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The people back in the village had told us all about this weird place. They said it was cursed, and that the melody depicting an eternal grudge of a dead witch was playing continually in the background, slowly stealing the souls of each and everyone of those who passed through the place alone. One of my companions also mentioned that there was an old hag back in the village that also happened to mention something about... a way of getting through without dying, even if one were to be alone. "A feeling... was needed." said the old lady, at least, according to my companion. The three of us asked ourselves what it meant, but only kept bumping into dead ends. We had no idea, not even something similar came to mind, and trust me... my mind worked in curious ways, I can confirm this.

I remember a few days ago, we encountered a stone wall on our way to the village; the stone wall apparently held a puzzle that nobody had ever been able to solve because of it's tricky difficulty. Surrounding the stone wall were the bones of the people that tried to solve it. Were they stupid enough to keep trying until they died and not go back the way they came? I thought so, until I tried it for myself. This feeling emerged after touching the said brick wall... a disturbing feeling that crippled my every muscle, but not my will, nor my wits. The stone wall itself would create a particular state of trance with its own sealing ability in which you couldn't move until you solve the puzzle, thus making it impossible to complete. The ones joining me in my journey freaked out when they saw my body stuck to the wall... my hand was throbbing intensively, somehow it felt like my veins wanted to explode after making physical contact with the rotten material composing the wall. My mind and the wall were now one. Our bodies were almost one. With my final moments of control over my body, since the wall was taking quite some time taking over completely, I pulled my fist back and punched the wall with all the power my body contained. The wall crumbled, and I recuperated.

"Love, are you okay?!" said the only female companion in my group with anxiety and shock filling the outlines of the letters in her words. "What happened?! Did you solve it?!"

"Well... the wall crumbled, so I believe that no, I haven't solved it yet, it's just an illusion." I responded ironically.
My other companion chuckled while she got mad at my response and hit me in the back.

"AH! WHAT THE!?" She came in contact with my skin.

"Why the hell are you screaming, woman?" My other companion asked with a strong, rough voice.
Her hand swelled.

"I believe, I can answer that to you." I said with a witty sound in my voice.

"Huh? Well... then... go ahead, dude." said he.

"When I touched the wall, I became part of the wall. People always said it was impossible to solve to puzzle the wall held because of the fact that you'd slowly lose consciousness after coming in contact with it. The fact is, that you can still think during the events, and at the same time, your body still maintains a little control. When I said, I became part of the wall, I meant that my body actually became part of the wall, physically and mentally, I figured that it was still a wall... and that the only thing that could break the wall, since the substance composing the rock wasn't exactly a common material in nature, or at least it didn't look like it, I could still break it, if and only IF I became the same kind as the wall. Which I did. That was the effect the wall had on me." I finished my explanation.

My female companion was still screaming like an idiot in the background, while the other just nodded and tried to understand what I just said.

But back to the place we were. The crooked place was called by many names, but it ended just being called "Szeretetlen", which was the name originally given to it by the discoverers of the place. Though, not even the villagers were aware of its meaning, and we didn't exactly have doctorates in linguistics to know. The place was beautiful if you had an appreciation for Gothic art, other than that it was just plain creepy. There are many straight, wooden paths and signs pointing towards where we had to go; this gave me the idea this used to be a road used for commerce or the travels of many tourists that would come by this area. The villagers pointed out that the place had been untouched for the past ninety years, so whatever this road used to be, it's no longer used for anything. Anything at all. We wanted to uncover this mystery.

The name of my female companion is Sasha, she's a strong woman, very humble and extremely attractive, even enough to make any man that stood beside her crumble into hormonal unbalance. She was mature, or at least she acted in such way, and most of the time she was silent. Many of her colleagues would call her "Shizuka", which means silence in Japanese, but that didn't mean she was a mime. Emotion was the fuel to her words. She wouldn't talk unless she was feeling any type of sentiment. Pleasure, pain, sadness, happiness, any of these would trigger endless conversations out of her, she was graceful when silent, because it gave her that sense of mystery, but when she was feeling it... I can say, there isn't a word I could use to describe it.

Yet my other companion was another story. I really don't feel like talking about this guy. Let's just say he gets to me in a way no one else could, there's an odd aura about him, that is hard to swallow. He barely helps and mostly questions, or hits on Sasha. His name is Carter. That's the only information I will reveal of him, because everything else was irrelevant to me.

It had been at least two days since we parted from the village, and at least 46 hours since we entered the place. Night had fallen, and we had set out our tents and made a fire to keep us warm in the cold night. If one would completely stay in silence, you could actually hear the wind making a rhythm every time it blew.

Sasha... I have to admit something. I had gotten accustomed to her presence already. As Carter slept, she and I would drift off somewhere else where we would just sit down and talk for hours and hours, nonstop. She would talk because she was actually feeling happy while talking to me. We didn't have nothing going on between each other, but we loved spending time with each other. My heart danced beautifully when spending time with her. Her deep green eyes would pierce right through my soul. I loved her. We had known each other only for a month, and I already loved her, a type of conduct I'm not usually in par with. All of this time we've spent together during night time, was enough to even warm a veteran's heart. Carter was always pissed at the fact that we would just go and take hours to come back.
He was jealous... that was all.

"Okay! Here's the plan, we don't know exactly what this place is about. I think we should keep moving forward for another two days and if we don't find anything, then we'll head back. Is that okay with all of you?" I asked with a lot of consideration.

"..." Sasha just stared at me.

"I don't think we should head back, I mean seriously, we've already walked three days in a row down this road, and we haven't found anything. Sure, it's fine if we haven't found anything yet, but we haven't even gotten to the end of the road, if we turn back, we'll just let it all go to waste." Carter kept whining about everything I said, even if it was to stay or return. He had an answer for everything, it was getting on my nerves.
Three days had passed, it was already morning, and we had picked up everything from the camp and gone down the path once again. The path was just the same, it felt the same, and nothing would differ from the rest of the things we'd seen. I felt... as I was going insane; I don't think a normal human being can go down this path alone. Now I see what the villagers meant.

"Does anybody else feel really tired?" asked Carter.

"..." Sasha nodded without saying anything.

"And the song depicting the dead witch's grudge would slowly steal one's soul." I quoted the old man from the village that told us that, which made Carter angry.

"Stop talking bullshit! Those villagers are hiding something, I'm sure they said that to scare us!" He blabbered.

"Whatever you say, Carter." I sighed.

The trees suddenly started moving. When we noticed, we all started running towards the end of the road, hopelessly of course because it's not like we knew that there was actually an end nearby. One of the branches grabbed Sasha's ankle and pulled her back. She screamed in terror, and I just turned around, pulled out a knife from the side pocket in my jacket and slashed the branch down. She was okay, at least... we were all okay for now. Carter had gone on ahead, and had completely forgotten about us. "That inconsiderate bastard..." I said when I looked around and saw he wasn't around anymore. Suddenly, the silence was broken. Sasha screamed. I was shocked. I didn't know what was going on, why was she screaming... but then I felt a warm substance coming down my chest; my stomach clenched, I could no longer feel anything. My head was spinning, my chest was getting cold. As I looked down, one of the branches had pierced through my heart from my back, and was completely coming out the other way. Weird enough, this was my end... and Sasha started moaning in pleasure as I died. Then I woke up.

"What... the hell?..." I hyperventilated while the cold sweat left behind by the fruit of passion gushed out of my pores. A sound was heard. I stopped for a second to hear what was going on, Sasha was actually screaming. I came out of my tent to see what was going on, and when I got inside her tent I saw Carter on top of Sasha. My heart stopped for a second.
"S-Sasha...?" my voice trembled in deep sadness.

"Wait... Love, it's not what it looks like!" Sasha tried to make up for it with the same sentence they all use.

"Oh trust me... it's what it looks like." says Carter while looking at me directly in the eyes.

Tears fell from my eyes into the ground, mixing with the tainted ocean of pleasure under them.

I couldn't take the pain. It was too intense. Judging by the fact that tomorrow was going to be the day when I'd tell Sasha about my feelings. Maybe it had been my fault that I took so much. But why? Why now? In the thousands of questions that resulted over a simple event, my answer was to run, literally, in the opposite direction from where we came.

I stopped in my feet about a mile away.
-"WHY!?"-
-"Why does this always happen to me?!"-
-Sobs-

A-A couple of minutes later, I-I opened my eyes, and in front of me... was nothing. Just an empty valley. I turned around to see if I had actually gotten to the end of the road. But there was nothing there... The road, was gone.
-"What's going on? Where's the road? Where's Sasha?!"-
I-I ran back with at top speed for at least five minutes, nonstop. I thought it was another dream or just an illusion created by the mist or the trees in the forest.
-"Sasha! Where are you!?"-
I-I-I fell to the floor, sobbing, almost drowning in my own sorrows... literally. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the village could be seen from where I was standing. No mountains. No sign of life. Just me, in an empty valley... or maybe a desert, I didn't know. Nothing could be explained now.
-Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha...-
T-The wind blew the same melody again.
-Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha...-
-Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha...-
-Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha... Sasha...-
A melody that seemed so familiar, somehow like it was written by me or based on me.

"Sir! We heard some noises in the distance, in the direction of the accursed forest. We sent some of our strongest men to search." said the villager to the village elder.

"And? Did you find anything?" said the elder.

"Yes, sir! We found two dead bodies, one resembling a woman, and one resembling a man, I say resemble, because when we got there, the bodies were in horrible state, barely recognizable. We assume it's two of the travelers that came here a few days ago. But we didn't find the other one. What do you think, sir?" asked the villager with solid desperation.

In that instant, the elder's wife came out from behind a barren wooden door with a plate of delicacies for the villagers who were guests at her house: " I brought some cookies, hun. Sorry for interrupting, I'm sure this was all very important business. But what was this about two dead bodies?" She said, worried.

"Oh, yes! Well, we found two dead bodies out in the woods. We think that they're the travelers from before." the villager answered.

"Oh well now, that's a shame, but I guess that's what happens to those who don't listen to their elders. What about the third one?" She asked with a concerned facial expression.

"Not yet found. But we'll keep searching for him, he's presumed dead. " The villager said.

"Oh don't worry about that, it's unimportant." said the elder's wife.

"I think so too... you did warn them right, honey?" asked the elder.

"Yup. There's no way to go down that path alive, without IT." she affirmed.

"Without IT? What do you mean?" asked the villager curiously.

"Well, without love, silly." answered the old lady with a warm, gentle smile, and left the room.

The elder looked at the villager and asked: "Do you remember the name of that other traveler?"

"We didn't find any remains, but we did find a journal inside the female's right pocket." The villager was finishing his sentence, but the elder interrupted.

"Let me see!" the elder said dramatically, with a loud voice.

The villager handed the elder, Sasha's journal. The elder opened it to the last page that was written. The fifteenth page. He opened his eyes widely when he read the final sentence and just closed them afterwards in acceptance.

"I see. No wonder." The elder said with remorse.

"Anything on the other guy, sir?" asked the villager desperately.

"His name...
...was Love..."