Dawn came gray and slow.
The sky above was bruised from the night's fire — a dull red fading into ash-blue. The refinery was no longer burning, only whispering smoke, curling into the morning mist.
Soufiane led the way through the abandoned farmlands, his boots sinking into mud still warm from the heat. Behind him came Cynthia, carrying Younes on her back; Amal, quiet and alert; Juliane, eyes scanning every treeline; and Mourad, his rifle slung low, expression dark.
They were silent except for the crunch of frost beneath their feet. The air carried the heavy smell of burnt oil and wet pine — a mixture that clung to their clothes, to their skin.
They entered the forest by midmorning. The trees here were tall, skeletal, their trunks pale and stripped. Everything was muted — sound, color, even the wind.
"This place feels dead," Mourad murmured.
"It's not," Juliane said, her voice low. "Listen."
At first, they heard nothing. Then — faintly — whispers. Not words, just fragments of sound, carried by the breeze.
Cynthia froze, clutching Younes closer. "What is that?"
Amal moved ahead cautiously, touching the bark of a tree. "Wind tunnels," she said after a moment. "Some forests do that when the trunks are hollow. The sound travels like breath."
Soufiane glanced around, unease tightening in his chest. "Then let's not stay here long enough to find out what else travels through it."
They continued deeper. The forest floor was a tangle of roots and mist. Every step felt heavier than the last.
By midday, they found an abandoned hunting cabin, half-collapsed under ivy and rot. Soufiane decided they'd rest there. He motioned for Amal and Mourad to check the perimeter while he helped Cynthia set Younes down on a tattered mattress.
The boy was pale but breathing steadily.
"Do you think he's okay?" Cynthia asked, brushing mud from his hair.
"He's strong," Soufiane said softly. "He takes after his mother."
Cynthia looked up, surprised by the tone in his voice — not cold, not grieving, just… distant, as if he was still trying to find the right place for his pain.
"She would've been proud," Cynthia said gently.
Soufiane met her eyes for a moment, then looked away. "She didn't deserve this world."
Silence settled between them, heavy but not uncomfortable. The kind that comes when words are no longer enough.
Juliane entered, brushing pine needles from her jacket. "No movement nearby," she said. "But we should leave before night. The mist's getting thicker."
Amal followed her in, carrying an old map she'd found nailed to the wall. "Look," she said, spreading it on a dusty table. "If we cut through the forest, we can reach the Rhône valley by tomorrow night. From there, the road to Marseille is open — or what's left of it."
Mourad leaned over the map. "That's suicide. The Rhône corridor is crawling with remnants of old militias. Half of them turned into raiders."
"We can't go back," Soufiane said. "Not with whatever followed us out of that refinery."
Cynthia nodded slowly. "Then we go forward."
For a while, no one argued. The decision felt inevitable.
---
They left before dusk, shadows already stretching long across the forest floor. The fog thickened, curling around their legs like smoke. Every few minutes, they caught glimpses of things between the trees — movement, silhouettes, gone before they could be sure they were real.
Younes stirred on Cynthia's back. "Mama?" he whispered.
Cynthia's heart broke a little. "No, sweetheart. It's me."
From ahead, Soufiane slowed his pace, listening. The forest was breathing again — low, rhythmic, almost human.
Then came the first echo — a voice.
It was faint, but clear enough to chill them all.
"Soufiane…"
He froze.
Juliane swung her flashlight toward the sound, but the beam only met fog.
"Did you hear that?" Amal whispered.
Soufiane didn't answer. The voice came again — this time from behind them.
"Soufiane… help me…"
It was Zahira's voice.
He turned sharply, eyes wide. "No," he breathed. "That's not possible."
Cynthia stepped closer. "What is it?"
Before he could respond, something moved through the mist — fast, low, crawling on all fours. A shadow broke from the fog, rushing toward them.
Soufiane fired twice. The body fell, twitching — a disfigured man, bones bent wrong, face half melted. His jaw moved even in death, whispering Zahira's name one last time before going still.
Cynthia shuddered, pulling Younes close.
Amal crouched near the body. "They're changing," she said softly. "The infection… it's evolving again."
Juliane looked up at Soufiane. "How did it know your sister's name?"
Soufiane didn't answer. His hands shook slightly as he lowered his weapon.
"Let's keep moving," he said. "We're not staying here after dark."
As they pushed deeper into the fog, the forest seemed to close around them — whispering, remembering. The voices followed, fainter but constant, as if the trees themselves were learning how to speak.
And somewhere ahead, beyond the mist, a new shape of nightmare was waiting — one that remembered every name it ever heard.