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The last thing I saw was the hands.

I’m the only witness, the only one left behind after the picnic. The one who wandered off, following butterflies into the forest in the other direction, only roused to return when I heard the screams.

Didn’t see what got them. I didn’t get there soon enough and something tells me that was for the best. For me anyway. Something whispers in my bones that if I’d got back quicker I’d have gone too.

Where my friends went I have no idea. I didn’t see a world open, or a flash of light, or them being drawn into some form of whirlpool or warp in the fabric of the air. All I saw was the hands. Still grasping that one tree, holding on, as though that could keep them here, with me, with us, not let them go…there.

Wherever there is…but it was just the hands, and only for a few mere seconds. Grasping, desperate, disembodied.

Before they were gone. They were gone too.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2020