The cavern waited — ancient, listening, endless.
Before me, the two paths glowed:
one white, one red…
pulsing like twin heartbeats buried deep beneath the earth.
Annabelle watched, her hollow eyes reflecting both the sister I once knew and something far older — something carved from the bones of the forest.
I stepped forward.
My choice had already settled in my blood long before my mind dared to accept it.
She whispered, barely a breath:
"Think before you choose."
Her voice trembled — not with threat, but with hope. A fragile, impossible hope.
I turned to her, throat tight.
"No. I remember now. Maybe not everything… but I remember you always protecting me. Even when I didn't deserve it."
Her expression flickered — a ghost of the sister who used to braid flowers into my hair.
A tiny, aching flicker.
"You followed me," she murmured, her voice soft as falling leaves. "Even when you were afraid."
A choked laugh escaped me.
"And look at us now. I'm terrified. And still following."
Behind us, the ancient entity shifted, its silhouette swallowing the faint light.
It was patient. Eternal.
True horrors never hurry; they have all the time in the world.
"Annabelle," I said, my voice barely holding, "you didn't run from your wedding. You were trying to save us. Save me."
She blinked once — slow, heavy — and a single tear slipped down her pale cheek like a drop of moonlight.
"I thought I could end it alone," she whispered. "If I gave myself willingly… maybe it would stop with me."
I shook my head.
"But it didn't."
Her voice broke like brittle wood.
"No. The pact was made by two children. Only one returned. The promise remained open… waiting."
The cavern swallowed the silence between us.
"I can end it," I said.
Her eyes widened — fear blooming where resignation once lived.
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"If you take the red path, it won't kill you. It will take you. Become you. And I will be free."
I nodded.
"I know."
Tears blurred my vision — my tears — but she reached for me with trembling hands, and for the first time in ten long years, she sounded human.
"Please… choose the white path. We can run. We can try. Together."
I took her cold hands in mine and shook my head.
"You've carried this alone for too long."
The paths throbbed behind us, glowing like the breath of some ancient beast.
Annabelle pressed her forehead against mine — cold, familiar, heartbreaking.
"I don't deserve this," she whispered.
"No one does," I said gently. "But someone has to choose. And it's my turn."
Something inside her shattered.
Her grip tightened, desperate, shaking.
"Don't make me live without you."
I gave her a sad smile — the kind you only make once in a lifetime.
"You already did."
I slipped my hands from hers.
She didn't stop me.
She couldn't.
Because some part of her — the part buried under a decade of fear and sacrifice — understood that this was the only ending the woods would accept.
I stepped toward the red path.
The cavern hummed — a deep, ancient vibration rolling through stone and soil, as though the forest itself recognized the completion of a long-unpaid debt.
The entity spoke, its voice like roots breaking through earth:
"Balance restored. Debt paid."
Behind me, Annabelle collapsed to her knees.
Her sobs were raw, human, devastating — each one carving itself into the stone.
I didn't look back.
Some heartbreaks are too heavy to witness.
I took one final breath — full, steady, resolute — and stepped into the red light.
It burned.
Not like fire.
Like memory.
Like blood.
Like a voice calling from the bottom of the well we once stood beside as children:
We remember you.
My body melted into warmth and shadow and something timeless.
I felt myself unravel, thread by thread, until I became the earth… the roots… the ancient pulse that lived beneath the clearing.
Somewhere far above, faint and trembling, Annabelle's last whisper reached me:
"Thank you."
Then the woods grew silent — deeply, reverently silent.
The pact was complete.
There must always be two.
Now, there were again.
One keeper.
One bridge.
One gone…
so the other could return.
THE END OF FIRST SEASON