Some ties do not fade. They fester.
The roots of Greywood had long since swallowed the cabin where Elias once lived. Mossy tendrils now cradled its splintered roof, as if preserving a relic of a vanished world. In the clearing, four silhouettes stood in stunned silence.
Emma's breath caught in her throat. The house looked nothing like she remembered.
"It's… gone," Mark whispered.
"No, not gone," Blake said, stepping forward. "Changed. Consumed."
The group had followed Elias's last known signs from the nearby towns, driven by Emma's insistence. She had always been closest to him—closer than she let on. Even now, her fingers trembled around the locket Elias had given her years ago. A gift he barely remembered, but one she never took off.
Nathen knelt, inspecting a strange fungal bloom growing where the porch used to be. It pulsed faintly.
"These aren't local species," he said. "I've studied Greywood's flora. This… this is something else."
"Something unnatural," Blake muttered.
They didn't know it yet, but they were standing on a threshold. The same threshold Elias had crossed not long ago.
Behind the cabin, concealed under a twisted mass of vines, they found the trapdoor. The old iron latch had rotted open, leaving a hollow dark space beneath.
"Is this where he went?" Emma asked.
Nathen nodded grimly. "Only one way to find out."
---
Deep Beneath – The Dark Realm
Far below the roots and soil, past where sunlight dared to reach, the four friends stepped into the Dark Realm. As they emerged from the tunnel, a cold, spore-thick air clung to their skin. It smelled of decay and life simultaneously—a paradox of the living rot.
"God… it's beautiful," Blake said, staring at the bioluminescent fungi that carpeted the cavern walls. Spores drifted through the air like snowflakes.
But before they could marvel too long, the path split. A sudden quake. A root burst through the cavern floor, dividing them.
Emma cried out as the others were forced down a separate slope.
"Emma!" Mark shouted, but she was already gone, pulled by a landslide of soft loam and crawling vines.
---
Elsewhere – The Path of Emma
Emma landed hard, coughing. She blinked up and saw nothing but towering mushrooms and the outline of a path glowing with pale green veins.
She stood, brushing herself off. Alone, but not afraid. Not entirely. Something in her chest pulled forward, as if Elias were calling.
"I'm coming," she whispered.
She stepped onto the glowing path.
---
Meanwhile – Elias and Elowen
The Pteris village lay cradled within a glade of inverted trees—massive fern-like organisms that grew downward from the ceiling of the cave like chandeliers of green flame. The villagers, elegant and strange, bore bark-like skin laced with luminous veins. They watched Elias and Elowen with cautious reverence.
Elder Ghaldir, the village leader, greeted them. His voice was like rustling parchment.
"You carry a mark, child of the Greywood," he told Elias. "And she"—he nodded toward Elowen—"carries memories older than this land."
Ghaldir offered them shelter, a cottage woven from living vines and soft mosses that pulsed with warmth. Inside, the walls gently shifted, adjusting to comfort.
That night, Elias sat near the window, looking out at the glowing spires of the Pteris settlement.
"Do you miss it?" he asked.
"Miss what?"
"The world above."
Elowen sat beside him, her silver-green hair flowing like water. "Sometimes. But I was never meant to belong there. Just like you."
He turned. "Do you think I belong here?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she touched the root-like scar on his arm—the mark of the forest.
"The world speaks through you, Elias Grayee. You are not just in the Dark Realm. You are part of it."
Later, as the glow dimmed to a soft hum, they lay side by side on a bed of fern-wool. No words. Only breath. The silence between them no longer empty, but full.
Outside, the Pteris sang ancient songs into the wind.
And deeper still, beneath Kintakekai—the rotting fortress of Vrathkul—the Dark King stirred. He had seen the strangers arrive.
"The roots stretch farther than I thought," he rasped, his voice echoing through the fungal halls. "Let them come. Let them bleed."
[To be continued…]