I never imagined silence could scream.
After I crossed the moss-coated stone arch—the one marked by those strange symbols—I stepped into a clearing where the air stood still. No wind, no insects, no birdsong. Just the hum of something waiting.
I tightened my grip on the crude blade I'd carved from blackwood earlier. My LAW mark pulsed faintly on my chest, warm like it was waking up again. The Adaptive Soul… whatever that really meant. I hadn't figured it out yet. But the forest had been pushing me, changing me. Each fight, each moment of fear, felt like it etched something deeper into my bones.
But this place… it was different. It didn't want to test me.
It wanted to remember me.
Suddenly, a sound. No—not a sound. A distortion.
Like a breath that didn't belong.
From the treeline, it emerged.
A twisted figure, thin as a starved shadow. Its limbs stretched too long, skin draped like wet paper. Its face was smeared and empty, like memory stripped of meaning. And when it stepped, it left footprints that hissed and sizzled, like it was burning the ground by existing.
I didn't think.
I ran.
Branches whipped at my face, roots tangled my legs. I didn't care. Every instinct in me screamed to get away from that thing. But it didn't chase fast—it stalked. Like it knew I couldn't leave. Like I was already trapped in the memory it wanted to erase.
After what felt like hours, I collapsed beneath an arch of roots, gasping. My body ached. My LAW mark flared again.
And then…
"Get up."
The voice wasn't mine.
It came from behind me. Calm. Male. Measured.
I turned, blade raised.
There he stood. Cloaked. Masked. Still.
The figure who had appeared to me before, but clearer now. The same one I had glimpsed after my first awakening in this world. His mask shimmered silver, smooth and faceless, but the way he stood screamed strength. Like he didn't just wear LAW—he commanded it.
"You're not ready," he said.
"What… what was that thing?" I asked, panting.
He turned his head slightly toward the forest behind us. "An Echo."
The word tasted wrong.
"A Called whose LAW turned inward," he said. "They failed their trial. Lost themselves. Became a hollow memory."
My stomach turned. "That's what happens if we fail?"
"No. That's what happens if you lie to your LAW. It doesn't just evolve you. It remakes you. If you fight that process, you shatter."
I stared at my mark. "Then why me? Why choose someone who doesn't know how to survive?"
"You weren't chosen because you knew how," he said. "You were chosen because you could learn."
He turned and began walking toward the clearing again.
I hesitated. "Wait. Who are you?"
He paused.
"I was Called. Twice."
I didn't even know that was possible.
"And your name?"
He faced me again, his mask catching a strange light. "You haven't earned it yet."
Cryptic. Of course.
"But I'll give you this," he said. "You're not the only one in this forest. There are others. Some farther along. Some... lost. When your Adaptive Soul matures, you'll feel them."
He looked toward the dark sky above the Veil. "The real world is unraveling. And the LAW? It's not just a gift. It's a countdown."
With that, he vanished. Not with a sound—just absence.
I sat there, still trembling, heart pounding.
An Echo. A broken Called. That could've been me.
And this stranger—he was stronger than anything I'd seen. His LAW must've been beyond evolved. I had to know more. Not just about him… but about what I was becoming.
That night, I built a fire.
Not because I was cold. But because the forest seemed to fear it.
And as I sat beside it, I listened—to the silence, to the wind, to the slow, steady beat of my LAW mark.
And then, faintly…
I heard another beat.
Not mine.
Someone else, out there, in the Breathing Forest.
A Called.
And they were bleeding.
I stood.
Because this time, I wasn't running.