He pulled the hood of his jacket low over his head, the cold drizzle settling on the tattered remnants of a bus stop, worn and broken like the remnants of his own resolve.
The shattered shelter crouched beneath a gnarled canopy of skeletal branches, their twisted limbs scraping the thickening fog that swallowed the world beyond thirty uncertain steps.
The night air was damp and heavy, smelling of wet earth and cold despair.
His fingers, numb and trembling, brushed the slick, rusted metal of the bench. It was unforgiving, cold as the night and twice as cruel.
He sank slowly down, eyes narrowing, trying to cut through the smoky gray curtain that blurred the forest edges into a shapeless, shifting mass.
"Shit Aiden," he said to himself, as he looked around.
Silence wrapped around him like a shroud, but beneath it, the forest breathed. Somewhere in the distance, the sharp cry of an owl sliced the dark, a raw, broken sound that twisted in the damp air like a warning.
A fox yipped, small and quick, vanishing into the underbrush. Somewhere else, the soft scrabble of tiny feet scuttling through leaves echoed faintly.
The silence was alive.
And then came the voice.
Soft. Cold. Insidious. "Look at you... lost, broken, pathetic."
The words curled through his mind like smoke, slinking into the deepest shadows of his thoughts, clutching at the frayed edges of his sanity.
Aiden's heart clenched like a fist. The voice was there even when he closed his eyes, whispering poisonous lies.
"You think you're safe here? Fool. This place will swallow you whole, like it does the others. You can't outrun what's inside you."
His breath hitched. The fog thickened, pressing closer, as if the trees themselves leaned in to listen.
His mind flickered back to the moments that had led him here, like a broken reel in a cracked projector, the petty theft at the convenience store, reckless and half-hearted, almost as if he wanted to be caught. The cold, sterile courtroom, the judge's sneer sharp as a knife, the fine, and then the handoff to a family he never knew, in a town that felt like the edge of the world.
"You're a failure. A joke. A boy with no home, no future. They don't want you. You don't belong anywhere."
The words settled into his chest like stones.
He shoved earbuds deep into his ears. Schl-Boy Q's Soccer Dad spilled through the speakers, a fragile shield against the oppressive silence and the venomous whispers that clawed at his mind.
Minutes bled by.
The forest thickened around him, dark and alive with secrets. The fog twisted like smoke rising from a hidden fire, curling between the blackened trunks and tangled roots.
The cold air tasted of wet earth and salt carried faintly on a distant breeze, the mountain's breath reaching down to the valley below.
Aiden's eyes darted through the shifting shadows. Somewhere, a lone owl's piercing screech shattered the quiet.
A fox's sharp yip echoed close, sudden and unsettling. Somewhere deeper, the soft padding of a creature's footsteps whispered through the underbrush, almost too silent to hear.
"See how the night listens to you?" the voice whispered again, low and cruel. "It mocks you. Every rustle, every snap, it's the forest laughing at your foolish hope."
His heart thumped painfully in his chest. The voice slid into his thoughts, cold as the mist, threading doubt through his very bones.
"You think you're strong? You're nothing but a scared boy wearing a hoodie, trying to hide from the cold. You're weak. You always were."
Aiden swallowed, trying to steady his breath. The music in his ears grew thin, fragile against the creeping darkness that pressed in, folding over him like a suffocating cloak.
"They'll never accept you. You're a ghost here—just like that woman…pitiful."
He blinked, heart tightening as his gaze caught a flicker beyond the trees. Something moved, a silhouette that slipped away like smoke.
The voice hissed with cruel delight.
"I'm watching. Waiting. You can't hide."
He shook his head, trying to dismiss the whispered lies. But the forest was no longer just a backdrop, it was a cage. The eyes of unseen creatures gleamed behind thick trunks, their silent hunger waiting.
"You belong to the night now," the voice breathed, "and it will feed on you, fear, doubt, regret, until there's nothing left but emptiness."
A cold wind blew, carrying with it the faint, sharp scent of pine and something darker, decay.
Aiden's pulse quickened.
The entity was close, a shadow beneath shadows, invisible but impossible to ignore.
The fog twisted and writhed like smoke, curling upward from the cold earth, thickening until the trees themselves seemed to waver and blur, their limbs melting into shadowed fingers stretching for the stars.
Beyond the dense woods, the mountain rose like a dark monolith, its jagged peaks lost in rolling clouds heavy with threat.
Aiden's breath came shallow and quick, each inhale a sharp stab in his lungs. The forest seemed to close in around him, a silent wall of gnarled trunks and choking mist.
The distant howl of a wolf shattered the fragile quiet, echoing from the mountain's hidden ridges, raw and lonely, a call to the dark.
"Look at you. A broken thing, stumbling through the dark,"
the voice hissed, curling inside his mind like a poison-tipped serpent.
"You're nothing but a shadow yourself, fading, weak, forgotten."
He swallowed hard, trying to fight the creeping panic that threatened to drag him under.
"Why do you even try? You're already lost. Always were."
The temperature seemed to drop further, frost biting at his fingers despite the dampness. The fog thickened, swallowing the weak glow from his phone screen, erasing the world beyond his trembling hands.
The oppressive silence was shattered by the soft crack of a branch snapping underfoot somewhere in the blackened undergrowth, too close.
His head snapped up, eyes straining through the shifting gray.
Something was there, just beyond the veil of fog, a shape sliding between the trees, darker than the shadows themselves.
"You can't see me, but I see you," the voice whispered cruelly,
"And I know your fears better than you do. I am the weight in your chest, the cold behind your eyes. I am the dark that follows when the lights go out."
His legs trembled, but he forced himself to stand, muscles tight, heart pounding like a drum in his ears.
The mountain loomed above, silent and indifferent, a cold sentinel watching the slow unraveling of a lost boy.
"Run if you want," the voice sneered.
"But you'll never escape. You belong to me."
From the thickening fog ahead, a shape began to emerge, shifting and swirling like a shadow birthed from the night itself. The trees around it seemed to bend away, as if recoiling from the cold aura that clung to her like a second skin.
Aiden's breath caught in his throat.
The figure resolved slowly, a woman no taller than five-foot-five, her form lithe and wild. Her dress hung heavy, drenched and dark, rippling as though it moved with an unseen current, like water flowing through a haunted stream.
Auburn curls tumbled over her face and shoulders, tangled like the brambles that scratched the forest floor. Her skin gleamed faintly in the moonlight, pale and almost translucent, as if she had slipped from the mountain mist itself.
She stood motionless, a predator waiting patiently for its prey.
Though her lips remained sealed, a faint, haunting melody seeped through Aiden's headphones, Aurora's Murder Song, the notes slipping like a curse, wrapping around his mind with a sinister familiarity.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose in warning.
He took a cautious step backward, voice steady but wary.
"Yo, you okay? Need help or something?"
No answer.
Only the silence, thick and heavy, filled the space between them.
Then came the low growl, deep and guttural, slicing through the quiet like a blade. It was followed by a hiss, sharp and cruel, echoing from the trees as if the forest itself had exhaled a warning.
The woman crouched suddenly, coiled like a beast ready to strike.
Aiden's pulse thundered in his ears as the dark voice returned, crawling through his thoughts like ice.
"You're nothing. You're weak. You can't fight me or her. You're trapped; prey caught in the hunter's gaze."
His breath hitched, panic flooding his veins.
"Nah, fuck this," he muttered, spinning on his heel and tearing down the winding mountain road, branches clawing at his jacket as shadows reached out from the trees.
He dared not look back.
But the voice was relentless.
"Run all you want. I'm the shadow beneath your skin. The whisper in your ear. You belong to me."
The mountain road twisted beneath his pounding feet, slick with rain and littered with broken branches that snagged at his shoes.
The forest closed in around him, a living prison of black trunks and writhing shadows. Every breath burned in his lungs; every heartbeat thundered like a war drum in his ears.
But something worse gripped him, the invisible grip at the nape of his neck, cold and merciless, squeezing like the jaws of a beast ready to drag him under.
"Faster," the voice whispered, sharp as broken glass.
"Run, run… but you'll never escape. I am the fear in your veins, the weight in your soul."
Branches tore at his jacket, thorns scratched his skin, but he didn't stop. The crunch of leaves beneath his feet was swallowed by the deeper sound, the steady, relentless pounding of his own terror.
A growl rolled low in the distance, primal and hungry, echoing off the mountainsides.
"Look behind you," the voice breathed,
"feel me crawling beneath your skin. You belong to the dark now. There is no light for you."