The morning felt brittle, like the calm before a blade fell. I could still feel the echo of my dream clinging to me, phantom fingers brushing the back of my neck. It hadn't faded like most dreams did. No—this one had settled deep in my bones.
Seonwoo and Kaelen were still asleep when I stirred. I shifted slightly, pretending to stretch—but really, I was reaching for the book tucked beneath my cloak. Cold to the touch. Unmoving.
But the moment my fingers brushed it, the pages stirred open like something alive, like it had been waiting for me to return. Ink bled across the parchment in slow, deliberate strokes, the words already forming as my eyes scanned them.
The soldier and the healer crossed the woods alone. Days of walking. No fire. No light. Only darkness that watched and waited. Creatures stirred. Voices followed. And one by one, they began to lose themselves.
I swallowed.
I closed the book quickly, heart pounding. The silence that followed felt accusing. Heavy. And yet, when I glanced around, neither Kaelen nor Seonwoo stirred. The book vanished again into my pack like it had never existed.
They didn't know. They couldn't know. No one but me could see it—touch it. And I wasn't sure I could bear the weight of explaining it, not yet.
A rustle of movement.
Kaelen sat up first, his long hair tousled, silver strands catching the morning light like a soft halo around his face. His eyes were a pale grey, washed in mist and thought. Always quiet. Always watching.
"You're awake early," he murmured, voice rough with sleep.
"Couldn't sleep," I said quickly.
He tilted his head slightly, studying me. "The dream again?"
I nodded. It wasn't a lie.
A low groan came from Seonwoo as he rolled onto his side, rubbing the back of his neck.
"You two whispering secrets already?" he muttered in a slightly displeased tone.
Kaelen gave him a mild look. "More like trying not to wake the sleeping bear."
Seonwoo sat up with a grunt, his sharp eyes scanning the trees. Always alert. Even half-asleep, he looked like he could kill someone in a breath.
"We moving today?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, standing and brushing dirt from my palms. "But we need to be careful. Something's... wrong with this part of the forest."
Seonwoo raised an eyebrow. "That some of your sixth sense again?"
I forced a small shrug. "Something like that."
Kaelen moved to pack up what little we carried.
"Then we move faster. The sooner we're out, the better."
I watched them both.
They didn't know the truth. That this path had already been walked—and lost. That I was the only variable. The only reason we hadn't already fallen into the trap that the book had foretold.
And I wasn't sure whether that made me our salvation… or our curse.
"Let's go," I said quietly. "Stay close. Don't stop. No matter what you hear."
Seonwoo narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean—'hear'?"
I met his gaze evenly. "Just trust me."
A beat of silence passed between us. And then, slowly, he nodded.
"We're trusting you more than you think," Kaelen added softly from behind me.
That made me pause.
I didn't look back as I stepped into the trees first. The shadows greeted me like old friends.
I stepped into the forest first, but not because I was brave. I just couldn't shake what the book had told me.
Kaelen and Seonwoo had made it through this place once before—barely. The book didn't explain how they survived, only that they were hunted. Stalked by something old and vicious. Something that whispered and waited.
It didn't matter how many times I blinked. I could still see the line etched across the parchment:
"They emerged, but not unbroken."
The forest was quiet. Too quiet. The air felt thick, like it was watching us. Every step stirred dead leaves that muffled more than they crunched. The trees were packed tight, branches curling inward, like claws.
Kaelen fell in beside me, moving silently, unnervingly graceful. Seonwoo took the rear, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade.
"How much farther do you think this stretch goes?" Kaelen asked in a low voice.
"Far enough that we'll hate each other by the end," Seonwoo muttered from behind us.
Kaelen cracked a smile. "You hate everyone already."
"And yet here I am," Seonwoo said.
Their words were quiet, but they calmed the fire in my chest. For a moment, it almost felt like we were just three people walking through an ordinary forest.
But I knew better.
The first time Kaelen and Seonwoo entered these woods—without me—they were chased. Ambushed. They made it through, yes, but the book hadn't said what they lost. Only that they did.
Now the forest was watching us again.
"You two ever heard of anything living out here?" I asked, pretending to sound casual.
Seonwoo grunted. "Old tales. Shadows that walk without bodies. Voices that sound like people you've lost."
"That's comforting," Kaelen murmured.
"I don't believe in that stuff," Seonwoo added.
He was lying. I could hear it in his voice.
Kaelen noticed too. "You should," he said, serious now. "This place doesn't care if you believe in it or not."
I nodded slowly. "We stay together. No matter what. Even if you hear something... or someone. Don't split."
Seonwoo paused. "You really think something's coming?"
"I know something is."
He stared at me for a long second. I didn't look away.
Finally, he said, "Good. Let them try."
Kaelen said nothing, but I caught the way he subtly stepped closer to me.
We walked for hours, and as the light thinned through the canopy, the temperature dropped.
That's when the first whisper came.
It brushed the back of my neck like breath.
A voice—my voice?—said, "You shouldn't have come here."
I froze.
Kaelen looked at me. "What is it?"
I blinked fast. "Nothing. Just thought I heard something."
We kept walking. But the forest wasn't quiet anymore. It pretended to be, but the deeper we went, the more I felt the shift. The way the trees tilted, listening. The way the shadows moved just a second too late.
And somewhere, just out of sight, I knew—they were there.
Waiting.
The wind changed.
Not a breeze—wind. Cold, sudden, like something exhaled straight from the earth's lungs. It whipped through the trees and scattered the leaves at our feet, a flurry of brittle warnings. Kaelen stopped walking. His hand went to the satchel at his hip. Seonwoo raised a clenched fist behind me, signaling silence.
Something was here.
The birds had gone quiet.
A low thrumming hum passed under my boots—almost imperceptible, like distant thunder beneath the dirt. It wasn't sound. It was feeling. Pressure.
I took a slow breath and whispered, "We need to move. Fast."
"No," Seonwoo said. "We need to prepare."
He was right. Running blindly could get us separated. The book hadn't said what the creatures looked like—just that they had stalked Seonwoo and Kaelen without mercy. I clenched my fists and reached back for the dagger I'd taken from the fort.
Kaelen stepped beside me, his eyes scanning the darkening treeline. "Three presences. Two to the east, one behind."
I looked at him sharply. "You can sense them?"
He nodded, voice low. "They're not human."
The moment he said it, a shape moved in the trees—fast. Too fast. A flicker of something black and long-limbed. I barely caught it before it vanished again.
Seonwoo unsheathed his sword with a metallic whisper. "They're trying to scare us."
"Well," I muttered, "it's working."
Then came the growl—inhuman, guttural, vibrating through the underbrush.
They didn't wait any longer.
One of them lunged from the side—huge and hunched, all ragged muscle and pale, stretched skin. Its face was wrong, like melted wax twisted into the shape of a man.
Seonwoo met it midair with a roar, his blade slamming into its side. The creature screeched—metal meeting meat—and fell back, crashing through a tree trunk like it was nothing.
Another sprang from behind. Kaelen spun, lifting a vial and hurling it. It shattered in the air—igniting with a bright blue flame. The creature shrieked and tumbled backward, momentarily blinded.
But they kept coming.
I turned just as the third burst through the trees—this one smaller, faster, and heading straight for me.
I didn't think. I moved.
I dropped to the ground, the thing sailing over me, snarling, its claws raking the air. I kicked up hard into its gut and rolled to my feet.
Seonwoo shouted, "Back-to-back! Now!"
We closed in, weapons raised, shoulders touching. Kaelen beside me, calm and coiled. Seonwoo on my left, fury in his stance.
I could barely breathe.
And yet something inside me—something cold and focused—clicked into place.
I tightened my grip on the blade and met the eyes of the next monster, its face already changing, becoming familiar—mimicking a face from my world, from the dream. My old classmate. My neighbor.
No. Not again.
"I am not afraid of you," I said aloud—and lunged.
My blade plunged into the creature's throat.
It made no sound—just gurgled, its clawed hands grasping at me, twitching even as it fell. I kicked it off, chest heaving.
But there were more.
The forest blurred past us, branches whipping at our faces like claws. The creatures gave chase — not human, not animal. Something in-between, forged from nightmare and memory. Their limbs were too long, their movements jerky like puppets dragged by invisible strings.
Kaelen was bleeding.
Seonwoo limped, jaw clenched, his sword slick with blood not his own.
I could hear them behind us — the monsters — laughing.
Not howling. Laughing.
And yet, even through the chaos, I felt it: the pull. That faint, instinctive tug I had come to recognize. The book.
I yanked it from my coat as we crashed through the trees. It fluttered open in my hands, pages flipping violently until one stilled — stark, fresh ink forming across the paper in sharp black strokes:
"Wounded and worn, the warrior and the healer will flee eastward, into the shallows of the marsh. There, they will fall — trapped in the old roots, just before dawn."
My heart dropped.
The path they were following — the one their instincts pushed them toward — was a trap. One they should fall into. One they did, in the book.
But I was not in the book.
I gritted my teeth and shouted, "Not that way!"
Seonwoo turned his head sharply. "What?"
Kaelen faltered. "The marsh—"
"Is a death trap," I snapped. "Trust me. We need to head west."
"But—" Kaelen hesitated, gaze flicking toward the shadows of the east.
Seonwoo looked at him, then at me. His jaw tightened.
He chose.
"Go," he barked, and we turned.
West. Into thicker trees, away from where they were meant to fall. And the moment we changed direction, I felt it — something shift. As if the path beneath our feet rebelled. The wind turned cold. The creatures' snarls grew louder, harsher.
They knew.
I didn't care.
We burst through a wall of bramble, and suddenly, the ground dropped. A slope — muddy and half-hidden. I grabbed Kaelen's arm and yanked him down with me. Seonwoo followed, rolling beside us as the monsters shrieked above.
Then — silence.
The slope had led into a hollow, narrow and tight, the roots of the trees curling overhead like rib bones.
Safe. For now.
Kaelen panted beside me, one hand pressed to his ribs. Seonwoo's leg was soaked in blood. I crouched between them, the book still open in my lap.
Kaelen's voice was rough. "We weren't supposed to go this way."
"No," I said. "You weren't."
He blinked at me.
I didn't offer more. Just watched the ink on the page start to twist, fade, dissolve — as if the story was being rewritten in real time, and the book didn't like it.
It wasn't mine to follow. But I could change it. Bend it.
"Next time," I muttered, closing the book, "we don't let the forest write the ending."
Seonwoo looked at me strangely — not suspicious, but like he was beginning to realize something was off. That I wasn't guessing. That I knew.
But he didn't ask.
Kaelen leaned back against the roots, his pale eyes fixed on the dark ceiling of leaves. "Whatever you did," he said, "you saved us."
I didn't respond.