Aaron had been walking since morning, and the sun wasn't even at its peak yet, but it already felt like he'd been traveling for days. The old highway stretched out like a scar through the dead world, lined with crushed flying drones, overturned buses, and metal that still held the scent of burned plastic. Every few meters he found himself having to climb over a vehicle or slide under a collapsed frame. His boots scraped against broken glass. The air was dry enough to sting the throat.
He paused at the side of a huge cargo truck, then hauled himself up its tilted frame. From the top, he scanned the road. Heat shimmered off the metal, bending the sunlight in strange waves. Nothing but silence and the long, abandoned road ahead.
Then he saw movement.
At first he thought it was his eyes playing tricks on him. But no. A cluster of figures materialized on the far end of the road. Their silhouettes wavered, unsteady, like the ground beneath them was shifting. Aaron narrowed his eyes, watching their stumbling run.
People. Living, breathing people.
He remained where he was, half crouched on the truck, and waited to see if they would stop or continue running past him. Instead, their pace turned frantic once they noticed him, and in minutes the thunder of footsteps hit the broken pavement.
By the time they reached him, Aaron had already descended and sat on a block of concrete that lay loosely. The group didn't slow down. Instead, they almost collapsed near him.
Ten in all, six men and four women. Each soaked with perspiration, their clothing torn, scratches to the arms that looked like they'd been clawed by branches or something worse. And the breathing, ragged, almost wheezing.
One of the men stumbled forward, his eyes wide with fear.
"Brother… run," he gasped out, his voice shaking. "Run. Don't stay here. If you're going to the human residential area, LEAVE. Go far. It will devour you. Run!"
Another woman seized his arm and pulled him. "We have to go! Don't stop, don't…don't even look back!"
Whatever had chased them wasn't here anymore, yet they acted like it still had its shadow on their necks. They barely waited for Aaron's reaction and immediately turned, bolting down a side road and disappearing into the trees. The sound of their footsteps faded fast, like they ran for their lives instead of choosing a direction.
Aaron watched them go, expression steady.
Inside his mechanical watch, Quanta's voice crackled to life. "Their phrasing is odd. What forest? The residential zone only uses structured bio-trees. They're planted sparsely. They can't form anything close to a jungle."
Aaron dusted off his palms and stood. "We'll see when we reach it."
He continued north. The road gradually shifted from broken asphalt to sections swallowed by roots. The deeper he went, the more the air shifted. Moister, heavier, with an earthy scent that spoke to a place untouched by human hands. Quanta fell silent, analyzing.
The sun hung high overhead when they finally reached the old residential region.
But the place ahead of them was not a city.
It was a jungle.
Towering trunks twisted together, forming thick walls of green. Roots cracked open the pavement and swallowed entire intersections. Buildings that should have stood tall were buried under layers of bark and vines, as if swallowed whole. The forest blotted out parts of the sky, leaving only fragments of blue between leaves that shouldn't even exist in this climate.
Quanta spoke again, tone sharper. "This density is impossible. These trees didn't grow. They… appeared."
Aaron stepped toward the darkness under the sprawling canopy. The shade was heavy, too heavy, as if it absorbed sound. Even his footsteps felt muffled. A faint chill crawled along the nape of his neck.
"Let's go," he said.
In the jungle, the light moved strangely. The sun still touched leaves, but the earth below was dark. A thin layer of fog clung to the dirt, swirling around their ankles. Some of the vines pulsed faintly when touched by wind. Others twitched without any wind at all.
Aaron's instincts sharpened. He would stop every few minutes, listening. Something moved out in the distance. It sounded at times like cracking branches, other times like soft breathing. But whenever he turned toward it, nothing appeared.
Quanta scanned constantly. "Life forms detected, but the readings are inconsistent. It's like the signals move when I focus on them."
They pressed deeper.
The air thickened. The scent of damp leaves and something metallic hung heavy. Aaron brushed past a low branch and felt the bark beneath his fingers, and it was warm. Almost like skin.
A whisper drifted between the trees.
He turned. Nothing.
Another few steps. A rustling above. Quanta extended a small mechanical lens, scanning.
"Multiple organisms approaching… wait. No, they're gone. No, they…"
Her voice stuttered, a rare glitch.
Aaron's face darkened. Things that played with perception generally weren't friendly.
By afternoon, shadows deepened though the sky outside should still have been bright. The deeper they went, the more out of place the forest felt. Every trunk leaned a little inward. Every vine seemed angled toward them. It was like walking into the throat of something alive.
Aaron stopped when he sensed it.
A presence. It was not running, hiding. But was watching him.
Leaves fluttered without wind. The fog parted silently.
A woman stepped out from between two crooked trees.
Her clothes were worn but clean; her posture straight. A pale mask covered her face, smooth and expressionless. There was a scar blue colored on her eye part of the mask. Her hair was long and dark, tied behind her like a shadow. She made no sound, not even the faint rustle of footsteps.
Quanta whispered from the watch, "Materialization detected. She wasn't there a second ago."
She did not blink. Her head did not tilt. She didn't move at all except for that slow rise in her breathing.
Aaron's hand hovered near his weapon.
The masked woman spoke, her voice soft enough to disturb the fog around her ankles.
"You came…deeper than the others."
Her tone was odd, neither threatening nor welcome. More like she was reciting a line she'd repeated many times before.
Aaron kept his stance steady, silent.
The woman raised her hand, and a faint breeze curled around her fingers.
"You shouldn't have come in here."
Behind her, the fog shifted to reveal vague shapes moving between the trees.
A dozen shapes. Or more.
Aaron's eyes narrowed. The mask on the woman's face tipped, and the carved smile appeared to broaden in the drifting light. "Now," she whispered, "you cannot leave."
The forest closed in as the shadows moved.