Emily couldn't stop scratching.
It had started with a slight tingle on her right wrist the morning after they made their pact. She figured it was a bug bite or a scratch from the brambles, but by afternoon, a faint symbol had appeared—an imprint, as if burned into her skin by invisible fire. A circle. Lines crossing it. Simple, but wrong. It didn't hurt. It didn't scab. But it was… there.
Permanent.
She wore long sleeves to hide it. But when she met up with Ava, the look they exchanged told her everything. Ava had one, too.
So did the others.
Sarah's was on her shoulder. Devon's near his ankle. Marcus's behind his ear. All identical, all faintly glowing when the forest came into view.
"The mark of the Seeker," Ava murmured, brushing her fingers over her skin. "Or maybe something worse."
They were at the park that afternoon, gathered around a rusted merry-go-round that hadn't worked in years. It was a silent agreement—they stayed close to public places now, kept each other in sight. The woods could be anywhere, watching. Listening.
Emily looked down at her wrist again. "What does it mean?"
Ava's eyes flicked toward the trees in the distance. "I don't know. But I don't think it's just a reminder."
Devon leaned against the bar of the merry-go-round, arms folded. "It's a tether. We left, but it won't let us forget. Like… a leash. We're still part of the game."
Marcus huffed. "No. We ended it. We survived. That thing is done."
Ava didn't argue. She just looked up at the sky.
The clouds were moving fast.
Too fast.
The changes were subtle at first. Too subtle for anyone else to notice.
The wind blew against the direction of the trees.
The shadows of passing cars stretched in the wrong direction just for a second too long.
Animals—squirrels, birds, even dogs—paused and stared when the group walked past. As if they saw something they shouldn't.
Emily tried to focus on normalcy. She went to school. She did her homework. She tried to laugh when her classmates cracked jokes. But every smile felt wrong. Hollow.
Especially when she looked at people too long and saw flickers of something else in their eyes—something watching, behind the skin.
One day after school, she saw a girl sitting alone on the swings.
She didn't belong.
Not because Emily didn't know her—she didn't—but because the girl was too still. Too quiet. Her hair blew in the wind, but the swing didn't move. Her hands hung limp, her head tilted down.
Emily approached cautiously.
"Hey," she said.
The girl didn't respond.
Emily stepped closer. "Are you okay?"
The girl looked up slowly.
Her eyes were solid black.
No whites. No irises. Just two deep, endless voids staring back.
Then she blinked—and they were normal.
Green. Human.
"I'm fine," the girl said with a smile that didn't reach her cheeks.
Emily backed away.
"I saw it," she told the others that night. "A new player."
Ava nodded grimly. "The forest's testing the waters. Trying again. That girl? She was probably marked too. Or soon will be."
Sarah looked pale. "So what do we do?"
Emily's voice was steady. "We stop it before it starts."
They began watching.
At school. At the park. In the neighborhoods bordering the forest. They paid attention to patterns. Kids who wandered too close to the trees. Children who whispered about games they didn't remember starting. Teenagers who talked in their sleep, murmuring countdowns.
That's how they found The List.
Devon discovered it first.
It was in the form of a torn notebook page taped to the back of a bathroom stall at school. Written in messy handwriting were thirteen names.
Seven were scratched out.
Six remained.
Emily's name was one of them.
So were Ava, Marcus, Sarah, and Devon.
The sixth was the girl on the swing.
Her name was Grace.
They found her again a week later—alone, walking the edge of the forest trail behind the library, eyes vacant.
"She's close," Ava whispered. "Too close."
"She doesn't know," Emily replied. "She's sleepwalking into it."
They followed her. Not too close. Just enough to see where she went.
Grace didn't go home.
She went deeper into the woods.
And didn't come back out.
The next day, her desk at school was empty.
No one said anything.
When Emily asked the teacher where Grace was, Mrs. Dalton blinked as if confused.
"Grace? Who's that?"
Emily stared at her. "Grace Kendall. She's been in this class for two months."
"I've never had a student named Grace," Mrs. Dalton said.
She wasn't lying.
It was the forest.
It had taken her. Scrubbed her away like chalk from a board.
Erased her.
That night, the five of them returned to the edge of the forest. No torches. No plans. Just rage.
"We can't let this happen again," Emily said, fists clenched. "We were lucky. But Grace…"
"She didn't even know she was playing," Sarah whispered.
"She didn't get a chance," Devon muttered.
Ava stepped forward, the moon casting a silver halo around her. "Then we become the chance. We go in, and we end it for real."
Marcus laughed dryly. "You say that like we know how."
"We don't," Ava replied. "But I've been reading. Studying the stories. This kind of thing's happened before. Different places. Different faces. But the same game."
Emily looked at her sharply. "What stories?"
Ava pulled a weathered book from her backpack. The Hollow Watchers.
"Found it in the restricted section of the local archives. It talks about a 'Game in the Woods' that takes children, marks them, and replaces them. There's a pattern. A cycle. But there's also… a key."
She opened the book and pointed to a hand-drawn image—an old wooden box carved with symbols, surrounded by dead trees.
"The Lockbox of the Seeker."
"What's it do?" Sarah asked.
"It holds the rules. All of them. The true rules. And the power to end the game."
Emily leaned in. "Where is it?"
Ava tapped the page. "According to this, it lies at the heart of the woods. Deeper than where we played. Deeper than the pit."
Marcus looked around at the others. "So… we're going back in."
Emily nodded. "This time, by choice."
Ava closed the book. "This time, not as players."
Devon grinned, though it didn't reach his eyes. "This time, we're the hunters."
They entered just after midnight.
The forest welcomed them with silence.
No wind. No birds. Just the crunch of leaves beneath their feet and the distant echo of something moving—always just ahead. Always just out of reach.
The deeper they walked, the more the world twisted.
The trees leaned in, close and curious. The path narrowed. Shadows breathed. At some point, the moon disappeared, but the woods stayed lit—an eerie blue glow filtering from nowhere, casting strange patterns on the bark.
Emily kept her eyes forward.
No distractions.
No games.
They walked for what felt like hours before they reached it.
A clearing.
Dead trees circled the space like sentinels. In the center sat a box—small, wooden, marked with the same sigil that now glowed faintly on Emily's wrist.
The Lockbox of the Seeker.
Ava stepped forward, but the moment her foot touched the clearing, a voice boomed overhead.
"One must play. One must seek."
The trees groaned.
Emily felt her body freeze. The game was starting again.
"No," she whispered. "Not this time."
But it wasn't up to her.
Devon dropped to his knees, hands clutching his head. "It's in my mind! It's choosing—"
Then silence.
Devon stood slowly, his face blank.
And began counting.
"One… two… three…"
Emily's heart dropped.
Devon had been chosen.
He was the new Seeker.