Night fell like a heavy curtain over the clearing, smothering the sound of insects and the rustling of leaves. It felt as if the forest itself had chosen silence. The fire burned low, and the glow of the White Spirit Flower flickered strangely, as if it struggled to remain lit.
Ren had sensed something since sunset.It wasn't like the Cycle's pressure.Not spiritual.Something physical.A faint displacement, as if the forest were pushing something away—or something were pushing its way in.
Draven, restless, played with small flames in his hands, but they kept dying too fast."The fire doesn't wanna stay lit," he muttered.
Borin sat with his axe across his knees, staring at the darkness between two specific trees—as if waiting for them to move.
Lyra was unusually quiet.The wind around her blew low and steady, like a held breath.
Ren stood with the staff in hand, feeling its slow, almost lazy pulse.Not a warning.Just… listening.
The clearing was so silent that every movement sounded too loud.
And then it happened.
A dry crack.Then another.Then the dragging sound of something heavy brushing across the ground—too weighted to be branches, too soft to be any animal they knew.
Lyra raised her bow, arrow drawn in an instant."It's coming."
Draven stepped back, flames flaring in his palms."And the wind is… weird."
Ren felt it too.The air didn't just feel still—it felt like it was being pulled toward somewhere beyond the trees.A breath inhaled backward.
Borin stood up slowly.
Another crack.Closer.
Ren took a step forward, and the main root of the White Spirit Flower trembled beneath the soil.Not startled.Warning.
A smell reached them next.
Metallic. Wet.With a sour undertone.
Lyra's voice was barely a breath."…Blood."
"Not human," Borin added.
The sound grew nearer—uneven footsteps, dragging ones.
Draven swallowed."It's coming straight for us…"
Ren inhaled deeply.
The staff vibrated in his hand.
The darkness between the trees shifted—and something stepped out.
First came the eyes.
Two dull yellow orbs, lifeless and glassy—the eyes of something that had stared at the night too long and forgotten daylight.
When the body emerged, all four stepped back together.
It was a deer.Or something that once had been a deer.
Its skin hung in strips, torn like wet cloth.Ribs showed through rotted flesh.Its antlers were split in impossible angles—as if something had twisted them from the inside.
Every step made bone scrape bone.
But the worst wasn't the corpse.
It was the root.
A single black root protruded from its chest, thin and long, as if pierced through its heart and left there—controlling whatever remained.
Lyra felt nausea twist her stomach."That's… not natural."
"It's worse," Borin murmured. "It's controlled."
The dead creature staggered forward, heading straight toward them.Like something was dragging it.Or commanding it.
Draven tried to joke, voice cracking:"Uh… I don't think it wants a hug."
No one laughed.
Ren stepped forward.
The staff in his hand vibrated hard, reacting to something familiar.The black root pulsed back.
For a moment, Ren felt as if it were connected to the Cycle—but in a different, wrong way.Like a broken piece of a whole.Something that shouldn't exist.
The creature let out a low moan—warped, trapped, unnatural.Draven almost lost the flames in his hands.
Lyra pulled her bowstring tighter.
Borin raised his axe.
Ren lifted the staff.
The deer lurched.
Not fast.Not strong.But like something pushing it from behind.Forcing it to move.
Forcing it to come.
Ren felt it.A cold wave of pity—and a deep, silent dread.
The creature lifted its dead gaze toward him.The black root in its chest glowed faintly—a weak, pulsing signal.
Ren understood in an instant:
This wasn't an attack.It was a messenger.Or a warning.
Before he could say anything, the creature opened its mouth.
Something wet and round fell onto the ground.
A clump of flesh wrapped in black roots.
It landed with a soft thud and opened like a dead flower.
At its center, something pulsed.
Lyra stepped back."Ren… what is that…"
Ren didn't answer.
Because in the same moment, the staff vibrated so strongly it hurt his hand.
And a single word echoed inside his mind:
"Found."
The deer collapsed instantly, as if its strings had been cut.The black root crumbled into dark dust.
Silence returned.
But it wasn't the same silence as before.
It was heavy.Loaded.Full of things none of them knew how to name.
Draven gulped."Ren…"
"…what was that?" Lyra finished.
Ren didn't know.
But he knew enough to feel the forest's fear.Enough to feel urgency knotting in his chest.
Something had found them.
Something had arrived.
And for the first time since his encounter with the Cycle, Ren felt real fear—not from visions or nightmares…
…but from something walking the earth.
Something that wasn't alone.