Morning did not come in the forest.
There was no sunrise.
Only a thinning of mist and a slight softening of shadow that suggested time had moved.
Pluto had not slept much.
He wasn't sure if sleep was even safe.
The girl sat across from him on a low root that curved out of the ground like the spine of some buried creature. She had pulled her knees close to her chest, arms wrapped around them, eyes alert despite obvious exhaustion.
They had found a pocket of ground that felt stable — not safe, exactly, but less wrong than the rest. The mist hovered just beyond a loose circle of trees, as if waiting.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Pluto watched the forest.
She watched him.
"You don't say much," she said finally, voice low so it wouldn't carry.
He didn't look at her. "Nothing useful to say yet."
A faint huff escaped her. Not quite a laugh.
"I'm Mira," she said after a moment. "Seventeen."
He gave a small nod. "Pluto."
"That your real name?"
"Yes."
She studied him again, as if trying to decide whether he was lying. He didn't elaborate.
Silence returned, but it was lighter now.
The kind that comes after the decision not to be strangers.
After a few minutes, she spoke again. "You felt it too, right?"
He glanced at her.
"The week," she clarified. "Before this."
He held her gaze for a second, then looked back toward the mist.
"Yes."
Her shoulders dropped slightly, relieved. "Okay. Good. I thought I was losing my mind."
She shifted, rubbing her arms as if remembering something cold.
"At first it was just… static. Like the air buzzing. Lights flickering where I live. My mom said the wiring was old." She gave a small, humorless smile. "Then people started disappearing overseas. We watched it on the news. I didn't feel scared."
"Why not?" Pluto asked.
"I don't know." She frowned slightly. "It felt… close. Not distant. Like it was coming."
He understood that.
"The air changed," he said.
Mira nodded immediately. "Yes. Exactly. Like before a storm. But there were no clouds."
He flexed his right arm unconsciously.
The snake shifted slightly beneath his sleeve — not enough for her to notice, but enough for him to feel.
"I started seeing shadows move wrong," she continued. "Just a little. Out of sync. I'd turn, and nothing would be there."
He didn't respond right away.
"Same."
Her eyes sharpened. "And the temperature? Did it—"
"Yes."
They sat in that shared recognition for a moment.
Something had prepared them.
Not physically.
But perceptually.
The forest around them creaked faintly, wood settling.
Mira lowered her voice further. "When it happened… when I got pulled here, it wasn't sudden. It just… came over me. Like fog filling a room."
Pluto didn't answer.
He remembered the weight in his chest.
The electric pulse threading through the walls.
The mist appearing from nowhere.
Mira studied him again. "You're not surprised by any of this."
"I am," he said calmly. "Surprise doesn't help."
She absorbed that.
A branch snapped somewhere behind them.
Not close.
Not far.
They both went still.
This forest had different layers of sound.
There were natural ones — distant leaf shift, bark settling, slow root movement.
And there were wrong ones.
This was wrong.
Not heavy like the first predator.
Lighter.
Erratic.
Pluto rose slowly to his feet.
Mira followed without hesitation.
"What do you think it is?" she whispered.
"Smaller," he replied.
She blinked. "How do you—"
He tilted his head slightly.
The air felt uneven ahead of them.
Disturbed.
A faint scraping noise slid along bark somewhere to their right.
Pluto stepped sideways.
The snake pressed subtly against his skin again, angled slightly left this time.
He shifted left.
Mira noticed. "You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Changing direction before anything happens."
He didn't answer.
The scraping came again — closer now. Quick. Sharp.
Something darted through the mist.
Low to the ground.
Fast.
It didn't charge openly.
It tested.
Pluto moved without thinking, positioning himself slightly ahead of Mira.
The creature burst from the undergrowth.
It resembled a mass of twisted vines, bundled tightly into a rough shape that mimicked an animal's body. No clear head. No clear limbs. Just layered plant matter pulling itself forward in abrupt jerks.
It wasn't large — maybe the size of a medium dog.
Its surface shifted constantly, vines weaving and unweaving in restless motion.
Mira inhaled sharply.
The creature lunged.
Pluto stepped aside at the last second, grabbing Mira's sleeve to pull her out of its path.
It hit a tree trunk instead, vines splintering bark on impact.
Then it rebounded.
It moved unpredictably — not like an animal, not like a plant.
Something in between.
Pluto reached instinctively toward his right arm — and stopped.
Not yet.
He didn't know how.
The creature launched again.
This time toward Mira.
She raised her arm defensively without thinking.
Something tore open.
Not the forest.
Her skin.
A dark oval shape appeared in the air just inches from her forearm.
It wasn't a wound.
It wasn't light.
It was absence.
The creature slammed into it mid-lunge.
For half a second, everything froze.
The oval widened slightly.
And the vine creature was pulled inward.
Not violently.
Smoothly.
Silently.
Compressed and swallowed whole.
Then the oval snapped shut.
Gone.
The forest stilled.
Pluto stared.
Mira stared at her own arm.
"What did I just do?" she whispered.
Her sleeve was intact.
Her skin unmarked.
But she could feel it.
He could see it in her eyes.
A circular marking faintly shimmered beneath her skin before fading.
"You reacted," Pluto said evenly.
"I didn't mean to."
"It didn't ask."
She stared at him. "You've done something too, haven't you?"
He didn't respond.
The mist drifted lazily between trees, indifferent.
Mira lowered her arm slowly. "It felt like… something opened. Like I made space that wasn't there."
Pluto glanced toward where the creature had disappeared.
No remains.
No sound.
Nothing.
They stood there for several long seconds, both listening for movement.
There was none.
But the air changed again.
Sharper.
Colder.
Pluto felt it first as a pressure behind his sternum.
Mira stiffened. "Do you feel that?"
"Yes."
It wasn't the predator.
It wasn't the forest shifting.
It was something deeper.
Not moving through the trees.
Above them.
Around them.
The mist thinned slightly — not enough to reveal anything specific, but enough to create the sensation of being seen clearly.
Judged.
They turned slowly in unison.
And that was when they noticed the body.
It lay partially obscured behind a thick patch of low shrubbery.
A young man.
Maybe early twenties.
Face pale. Eyes open.
No visible wounds.
No blood.
Just stillness.
Too still.
Mira approached carefully.
Pluto followed, scanning the surroundings.
The body looked undisturbed — not attacked, not torn.
Just… emptied.
Mira knelt slightly, hesitating before reaching toward his neck.
She didn't touch him.
She didn't need to.
"He's gone," she said quietly.
Pluto studied the man's arm.
There was a marking there.
Different from his.
Different from hers.
Geometric.
Faint.
Unmoving.
"Did something kill him?" Mira whispered.
"Maybe," Pluto said.
The pressure intensified.
The mist rolled back slightly in a wide circle around them.
And for the first time, Pluto felt it clearly.
Not a creature.
Not a sound.
A presence.
It did not have shape.
It did not have voice.
But it had weight.
An awareness that pressed against his mind like a fingertip against glass.
Mira's breathing became shallow. "It's here."
"Yes."
They both looked up instinctively.
The canopy above was impossibly dense, branches weaving together in unnatural patterns.
No sky visible.
But the sensation came from above anyway.
Watching.
Measuring.
Counting.
It did not speak.
It did not act.
It simply acknowledged.
The air felt thinner.
Mira's hand trembled slightly, though she tried to steady it.
"Is this what it felt like before?" she asked.
"No," Pluto replied quietly.
"This is clearer."
The pressure remained for several seconds more.
Long enough to settle into memory.
Then slowly, deliberately, it receded.
Not disappearing.
Just stepping back.
Like something satisfied.
The mist thickened again.
The forest resumed its quiet creaking.
Mira stood.
Her voice was barely above a breath. "We're being observed."
"Yes."
"For what?"
He looked at the body one last time.
"To see who stays."
She swallowed.
Pluto turned away first.
"We move," he said.
She followed.
Behind them, the dead man's marking faded completely.
And far above — beyond the woven canopy and beyond sight —
Something adjusted the forest ever so slightly.