Bait

A man tied his shoes. The sky was bright. Cloudless with only a beaming sun shining down. The path before him swiveled for miles between trees of all varieties. He began to jog through the path. The occasional stone catching his eye. A few minutes later, a fallen tree blocked the path. The music in his ears driving him as he jogged faded for a moment as he climbed over the decaying beech tree in his path. He continued to run, no jog. At a steady pace, at a steady speed along the dirt path swirling like a maze.

A while later, his eyes spotted something sitting suspiciously on one of the stones he constantly noticed along his way. A hundred-dollar bill, crisp and new, just sitting there. He halted his jog and picked it up feeling extraordinarily lucky. He naturally glanced around for other people on the path, but nobody was around.

While glancing, he noticed a rock in the distance. No more than twenty feet away, another hundred-dollar bill. He made his way off the path noticing broken branching along the way. Someone before him had made their own unbalanced trail throughout the woods. He was aware of the oddity of the whole situation, but a hundred-dollar bill, is a hundred-dollar bill.

When he picked up the second bill, he noticed another. This continued over and over. He followed the trail of money. Thirteen bills later he came to a clearing. A break in the trees where one tree stood separate from the others. An enormous red oak standing tall in the middle of the break.

Not at the foot of the tree, but a few feet near it, the shadow of the enormous red oak seemed to form a shadow of what looked like a giant stack of money. The heap of bills were so high that an elastic band would not have held. He looked around, obviously paranoid of a trap. He let out a ringing bird call that he learned from his father. No response. He let out a yell. Still paranoid, but still no response. He grabbed a nearby stick, normally only good for walking, but good enough now to give him the confidence to approach the money.

He approached the tree surveying his surroundings for a trap, but he did not see one. The only sound heard was the wind rustling the leaves. The occasional crackle was heard. Not the crackle of branches breaking, but the natural sound leaves make against the wind. He paced around the entire tree looking for signs of an ambush of sorts. The reasoning of which he knew made no sense.

Then he reached down and picked up the bills, instantly, there was a crashing sound. A large round trap came down from the highest branches of the tree. It was twice his height and circular, made of wood and vine. He was shocked, but he did not know what shocked really meant.

From a nearby bush a little green man appeared. Half his size. He approached the man in his newfound cage. His skin was an array of different greens. The leaves of the forest seemed to come together in his skin. His eyes were freakishly large and the darkest of black, but despite that the man could tell he was staring him straight in his eyes. There was no love. No peace. No joy in this alien’s eyes. His eyes seemed black like an enclosed room with no light and they were large vertical ovals across his tiny face. Stone faced the alien approached and began to conversate.

“Hello.” The alien said.

The man was still absorbing the freakish thing in front of him. He was lost for words. In fact, he had been holding his breath since the moment he saw him. The words broke the lack of breathing and he began to breath. Inhaling air. Inhaling air like he only had a short while to do so. He did not respond.

The alien continued, “I have three questions for you. You will answer them. Here is the first – Why do you want money?”

The man quickly responded, out of panic, “You need it to live. Survive. It gets you things. It gets you a house, food, in some ways it gets you love.”

“Next question,” said the alien as he used one finger to seemingly write on some sort of invisible paper in the sky, “Does it bring you happiness? Does money make you happy?”

“Yes, of course.” Said the man.

“That’s funny because money is why you’re in this trap.” The alien replied. “Tell me, last question. If you could choose love over money, would you?”

The man haltered. He was not in any sort of relationship. His last relationship ended because he worked too much, for money, but he had never considered the choice before.

“Yes”

The alien looked him in the eye and without any reaction of expression said, “Thank you.”

Suddenly the blue sky whitened. The ceiling above slowly faded away to a dirty snow colour. A loud screeching sound filled the air. The man cried out and dropped to his knees, letting go of the money, and crying out loud.

The cage started to expand, but his eyes were fixed on the alien. The alien started to grow. His torso seemed to expand into the ground as his upper part grew towards the sky. The alien started to grow long hair and its green colour started to fade into a pink pigment. His eyes shrunk in size and started to gain colour.

The alien was not human. He was not even a man. An enormous woman stood before him. She was beautiful with crystal blue eyes in a white coat. Suddenly there was a click, and the man in the cage looked around in front of him. The wooden cage was now steel. It was no longer round but rectangular with metal bars running horizontal.

He looked back at the enormous woman, terrified. The woman stared at him with intensity. Her eyes darted to the left. The man’s eyes followed hers. He looked left. There was a mirror within the cage. He stared into it. He was no longer himself. White fur lined his body. Whispers sprang from his nose, and his eyes were black like the aliens, but smaller.

In fear he looked down, the money was no longer there. Orange pieces of cheese were the only thing on the ground in front of him. He looked back at the woman. She smiled as she scribbled something into a little black book and said, “Good boy”