The woods swallowed me the moment I stepped off the gravel path, branches clawing at my borrowed skin like they knew I didn't belong in it. The night didn't speak—it only watched. Even the crunch of my boots disappeared faster than it should've, like the world was holding its breath.
Silence.
The kind that seeps into your bones and starts whispering things that aren't there.
My breath fogged the air as I pushed deeper into the clearing, each step dragging this dead man's body through resistance. The boots felt too heavy, the shirt clung too tightly, and the heart in my chest beat like it hadn't decided whether to live or not. I gripped a nearby tree, grounding myself. My palms were numb. My fingers stiff, like they were still trying to remember how to be alive.
The fire pit came into view again—the one I'd stumbled upon earlier. The ash inside was fading, but warm enough to say someone had been here. Recently. Maybe minutes before I'd woken up in that tub of ice.
I crouched beside it, a twinge sparking in my knee. Not pain—just… memory. Like the joint had its own death to remember. Half-buried in the dirt lay the cracked phone I'd found earlier. The screen was dark now, but the image it last showed was burned into my mind.
Her face, she was just a child.
Her small smile. Bright eyes. Innocence unbothered by the darkness around her. And now—gone.
A chill passed through the clearing, and I swear I heard it again. Not my voice,
I snapped my head up. Nothing. Just shadows. And the wind shifting like it knew more than I did.
I grabbed the phone, slid it into the jacket pocket that didn't quite fit, and stood. Ahead, the road curled toward the city—its lights faint, flickering like stars gasping for breath. Whoever dragged this man into the woods… whoever killed him… whoever took Victoria… walked that way.
Now I was walking it too.
Same boots.
Same body.
Different soul.
A bad trade for them.
The silence grew heavier behind me as I left the house behind—just a whisper in the dark now. I didn't look back. Not because I was brave, but because the body I was in… *refused to.*
He'd already said goodbye to that place.