After the scream, there was nothing.
Not even echo.
The forest swallows sounds when they belong to it. It leaves behind only what should keep working. Breath. Footsteps. Thoughts that no longer know where they're supposed to run.
Tom lay on his back, eyes open, hands in the earth as if trying to hold it down. His ribcage didn't rise anymore. No breath. No sound. Only a body that had forgotten what it was built for.
Leon still knelt where Mila's hands had been and stared at the ground as if looking hard enough could close a hole. Kenan stood a few steps away, the backpack on his shoulders like he'd forgotten he could drop it at any moment. Jonas sat at the edge of the dip, the injured leg stretched out, both arms locked around it, head bowed.
Four were still there.
Not five.
The forest breathed deeper.
I moved openly now. No more sneaking. No detours. The fog parted for me, as if it had learned resistance was pointless. My steps were calm, even. Not hurried. The moment wasn't running away.
Leon saw me first.
He saw the mask, then the body beneath it, and then he understood that none of what he'd seen had been a game. His lips opened, but no sound came. The voice had already left the body.
"There," he managed at last, pointing with a hand that no longer worked right.
Kenan followed his gaze. His face tightened, as if he were trying to find something familiar in me. Something human. He found nothing.
"You're real," he said. No accusation. A statement.
I stopped a few steps away. Far enough that they couldn't grab me. Close enough that they knew I wasn't letting them run.
Once, I had let one go. One who could tell it outside. One who could find words for what happens here.Today the forest let none.
Stories were too close to my name.
Leon laughed suddenly. A short, broken sound. "This is sick," he said. "This is a fucking movie. This can't..."
The ground under him gave, as if it had decided there'd been enough talking.
No grand movement. No gesture. A root looped around his wrist, thin, almost careful. It didn't pull hard. It pulled right. A second followed, then a third. Leon pitched forward, knees striking dirt, his free hand clawing at the ground, finding nothing that held.
"Stop!" Kenan shouted. "Stop, man!"
The forest left Leon half here, half away. His legs still kicked, his feet carving grooves into the soil. Then something tore beneath the surface, a sound like wet cloth stretched too fast. Leon disappeared as if someone had folded him the wrong way.
The earth closed.
Three.
Kenan stumbled back. He calculated. I saw it in his eyes. Escape angles. Time. Chances. The forest hates arithmetic.
"We didn't want to hurt anyone," he said quickly. "It was just… just stupid. We're leaving. Please."
Please is a word the forest doesn't know. I still do. Sometimes.
"Not here," I said.
Jonas lifted his head. His face was wet, his breath shallow. He looked at me as if he'd seen me before, somewhere that had nothing to do with trees.
"I told you," he whispered. "I told you."
Kenan swallowed, yanked the backpack off his shoulders. "I know what this is," he blurted. "This is… Graypoint. My uncle was there. Military. He told stories about..."
The forest tensed.
I felt it at once, sharp pressure behind the eyes. The totem vibrated hard, jagged, as if it had lost its rhythm.
"Don't say that," I said.
Too late.
Kenan's mouth shaped the word before he knew why. Not loud. Not all of it. But clear enough.
Samuel.
The forest reacted as if it had been struck.
No more working. No more testing. No measure.
The earth broke open.
Roots shot up like drawn tendons, tore free of the ground, wrapped Kenan's legs, his belly, his chest. One struck his throat, not to hold, but to end. A dry crack. No scream.
His body was hauled up, twisted, pulled apart, as if the forest were trying to rip the name out of him. Bone gave. Flesh too. Blood vanished at once into the earth as if it already had a place there.
Seconds.
Then nothing.
The forest shuddered.
Not satisfied.
Defensive.
I stood motionless. My heart hammered at my ribs. The totem burned against my hip. Ash settled on my tongue.
Jonas was last.
He sat against a trunk, hands open, the injured leg stretched out. He'd stopped trying to flee. Some people understand when running no longer makes sense.
"I know you," he said softly.
I walked toward him. Each step felt like walking through something old that didn't want to move.
"No," I said.
"Yes," he said. "You were in our town. Before. Before the fire. My father helped after the burn. He talked about you. About the boy with the mask. About Samuel."
The name opened something in me.
Not painful.
Too fast.
The forest reacted before I did. It didn't want the name here.
The roots came faster than anything before. They hit Jonas, yanked him up, slammed him against the trunk. One drove through his thigh, one through his side, a third through his chest. His scream snapped off as if someone had pulled the sound out of his throat.
He hung there a moment, eyes wide, mouth half open.
Then the forest pulled him apart.
Not into pieces.
Into directions.
When the trunk was free again, nothing remained but blood in the moss and a spot that would soon look as if no one had ever been there.
Silence.
Too much silence.
I dropped to my knees.
Not because of the blood.
Not because of the dead.
Because of the name.
It rang inside me louder than anything in the forest. Samuel. My old name. The one I'd put down. The one the forest refused to hear.
The images came now, unasked.
The hill.The power lines against the sky.Heat.Sirens.Father's hand on my shoulder.
The forest withdrew. Not far. Just enough to make space.
I was back on the hill beneath the lines before I even closed my eyes.
The memory had begun.