardly in the flank which made Eli panic. Eli ran all over the place and she was really enjoying the ride, the other children chased after him saying 'Can I go on?', 'Let me ride!'

Eli fell over in panic and inadvertently launched the girl onto a tree branch where her head popped off. Her torso and head fell onto the soft grass with brown leaves scattered, oddly enough no blood came out of the head. Eli was shocked and stayed in place to see if his vision was tricking him. He closed his eyes and shook his head violently for good measure. He still saw the torso and head, sticking out still on the ground.
However the torso's hands moved and pushed itself up to stand.
"Now where's my head?" asked the head in the distance.
Eli was even more shocked, he was tempted to run back and look for his owner but he needed to see if she found her head.

Eventually the torso found the head and put it back in place.
"Oh sorry, that happens sometimes.", responded the girl, "What's wrong, why do you look so scared?"
The other children came to look at the horse, one of them said "It's okay, it's safe here, you can play with us forever and ever".
The girl did a very cutesy smile along with the other children, although people would normally be happy about this, Eli was far too scared to even accept such a smile. Eli scrambled away as fast as he could across the forest. He tread across countless pathways, trying to remember where Neil was. The other people were starting to look concerned with Eli's panicked look, and not in the sympathizing or curious kind of way...

Eli finally arrived at the area near the strange tree, which had an opening a bit like a mouth. He saw Neil by the opening.
"Should we get going back?" asked Neil, "The sun's going down - What's with the concerned look?"
Eli couldn't explain what he saw other than the fact he wanted to go back home.
"Oh... I guess you didn't like this place huh?" asked Neil, "Maybe you're a bit homesick..."
The two went back to the way back home as the sun was starting to rise down and everything was starting to become orange. By the time the two arrived back home, the sky was a nice dark naval blue colour, Neil took Eli back to the stable he slept in.
"Well good night little buddy" responded Neil as he went into the house. Eli started to feel sleepy and drowsy and went to slumber.

In the middle of the night Eli could hear some odd voices, they seemed like the Victorian children he met before. Eli was too asleep to be aware of anything, however he heard the voices of Neil and he sprung up rather slowly.

He saw Neil walking with the Victorian children, and he slowly chased after them, though he was quite tired and could barely walk at all. He followed them into the same forest he was frightened of, although all what Eli could think about at the moment was finding Neil. Neil and the Victorian children took notice of him.
"Oh hi there, Eli. You ready for a party? We gonna do some good stuff tonight!" yelled Neil crazily as he took off one of his limbs and his head and juggled them together, "Huh? Where's my head? Oh! Here it is! I found it! I found it!"
Eli screamed in the most hoarsely tone imaginable. Was his owner possessed? Eli shook his head for good measure and even banged it on a nearby tree. His owner was still juggling around his body parts and dancing like a clown.
"Hey Eli what's wrong there?" asked Neil, as Eli ran for his life into the forest. He ran into that strange mouth-shaped tree in fear. Before he could even think, he saw a light inside the tree as well as what seemed like an alluring horse further into the tree. Eli then started to become enamored, to the point where it brought several feelings of confusion, like whether or not he should even be scared at all. Eli chased after her as she ran deeper into the tree's seemingly endless corridor. Eventually she outran him and was out of sight, Eli gave up and decided to head back, however...

He saw a huge wall in the tunnel made out of wood, he halted and headed the other way but that was blocked too. Grotesque images of wasp heads with their compound eyes, glowing eyes in the dark and smiling trees sparked into Eli's head, he panicked and screamed to the top of his lungs. The walls started to constantly change texture with the small barks growing bigger and turning into dust, then turning back into odd flower-like shapes. Eli started to get squashed and clustered as he struggled through the walls. As the odd shapes were starting to engulf him, he caught a glimpse of that female horse's head - which had no pupils and smiled as it got closer to him. The head did not have any body, but Eli's vision was fading...
He felt himself escaping from his own body and completely froze in his own grave.

He now could not feel, see or touch anything.
As he is now a part of this forest.

The forest of the uncanny.