The silence after Tree Grave stretched too long. Insects had vanished. Only the slow drag of moisture through buried roots broke the hush.
Arion knelt until the tremor in his arms eased. At last, he let out a slow breath and lifted his gaze to what awaited him.
Ahead, the world shimmered pale blue, light leaking through the fog in long, wavering shafts. The air carried a faint metallic tang that coated the back of his throat and refused to leave.
He stood up, patted his robe and pulled out the journal. The next page had swollen from damp, yet the ink held.
'You will slowly transition into the Blue Forest of Mist.'
'Do not linger by the fungus on the trees.'
'Avoid the heavy mist. It causes—'
Step… crack… step…
A sound sliced the air—sharp, like footsteps on glass. He frowned, glanced up. Nothing but blue fog curling between fungus-lit trunks.
When he looked back, the words had changed.
'A̵v̴o̶i̵d̴ ̸t̵h̸e̵ ̶h̵e̴a̴v̸y̶' ̵—
'Don't. Avoid. The. Mist.'
'I͝t͞ ͜B͝r͞I͝n͜G͝s͞ ͜H͝a͞P͝P͞i͝N͞e͞S͝S͞.'
'LET.̷ ̵I̷T̸.'
'E̸M̵B̷R̸A̷C̵E̷.̶'
'YOU.̵''
The letters slid and reformed in wet, jerking strokes, as if an invisible hand had only just finished writing.
He stared. A cold tingle raced down his spine.
"Right," he whispered, voice flat. "That's not odd at all."
He turned the page. Blank—
Raw instinct jerked his gaze back up. Nothing moved. After a long enough stare to half-satisfy his paranoia, he looked down again.
Fresh lines had formed where none were present, shaky and uneven:
'THEY R͝E͝M͝E͝M͝B͞E͝R͞R͞R͞.͝'
'DO.'
'YOU?'
The forest pulsed in time with the words, and the fog swelled with it.
Something moved beyond the fog.
A shape.
Then a voice.
"Arion."
His name arrived not as sound but as vibration, rippling the mist in perfect rings.
He spun. A figure stood half-visible ahead, barely a couple of feet off the ground—grey silhouette, hands limp at its sides, head bowed.
His crude knife was already unsheathed, tight in his grip.
He took one involuntary step forward before instinct slammed him still.
"That's… impossible."
The outline tilted its head.
The knife hit the ground, its sound loud within the muted soundscape.
"You're gone," he said louder.
Stillness.
"But. I'm. ͝h͞e͝e͞e͜r͞e͜…͜'͞
The figure spoke in an inhuman stutter, twitching with every syllable, as though it were piecing speech together from a broken recording.
"Why d̶i̴d̷n̶'̵t̸ you find M̵E̷?̶ I was… in so much.—P̷A̷I̷N̶N̶.̵N̶.̵".̵"
No… I tried. I spent weeks. I—
"Stop fucking with me—you're not real!"
His wrist snapped up. Ice erupted—sudden, savage. A frozen flower exploded and expanded where the figure had stood.
From the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement; his head turned instinctively. A woman's frame folded slowly into focus through the swirling mist—pale blonde hair streaked with faint, unnatural light, eyes hollow and shining like polished coins catching the last of a dying glow.
His chest seized. "Mum?"
The mist shifted, and the shape sharpened into something he knew too well. She stood there tapping her left forearm—exactly the way she did when she was disappointed, that small, steady rhythm against the sleeve of her old cardigan.
So real it made his stomach twist.
"Arion, love… clever boys still need their mums sometimes," she said, voice soft and broken, the exact phrase she used to murmur when he'd stayed too late at the lab again. "You said you'd be home before the lights went out. You promised."
It's not her… It's physically impossible.
His vision blurred at the edges. His knees buckled. He caught himself on a root, fingers sinking into frost-crusted bark. The sudden cold stole his breath, but it barely registered against the burn climbing his throat.
"Y–You left. The LIGHT. On. again." Her speech entwined itself, like a corrupted recording.
Her figure jerked suddenly, like corrupted footage rewinding, until it locked into place again.
Then her neck cocked, head twisting slightly, unnaturally. "And I̷ waited. Alone in—IN. P-P̵A̴I̷N̶… In the ever encroaching D͝A͞RKNE̷SS, my mind slowly devouring itself—memories permanently eroded as I was being swallowed up by inevitable… D͝A͞M͞N͝A͞T͝I͞O͝N͞."
"Mum… I—"
"DID. Y̵O̸U̶.̶ ̸F̴O̵R̸G̵ET̷?" Her voice came from the mist itself, pulsating violently as her voice exploded. "DO̶ Y̵O̸U̶ KN͝O͝W HO͝W I̷T FE̴LT?"
Then the fog retracted, resuming a calm hover.
"W̸͝͞hy̵͞-͢ why̵͞-͢w̸͞h̷͢͞y̵͞ ͢͞-w̸͞hy did you l͝e͜a͞v͝e͞ ͜m͝e͞e͜e͞?͜"
Now her words skipped like a broken record, all manner of humanity had gone.
"I tried—" he choked out.
Behind him another voice joined—fainter, higher. Then more. Dozens. Swelling from every direction until the air thickened with them.
"YOU. LEFT."
"Y̵O̸U̶.̶ ̸F̴O̵R̸G̵O̶T̷T̸E̴N̸.̶"
"G̵A̶I̸N̷.̸ FREEDOM."
"LEFT."
"ONLY."
"P̵A̴I̷N̶.̸"
"SUFFERING."
"D͝A͞M͞N͝A͞T͝I͞O͝N͞.͞"
"BETRAYED."
"HEARTLESS."
"MURDERER."
Each accusation struck deep, the voices braiding together until sound became weight, hammering through his skull.
The other voices layered over hers, twisting the memories and regrets he had buried deepest: the night he chose one more experiment instead of answering her call, the way her laugh used to fill the kitchen before everything went quiet. Every missed dinner, every half-finished sentence, every time he'd told himself "tomorrow" while she slowly faded away.
The blue dimmed further through the mist.
He staggered, palms clamped over his ears.
"STOP IT!"
His knees gave way under the weight of it.
Figures multiplied in the blue fog no matter where he looked. He wrenched his head down and squeezed his eyes shut. The voices only swelled, braiding into one relentless tone that drilled through marrow.
Then his body crumpled, head slamming against the chilled earth.
His mother's voice rose above them—clear, accusing.
"You. Let. Us. ̶D̵I̴E̶—
D̵I̴E̶.̵.͞'͞
D͝I͞E͝EEE.͞'͞"
They were no longer random screams.
They were his.
"GAHH!"
White bursts flared behind his eyes as teeth grinded and nails scraped skin. Vitalis ignited under his skin like liquid fire desperate for release.
His hands shook so hard he couldn't feel his fingertips. Chest heaved. The weight of it all pressed down until he couldn't tell where the mist ended and his own grief began.
"STOP!"
Temperature plummeted. The heat died.
Creeping frost spread through the clearing. The whispering fungus and inching roots that had been shifting towards him halted with a brittle crackle.
Luminary response, not through deliberation, but through sheer emotion.
Tsk. Crack-CRACK!
He roared—raw, animal, every buried grief tearing free at once.
The sound ripped from his lungs and slammed outward. His back unfolded, shoulders rolling backwards as Vitalis surged.
BOOM!
The ground detonated beneath him. Ice exploded outward in a perfect, shattering ring—first the sharp crack of frozen soil splitting, then the deep groan of roots tearing free, fungus crusted in frost breaking apart in brittle sheets, shards slicing through the fog like knives.
The blast carried through his legs, vibrating up his spine, momentum snapping his arms wide as frost bloomed in a widening circle, ripping through every illusion in its path. For one frozen heartbeat the voices crystallised, sharp and clear, then shattered into silence.
The mist recoiled—then surged back, heavier, clinging to the earth like grave soil.
When the shards settled, only drifting frost remained. The voices were finally gone.
Arion still knelt there, breath coming hard and cold as his hands shook violently.
Tss.
The mist hung motionless.
Then the cracking began. White noise flooded his ears, replaced by his own hammering heartbeat, then the ragged saw of his breathing.
He sagged, one hand catching him before he hit the frozen ground, chest heaving in a raw rhythm, condensation beading on his lashes.
Spores that had once drifted now rained down as tiny ice crystals in lazy spirals around him. Frost steamed from his palms.
His silver hair stirred as his gaze fixed on the journal lying face-down nearby, half-frozen to the soil. With sheer will, he pushed himself back to his feet, stumbling as his knees shook.
Finally he regained his footing.
He pried it free with numb fingers and stood there in the frost for what felt like minutes.
The quiet pressed in—thin, fragile, broken only by the soft crunch of ice under his shifting weight. He stared at the closed journal, thumb hovering over the cover, but his hand wouldn't stop trembling.
He pried it open.
The ink had warped again, fresh sentences bled across the page as though unseen fingers brushed over it.
'YOU WERE ALONE.'
'YOU LEFT THEM.'
'BUT.'
'YOU CAN STAY HERE.'
'THEY CAN BE ONE WITH YOU'
He slammed it shut, jaw clenched until his teeth ached.
He leaned against the nearest trunk. The bark was slick; cold seeped straight through to bone.
Quiet returned—thin, fragile. He could hear his pulse echoing like machinery winding down. It should have felt peaceful. It didn't. The ache in his chest wouldn't settle.
Time went by, until his voice emerged hoarse.
"They're gone."
Yet the treacherous sliver of hope flickered anyway.
But here I am, alive. What if—
No. Don't.
He clutched his head firmly, as if he was physically holding together the struggle that roared within.
Then he caught sight of his reflection in a shallow frozen puddle beside his boot: bloodshot eyes staring back, skin colourless, a half-grin twisted by exhaustion that looked more like a grimace.
He hated it. Hated the hollow thing looking up at him.
He latched onto the only thing that still felt stable—analysis.
"Definitely a hallucination," he muttered. "Even my reflection looks like shit."
"Fungal neurotoxins," he muttered, voice cracking on the first word. "Spore-based. Airborne mist reacts with Vitalis… induces trance state. Classic predatory mechanism. Keeps prey docile. Feeds on metabolic slowdown. Potentially converts Vitalis into nutrition—or just consumes the person itself."
"It was fungus messing with your brain, dumbass." He laughed once—short, flat, dead on arrival. "Nothing here is bringing them back."
He stood in the dim light until the ache behind his eyes dulled, legs heavy, frost still clinging to his coat. The mist finally thinned. He could not say how much time had passed.
He hesitated, then forced the journal open again, thumbing back to the original page. The handwriting had returned—calm, even, almost mocking.
'Avoid the heavy mist.'
'It causes hallucinations.'
'Their sins. Death. Love. Trauma.'
'Don't linger, otherwise it will cause madness.'
Fresh lines gouged themselves beneath, desperate and jagged:
'DON'T LET IT GET HOLD OF YOU.'
'YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO LEAVE.'
His grip tightened until the spine creaked.
"FUCK!"
The shout vanished into the fog without echo. He hurled the book at the ground. "Then you should've led with that, you bastard!"
"Fucking idiot…" he snarled at the absent writer.
The sound went nowhere.
He slumped against the trunk again, breathing hard from fury more than fear.
The canopy glowed faint blue above him, spores drifting like slow ash. For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt small—just another creature caught inside something vast and indifferent.
The forest waited, mute and patient.
After a long while he pushed upright, retrieved the journal, and brushed frost and dirt from its cover. As he lowered it, broken shards of ice mirrored his face once more.
He turned slightly, not all the way, and caught two distant silhouettes in the last haze of mist—too far for features, only shapes. Watching.
Neither moved.
He blinked. They dissolved into colour.
The fog folded over the space they had occupied, sealing it clean.
Arion squared his shoulders, exhaled once.
His chest still carried the ghost of that old warmth—the feeling fleeting. He moved on anyway, held upright by sheer will.
Inside, the hollow remained—cold and calculating.
He set off toward the faint outline of a toppled obelisk ahead—its cracked point aimed deeper into the forest where the ruins waited.
The hum of the Blue Forest faded into a silence that was not empty. It was only waiting.