We all agreed to it before sunrise. Splitting up was the only option.
Being in pairs might've felt safer but the truth was, it'd just turn us into bigger, louder targets. And in a forest where the trees whispered murder and the air itself listened too closely, "loud" equaled death.
So we made the plan simple: separate, slow steps, stay silent, and meet back at the central glyph marker after nine hours. No one was to speak. No one was to check on anyone. No looking back. No acting heroic. The Spooky Forest didn't play fair, and we weren't here to fight. We were here to survive.
Baldie gave the final reminder before we split off:
"One, no making noise. If you drop your gear, let it rot. Two, never look back. Even if you hear your name, footsteps, or screams. The forest loves to use your curiosity against you. And three… if you see something strange? Don't get smart. Don't investigate. Don't blink wrong. Just let it pass."
I didn't say a word. I just nodded and stepped into the nightmare alone.
______
The Spooky Forest was death in disguise.
At first glance, it was beautiful. Dreamlike, even. Milky blue mist drifted lazily through twisted trees, their trunks gnarled like hunched old men with their arms stretched high. The canopy above was so thick that no real light broke through, like moonlight caught in spiderwebs.
There was no sound, not even a breeze.
My own footsteps made no noise. The soles of my boots met the soft moss with such precision, it was like the forest absorbed the sound before it could exist. Even my heartbeat felt obscene.
My thoughts felt like they were screaming inside my skull.
I should've stayed in bed. This place is wrong. This is so wrong.
Every time I thought, it felt like something nearby paused to listen.
Two hours in and that's when I saw them.
At first, I thought they were tree stumps. Then, they moved.
Rotting, human-shaped things—no, not things. They were once people. But now? These weren't humans anymore.
They stood nearly two meters tall, limbs elongated and twitching with unnatural jerks. Skin like melting wax, peeling and sagging in sheets. Their eyes were just... empty sockets, bleeding dark blood and their jaws hung loose, as if they had forgotten how to close their mouths centuries ago.
And the smell.
It hit like a slap. Rot, decay, and disease so concentrated that I felt my stomach clench hard enough to make my knees wobble. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to gag. Even breathing too hard might have counted as sound here.
I froze.
Baldie's voice echoed in my head:
When you see a monster, and they pass by—don't move. Don't speak. Don't look back. Or you die instantly.
I dropped into a crouch behind a massive root and didn't so much as twitch. My fingers went numb from the tension. My eyes stayed half-lidded. The trick was to let them move on.
One of them dragged its bloated foot across a root not even two meters from me. Another wheezed out a breath that sounded like a thousand flies buzzing in a bag. One even sniffed the air, like it knew I was there.
My lungs screamed for relief, but I couldn't let go.
I kept my eyes forward. I didn't dare look at them directly, only from the corner of my vision. The stench clawed at my throat. My heartbeat was roaring now. Each thump felt like a betrayal like it wanted them to hear me.
The rotten humans moved past... slowly. Their steps didn't creak. They didn't rustle a single leaf. Somehow, the weight of their grotesque bodies left no prints in the moss. One paused directly in front of me. Its neck turned ever so slightly. My eyes refused to blink.
And then it moved again further away. I counted to thirty after they were gone. Then to sixty. Just to be sure. I didn't even twitch until I hit ninety.
Only then did I breathe through clenched teeth.
Still crouched low, I began following their path, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. It was the only way through. The path they cleared was safe, as long as I obeyed the rules.
But the walk was torture.
Every step forward was a battle against instinct. My mind screamed at me to run. The stench lingered like a physical pressure in the air, like if I opened my mouth, it would flood inside and rot me from within. I kept swallowing, but my throat was dry. My legs burned, my muscles tight and trembling from holding still for so long.
Even worse were the thoughts.
What if one circled back? What if one of the guys panicked and made a noise? What if the forest decided today was the day it stopped playing by its own rules?
I hated this place. I hated the silence. I hated how loud existing felt here. And I hated how, deep down, something in me wanted to turn around just to check if something was behind me.
But I didn't.
Because Baldie was right. Curiosity killed the cat.
And in the Spooky Forest? It butchered it.
______
I wasn't expecting to see Synsiline in a place like this.
There it was, nestled between the thick buttress roots of a monstrous tree, deep navy blue with streaks of soft azure shimmer, the ore practically called to me. And trust me, I wanted to squeal like a maniac and drop to my knees right then and there but I remembered Rule One: No sound.
So I crouched low, grabbed my pickaxe from the bracelet inventory, and tapped it gently against the glowing vein.
Nothing.
I blinked.
There wasn't even a ting. Not even the vibration you'd expect to feel in your hands. It was like the forest itself swallowed the sound before it was ever born. Even the motion of my swing didn't break the silence. The pickaxe bounced off the surface in complete and utter muteness.
Creepy? Yes. Helpful? Also yes.
I struck again, this time harder. Still no sound.
By the tenth hit, I gave up on expecting any kind of satisfying crack or echo. The ore just cracked quietly, pieces fracturing like glass under pressure. By the time the core shattered and I began extracting the mineral chunks, I felt like a ghost, working in some soundless purgatory.
Still, no noise. Even my breathing felt wrong, like it was too loud in this stillness.
It took a full hour to harvest the entire vein. Which, honestly, was fast, all things considered. I wasn't a trained miner. I wasn't even Fluxed yet but I was moving like one of the top-tier Pente veterans, if not Októ.
Guess that's what being born an Ennéa does to your bones.
If this were Sunglasses and Baldie doing it? Two hours minimum, and that's with Buzzcut helping.
I shoved the glittering shards into my inventory backpack and watched as the readout screen flashed:
473.2 kg – Synsiline.
Almost half a ton. I blinked.
And the backpack? Not even a grunt. It just slurped it up like it had not eaten in weeks. The inventory gauge didn't even hit halfway. It had this smooth, obsidian-black look with shifting glyphs across the sides, and when I ran a finger along one, it shimmered and updated to reflect my payload.
Total Load: 473.2 kg – Carry Status: Normal
But I knew for a fact none of the boys could lift it. I had seen Rythe try the other day when I let her carry it for five seconds. Poor girl nearly tipped over like a wet mop.
I let out a slow breath, letting my muscles relax, and that's when I felt it. A whisper of motion moved behind me.
Every instinct screamed to turn around, but I remembered Baldie's rule. I didn't look. I moved.
I spun forward instead, sidestepping like I was avoiding a falling tree and just in time. A thick, glistening thorn the size of a javelin slammed into the root where I had been crouching, impaling the moss-covered wood like it was sponge cake.
My pulse exploded in my chest. My fingers tightened on my pickaxe but I didn't look back. I rotated, knees bent, keeping my eyes scanning forward.
Then, out of my left periphery, I saw it.
A massive creature moved on silent paws, its entire body rippling with quills as long as swords. Its back bristled with dozens, maybe hundreds, of those oversized thorns, each twitching slightly as though ready to launch again. Its eyes—what little I could see—were sunken deep behind bone-white armor plating, with tiny beads of flickering red.
It was like someone had crossbred a porcupine with a battle tank and then fed it nightmare fuel. It was easily three meters long, low to the ground, and each of its steps was deliberate. Too deliberate.
It was hunting.
It sniffed once, slowly… then stopped. Its snout hovered just above the broken ore pile.
I didn't move. I didn't blink.
I could feel its breath like hot steam at the nape of my neck, even from meters away.
My lungs screamed at me to inhale again but I didn't dare. Not until it finally turned, lumbered away, and vanished into the mists like it had never existed.
Only then did I breathe again quietly. My whole body was drenched in cold sweat. I gripped the handle of my pickaxe so hard I nearly snapped it.
And even though I didn't look back once, my entire soul felt like it had.
And that was when the entire forest began to shake.