The children stood in a dazed circle beneath the moonlight, blinking into the night as if seeing it for the first time.
Ava clung to Emily's arm, her lip trembling. Marcus kept looking over his shoulder, flinching at every rustling leaf. Devon crouched low to the ground, fingers digging into the dirt like he needed to feel something solid beneath him.
Sarah didn't speak.
None of them did.
They were back… but not whole.
Emily scanned their faces, searching for what she wanted to believe was relief, gratitude—anything. But what stared back at her was something hollow. Like part of them had been stripped away and left somewhere in the roots of that underground place.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly.
No one answered.
Devon tilted his head and whispered, "Is it… really over?"
"I don't know," Emily admitted.
She didn't want to lie. Not anymore.
Because the forest around them wasn't still. Not completely. Though the moon shone above and the wind whispered gently through the canopy, something just beneath that peaceful surface breathed.
It hadn't let go.
Not entirely.
The children began to move as if guided by some unseen force, their feet padding silently through the woods. Back toward the edge. Toward the place where this had all begun. Emily followed, her steps cautious, glancing back at the stone circle.
It was still there.
But the markings on the stones were gone—erased or perhaps retracted, like ink pulled back into old skin.
Still, the air was thick with the scent of moss and something faintly metallic.
She knew better than to think they were safe.
They emerged from the treeline just as dawn broke, the sun rising behind the hills like a cautious eye peeking through fingers. The edge of the forest gave way to the grassy field behind their school, dew-drenched and silent.
Everything looked normal.
Untouched.
But they weren't the same.
Emily turned to Sarah. "We should tell someone."
Sarah finally looked at her, and for the first time, Emily realized something was wrong.
Sarah's eyes.
One was a little darker. Off-color, like someone had painted over it.
"You don't remember?" Emily asked.
Sarah furrowed her brow. "Remember what?"
"The forest. The tunnel. The doors—"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sarah whispered.
Emily's breath caught. She turned to Marcus. "You remember, don't you?"
He looked confused, then shrugged. "I remember hide-and-seek. Then I woke up by the trees."
"Emily," Ava said, "are you okay?"
But Ava's braid wasn't bouncing anymore.
It hung limply.
Too still.
Too perfect.
Devon, who had always smiled with a crooked tooth on the right, now had straight teeth.
No one noticed but Emily.
She backed away slowly, eyes darting from one child to the next.
They weren't the same.
Something came back with them—or instead of them.
A presence.
A shadow wearing faces she once knew.
And as they began to drift back toward town, slipping unnoticed past the sleepy houses and silent streets, Emily stood alone at the forest's edge.
Watching.
Breathing.
Shaking.
She didn't go home.
She walked for hours instead, circling the school, the fields, the forest—waiting for the world to break open again. But it never did.
By the time she returned to her house, the sun was high, and the front door stood open.
Her mother rushed out and pulled her into a hug, sobbing into her hair.
"Where have you been?" she cried. "We called the police! We thought—God, we thought you were gone!"
Emily didn't speak.
She couldn't.
Because as she looked past her mother's shoulder into the hallway mirror, her reflection didn't match.
The real her had a dirt-smudged cheek and a torn shirt.
The reflection smiled.
And winked.
That night, Emily didn't sleep.
She watched her bedroom door, waiting for it to open on its own.
It never did.
But the whispers returned.
Just beneath her bed.
Just outside her window.
They sang to her in lullabies from the Hollow.
Songs she'd never learned but somehow remembered.
"Eyes closed tight, don't make a peep,
The forest watches while you sleep…"
At midnight, her closet creaked open.
Not all the way.
Just enough for her to see a shadow standing inside.
Tall.
Patient.
Smiling.
And a voice—her voice—echoed softly from the darkness:
"Ready or not… here I come."