The forest felt as if it didn't feel like it forgave me for surviving.
Each step I took through the underbrush echoed like a trespass. The air was thick but not with fog this time, but something tighter, like breath caught in the throat of the world, unable to move and unable to speak.
My hands were still sticky with blood, but though mostly dry now, But I could feel it in my nails, some of it was the beast's. Some of it was mine. The blur of claws and rage and adrenaline that hadn't left my body yet. I hadn't slept in hours. I couldn't.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw fangs. I felt the weight of death crushing the air out of my lungs.
I felt myself change.
And now this place felt more unfamiliar to me the longer I spent being in here. The trees felt as if they grew taller, tighter together to watch me.
I stopped at the edge of a shallow ravine, listening.
There weren't any winds, nor any birds.
But I knew deep down the forest wasn't quiet, it was only waiting.
The journal Julius had left me rested against my ribs underneath my shirt. I didn't need to open it, because the words were already carved into my mind like stone.
"They're watching to see what I become."
And he hadn't been lying. The way his body moved when he spoke, the way he warned me. That was a man who had seen too much, survived too long, and whatever was left of him that was so broken hadn't left yet. I could feel it in the air. I was in that same damn cage.
Just hadn't realized it until the bars started to shimmer.
--
I needed water, anything to quench my thirst. My mouth was cracked, my legs trembled, but I kept moving, towards what? I didn't know. I Just knew I didn't want to stop.
I passed a tree with one singular white scratch down its wooden flesh. then another, three paces later.
It was a tracker's mark.
Fresh.
My throat tightened.
Someone was in the woods with me.
--
I crouched low, back against the thick roots of dying redwoods, and I waited. I counted the seconds between each inhalation and my exhales. My spear, now more splinter than shaft, rested across my lap.
and that's when I heard it.
A whistle.
Three short notes.
Then silence.
It was a signal.
I'd heard that noise before, back in the academy. Only the middle isles trainees ever used that sequence. It wasn't taught, not officially. It was something passed in whispers. A relic from when the isles still their freedoms had, still had blood untied to any ruler.
I rose slowly, scanning the tree lines.
There it was movement.
A till figure, cloaked in grays and moss, just at the edge of visibility. I froze; my pulse roared in my ears. But they weren't armed. at least not visibly. But their posture was fluid, confident. Their face was hidden beneath a mask.
Not a helmet.
But a mask carved from bark, bone-white, and cracked down the center. It was crudely crafted.
Primitive.
But something about it sent chills down my spine. and froze my inner core.
They didn't speak. Nor did they move.
They only watched.
My voice caught in my throat, I forced it out anyways,
"Who are you?"
But there was no answer.
he tilted his head, a slow careful motion. Like a predator curious why its prey hadn't run off.
"Are you with the others?" I asked. "Are you here to watch me too?"
Still nothing.
But then they raised their hand. Not greeting me, but also not threatening.
A warning.
Their fingers pointed upwards, not at me, but passed me.
I turned slowly.
Above, in the trees, faint rustling. Shadows leaped from branch to branch. Too quick to be any animal, though also quiet for a beast.
Scouts.
Or even worse, observers.
Instinctively, I dropped into a crouch, my heart pounding.
By the time I turned back toward the masked figure, they vanished.
As if they were never there to begin with.
--
I searched the area, but there were no signs that they were ever here. No footprints, no marking, whoever they were, they moved through this terrain like it was their home.
but I did find something, a half-covered trap nearby, a tripwire. Made of woven grass and vines. Designed to break ankles or snap the spine of small creatures. Camouflaged to perfection. A few paces from that, was a tree stump. Where moss had been deliberately peeled back in a circular pattern.
There, carved into the bark, was a symbol. A crescent moon cradling drop of blood.
It pulsed like a memory.
I'd seen it in a textbook once, back in the study room and library of my father's kingdom. It was buried in a chapter no one read. An old middle isles sigil.
Used by native trackers before the empires rebranded everything as "efficient" and "modern" the kind of symbol that got people burned and hanged for heresy.
Whoever this person was they weren't just a survivor
They were from here.
One of the original bloodlines, maybe even a descendant of the tribes erased during the first empire's expansion.
I touched the symbol. fingers brushing against the carved edges. It was warm and recently made.
And near it, wedged between two stones, I found a cloth scrap folded with precision. Blood stained, a torn uniform similar to mine.
On it, branded with heat, was one word:
REMEMBER.
i read it again, and again, and over again.
Was it a message for me? Or something left behind like a ritual?
this forest was full of ghosts.
And I was one of them.
--
That night, I didn't light a fire.
I tucked myself between two thick roots and stared up through the trees, and the skies were gray, but moonless. The stars flickered like a dying light.
I kept the spear at my side and the journal on my chest. My breath was steady, though my mind twisted and turned.
Not after the mask.
And not after that word.
I tried to convince myself the masked figure was another survivor, maybe someone broken like me or Julius. but something about that didn't seem to click to me.
They weren't scared, didn't flinch. And didn't move. And the way he warned me, it wasn't desperation, it was control.
They knew this land. Knew the watchers. and most of all. Knew I was being tested.
"To those who vanished, they don't always die. some return as phantoms. seeking vindication."
I didn't know where that voice came from, My memory? Julius's journal? A dream?
didn't matter
because I was starting to believe it.