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Sunlight spilled across the town's quiet streets.
Soren and Sheriff Boyd walked side by side back into town.
A passenger bus sat crooked on the roadside, its doors hanging open. Blood spattered the sides and the ground around it. Residents moved in small, numb groups, cleaning up bodies without speaking.
"Boyd? The hell are you doing back here?!"
A stocky Chinese-American man with a sidearm hurried over. Deputy Kenny. He took in Boyd's ragged state, then gave Soren a wary once-over.
"I thought you and Sara went into the woods to find a way out. Where is she?"
Boyd stared at the blood-soaked bus for a long moment before answering.
"We ran into spiders in the forest. After we went through a tree hole, we got separated."
"Tree hole? What the fuck does that mean?"
Boyd explained. "I crawled into this split in a tree and got sent somewhere else. I'm guessing Sara went through the same thing."
Kenny looked at him with open suspicion. Ever since Sara had gotten people killed and Boyd had kept protecting her, the young deputy had stopped trusting him completely.
Kenny's eyes shifted to Soren, taking in the similar mixed features.
"Who's this?"
"Name's Soren," Boyd said. "He's here looking for Nico."
"Nico?"
Kenny planted his hands on his hips. "You mean the crazy woman who drove that beat-up van around like she owned the place?"
He pointed toward a dirt road at the far end of town.
"Her piece-of-shit van's been sitting at the edge of town for days. Hasn't moved."
Boyd clapped Soren on the shoulder. "Go check it out. I'm heading home to see my boy."
Soren nodded and started walking in the direction Kenny had pointed.
He hadn't gone far when a middle-aged woman in a floral dress stepped out in front of him, blocking his path. She was a little heavy, with a flat, practiced smile.
"Hey there, new face. I'm Donna."
She gestured toward a nearby building. "I run the communal house. Plenty of single folks and people who've lost their families stay together here. We eat, do laundry, look out for each other."
"Once you get your friend situation sorted, head over to the station and register. Pick your housing while you're at it."
Everyone who ended up here had to choose—live in the group house or on their own.
Soren gave her a flat look and a short nod, then kept walking.
At the edge of town he spotted Nico's van parked near the tree line. He pulled the door open and climbed inside.
This was the first time he'd ever been in her van.
The front was normal—driver's seat, steering wheel. The back seats had been ripped out and replaced with a workbench covered in wires, circuit boards, tools, and a laptop that was still in sleep mode.
He woke the laptop. Three PDF files sat on the desktop.
He opened the one labeled [Town Residents].
Inside were Nico's notes from interviews and observations. At the bottom was her analysis: every person who ended up here had been carrying deep, unhealed trauma before they arrived.
Boyd and his wife—both ex-military, both wrecked by PTSD.
Deputy Kenny—his father with dementia had wandered off; Kenny still carried the guilt.
Even the town priest had ignored a little boy's cry for help, and the kid had been beaten to death by his own father.
Soren's finger paused on the trackpad.
Gathering a bunch of broken people like this…
If Alessa hadn't been living inside him, he would've sworn this was another branch of Silent Hill.
He opened the next file: [Town].
Photos of cut-open wires and streetlights. The insulation looked normal, but there was no copper core inside—just empty skin. The circuits appeared out of nowhere. Nico had written that the entire town was most likely a simulated world or a closed experimental facility created by something powerful for reasons she hadn't figured out yet.
The next section was about the faraway trees.
The trunks split vertically like half-open eyes. Nico had tested them with rocks and machines first. Anything without a mind just fell out of the sky back where it started. She eventually went through herself and came to a conclusion:
The trees didn't send people randomly. The destination was influenced by the traveler's subconscious.
If you entered thinking about how much you hated the town and how badly you wanted to escape, you usually got dropped somewhere lethal—like inside solid rock.
She had bolded the warning at the bottom:
When you go through, empty your head. Don't think about leaving.
Soren let out a low whistle. She'd actually figured out the hidden rule.
Further down was another tree entry—this one with glass bottles hanging from the branches. It led to a lighthouse. Nico had reached the base when the sky turned black with lightning. Monsters she'd never seen before swarmed her like they were trying to stop her from going any higher. She made it to the top anyway. The lighthouse was empty.
There was a short note about a boy in a white shirt who kept appearing during her explorations, trying to get her to do something. She'd ignored him.
The last file had no name. It had been edited a week ago.
Soren's expression grew serious as he read.
Nico had written that the monsters that appeared every night moved slowly and only came out after dark. At first she thought they just enjoyed killing. Then she noticed something off.
They didn't seem that excited about the actual killing. What they really seemed to enjoy was the fear the humans gave off when they saw them.
It looked like they were collecting that fear.
And the way they wandered around—relaxed, almost casual—reminded her of farmers herding cattle at dusk with a whip.
Soren's brow tightened.
So the monsters weren't hunting.
They were herding the residents like livestock.
And the talismans… they weren't really keeping the monsters out. They were keeping the humans in. Locks without keyholes.
That explained why the stone had felt like nothing special to him—just an ordinary rock.
Maybe there was something even worse waiting outside once the sun went down.
Or maybe there were other clues she hadn't found yet.
He scrolled to the bottom. The final entry was short.
Today I'm going to try going through the faraway tree with the bottles. At night.
Soren closed the laptop and rubbed his temples.
"Goddamn genius."
This town was a mess of overlapping horrors. It would break most people who landed here. Even he only half-understood what was really going on.
But Nico had been close to cracking the whole thing.
If he'd shown up a few days later, she might have soloed the place.
Since she'd left these notes behind, the only thing left to do was wait for dark.
Then follow her map to the bottle tree and see exactly what she had found.
Knock knock knock.
The window glass rattled.
Soren looked up.
Sheriff Boyd stood outside, face grim.