{Forbidden Forrest: 1982}
There was no light.
No sound.
Only the sharp, metallic taste of fear on his tongue and the sickening thud of his heart pounding in his ears.
He didn't know how he got here—only that this wasn't home.
Trees loomed above him like giants, skeletal and swaying. The air was cold, thick with rot and something else… something ancient. He was barefoot, his toes sinking into the wet earth, his clothes felt wrong, unfamiliar and child-sized.
"What the hell...?" he whispered—but it came out wrong. High-pitched. Fragile.
He froze.
That wasn't his voice.
Slowly, he lifted his hands.
Small hands. Pale, trembling. Not his.
A sharp breath caught in his throat. He staggered back - and that's when he heard it—a rustle, then a low hiss behind him. He turned.
A figure stood in the shadows between the trees.
And another.
And another.
Pale faces. Glowing red eyes. The kind of nightmare you only read about in dark fantasy forums—except now, they were real.
"Human child," one whispered. Its voice sounded like ice cracking beneath weight. "So far from the wards… what a gift."
His body reacted before his mind could catch up.
He ran.
Branches clawed at his face. Thorns tore at his legs. The forest twisted around him, endless and suffocating. His lungs burned, his stride too short, his body too weak.
He could still see—from the corner of his eyes—the figures merging with the shadows, slipping between the trees with horrifying speed, faster than anything human.
No footsteps. No breath. Just the silent inevitability of the hunt.
Between ragged breaths, he felt their presence closing in.
Closer.
Closer—
Then—
Pain.
Fangs sank into his shoulder.
White-hot agony tore through him. He screamed—a raw, broken sound that didn't belong to a man, but to a child.
The creature's grip was iron-cold as it dragged him back.
"Just a taste…"
But before it could drink deep—
CRACK!
A beam of light tore through the darkness.
"Stupefy!"
"Confringo!"
The vampire was thrown back. Another hissed and lunged, only to be hit mid-air by a searing flame.
Two figures burst from the trees, cloaked in red, their wand tips blazing, their movements sharp and precise.
A duel erupted around him in flashes of crimson and gold.
He lay on the forest floor, numb, his vision blurring as blood soaked into his collar. He heard shouting. Spells. A name—maybe.
He was fading.
But just before the dark claimed him—
something stirred. Not memory, but a flicker of recognition.
He didn't know who they were. Didn't know where he was.
But he understood this.
The way they moved. The way they fought.
The way they hunted the creatures hunting him.
A whisper echoed, rising from somewhere deep inside his mind:
"...magic…"
Then all was quiet.