"When a man steps away from the circle,
the forest does not welcome him.
It swallows his name,
and leaves behind only echoes that never belonged to him."
Kabir walked away.
The firelight behind him flickered like a dying star.
Each step stealing him further from the warmth of voices.
From arguments.
From fragile alliances that were already breaking.
His chest burned with pride and defiance.
With the certainty that they didn't deserve him anyway.
That he was better off alone.
That solitude was better than the slow suffocation of being trapped with people who looked at him like he was the problem.
But as the darkness pressed in, something strange happened.
The night did not feel like night anymore.
It felt like something else.
Something that was pretending to be night.
Trees bent in directions he had never seen before.
Angles that shouldn't be possible.
Roots twisted like veins beneath his feet.
Like the earth itself was becoming skin.
Becoming flesh.
The air tasted wrong.
Metallic.
Old.
Like he was breathing in the memory of rust.
Kabir paused.
The forest smelled of rust and old blood.
Though no wound had opened.
Though nothing had been torn.
He touched his arm—perfectly fine.
Skin intact.
No damage.
He inhaled again.
The copper stench grew stronger.
Surrounding him.
Suffocating him.
It was coming from inside.
From his chest.
From his blood.
Somewhere between his steps, the ground lost its shape.
He could not tell if he was walking forward.
Or if the forest had turned itself to meet him.
Or if he was walking in place.
Running in circles.
Trapped in a loop that had no exit.
The trees seemed to whisper his name.
Though not in his voice.
Not in his tone.
In voices that were layered.
That were multiple.
That were ancient.
"Kabir… Kabir…"
He froze.
The whispers layered on top of one another.
Like dozens of mouths calling from the hollow inside the trunks.
Like the trees themselves had learned to speak.
Like the forest had a language and his name was the only word it knew.
He looked back.
The camp was gone.
No firelight.
No voices.
No trace.
Only black.
Absolute.
Complete.
The darkness so complete it seemed to have substance.
Seemed to be a thing you could touch.
And then—he heard footsteps.
Not his own.
Slow.
Wet.
Slapping against the roots and mud.
The sound of something that was heavier than it should be.
That was dragging weight that shouldn't exist.
Kabir tried to speak.
But his throat was full of silence.
He couldn't even hear his own breath.
Couldn't hear his heartbeat.
Couldn't hear anything that would prove he was still alive.
Something moved behind a tree.
A shape.
Wrong in its proportions.
Impossibly long limbs.
A body that didn't quite fit inside its own skin.
It leaned when he leaned.
It turned when he turned.
It was following him.
Or perhaps it was leading him.
Or perhaps there was no difference.
Then, it smiled.
He couldn't see a mouth.
But he felt the smile.
Like a knife scraping the inside of his skull.
Like teeth that existed only in his mind.
Like an expression made of pure malevolence.
He ran.
But the strange thing was, no matter how far he ran, the forest never changed.
The same bent tree.
The same roots.
The same whisper:
"Kabir… why did you leave them?"
"Why did you leave… yourself?"
His hands shook.
Trembling.
Betraying him.
He scratched his arm.
This time, blood poured out.
Black, not red.
Not the color of living blood.
But something older.
Something that had been inside him all along.
Something that had been waiting for him to be alone.
The forest laughed.
The sound echoed in infinite directions.
Until Kabir himself began to laugh with it.
His laugh wasn't his own.
It was hollow.
Metallic.
Drenched in mud.
The sound of someone who had stopped being themselves.
The sound of something else wearing his skin.
He collapsed to his knees.
His legs giving out.
His body refusing to continue.
And from the soil, hands began to crawl out.
Pale hands.
Mud-caked.
Clawing at his legs.
His chest.
His face.
Fingers that were too long.
Nails that were too sharp.
They weren't strangers.
He knew them.
Rohit's hands.
He recognized the calluses.
The scars from the crash.
Saanvi's hands.
With the same shape as her fingers.
The same small birthmark on the wrist.
Yashpal's hands.
Large and strong.
Priya's hands.
Delicate but determined.
Meghna's hands.
Holding her diary.
Always holding something.
Diya's hands.
Small.
Trembling.
The hands that held the locket.
Even Abhay's hands.
Digging into him.
All of them.
All of their hands.
Clawing.
Pulling.
Dragging.
"Stay with us…"
Their voices came from everywhere.
From inside the trees.
From inside the earth.
From inside his own head.
"Stay forever."
Kabir screamed.
But the forest had already swallowed his voice.
It was gone.
His voice was gone.
His body remained, but his voice had been consumed.
Had been digested by the darkness.
Had become part of the forest's silence.
The hands pulled deeper.
Dragging him down.
Down into the earth.
Down into the mud.
Down into a place where names go to die.
Where people go when they stop being people.
Where the forest keeps what it has claimed.
The last thing Kabir saw was his own hand reaching back toward the camp.
Reaching toward the firelight that was gone.
Reaching toward people who would never know what happened to him.
Who would only know that he had walked into the dark.
And never returned.
"The forest does not kill.
It remembers.
And in remembering, it unravels those
who thought they could walk alone."