A few days had passed.
Kassian had begun to adapt to the twisted rhythm of the corrupted forest. It wasn't comfort - never that - but his steps no longer faltered, and his breathes no longer shook. He moved with purpose now, cautious but steady, like someone who had accepted that survival wasn't a question - it was a demand.
His entire body was caked in dry mud, smeared from head to toe in a crude disguise he'd hastily applied after nearly being spotted by something… wrong. Several wrong things, actually. The monstrosities he had evaded these past few days each brought their own unique blend of nightmare - spines like shattered glass, twitching limbs that clicked like bone on bone, empty mouths filled with tongues.
At one point, he had hidden beneath a collapsed root, motionless for hours while one of them scraped its claws across the bark above him. He hadn't breathed until it left.
Blood stained the side of his pants - dried, rust-colored. He hadn't even noticed the bite until much later, after escaping from a living vine that had wrapped around his leg while he hung from a tree. By the time he found the wound, it was gone - sealed without a scar.
He should have been more alarmed.
But he wasn't.
He was too tired to be afraid anymore.
Too used to the strange.
Too deep in it.
More than anything else, Kassian had grown used to the pull - that quiet tug of the darkness that came when he closed his eyes. A call from the void. At first, it had terrified him. That vast, still space. No sound. No form. Only the sensation of floating in a sea with no horizon.
But now?
It felt… peaceful.
Protected.
Like something watched over him there.
He began to understand.
'Merge.'
That was the name carved into the Waygate's strange runes - his ability, his curse. It hadn't just saved his life that night with the eyeless feline. It had become a rhythm. A retreat.
When he slept, his consciousness was pulled into the void. No fear. No cold. No monsters. Just… silence.
And when he was awake - but still, unmoving - he could feel the shift creeping in. His limbs faded, breath paused, body flickering like a dying flame. It was never instant, never predictable, but it was there. A thin veil between the tangible and the forgotten.
He hadn't fully mastered it. Not yet.
But it was his.
And in this cursed world, that meant everything.
---
There was one problem bothering Kassian at the moment.
He had run out of mushrooms.
The makeshift pouch at his hip was nearly weightless now, emptied day by day until nothing remained. His stomach grumbled faintly, a dull reminder that no amount of caution or survival instinct could silence hunger forever.
He needed food.
The terrain around him had shifted again. The trees were thinner now, spindly and pale, but they stretched higher than anything he'd seen so far - towering trunks that pierced the canopy like spears. Their sheer height made them nearly impossible to climb, leaving Kassian blind to the horizon. He hadn't seen his destination in days. He wandered now, guided only by instinct.
A low branch slapped across his face, snapping him out of thought.
"Damn it--" he muttered, stumbling back.
He turned to look at the offending branch. Its leaves were shaped like hearts, a soft yellow-green that shimmered gently under the filtered light. Unlike most of the vegetation in this forest, they looked… natural. Familiar, even. Untouched by the blotting corruption he had come to associate with danger.
Something about the leaf tugged at his senses.
He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and plucked one from the branch. It parted easily - unlike most flora here, which clung stubbornly to life.
He sniffed it. No rot. No foul scent.
Just… clean.
With one final pause, Kassian brought it to his lips and took a cautious bite.
His eyes widened.
Sweet. Delicate. Almost fruity.
He chewed slowly, savoring the unexpected flavor, and then took another leaf. And another.
By the tenth, something gave him pause.
He turned back toward the tree.
There - just near the roots - he saw it. A blotch of corruption. Faint, almost unnoticeable. Nothing like the thick decay he had seen deeper in the forest… but still there.
The sweetness lingered on his tongue, but his expression sobered.
"I can't take too much," he murmured to himself.
He looked at the tree again, thoughtful. "Don't want to damage it. Or spread that."
With newfound care, he moved on, plucking only a few leaves from each tree he passed. He would gather enough to last the day - maybe two - but no more.
Not out of fear.
Out of respect.
Because here, even the smallest act might shift the balance.
And survival wasn't just about taking.
It was about listening.
By mid-afternoon - though time was only a guess here - Kassian had filled half his pouch with the sweet heart-shaped leaves. They weighed almost nothing, but the subtle energy they gave him with each bite was enough to push back the weakness in his limbs. It wasn't a full meal, but it dulled the ache in his belly.
As he moved through the thinner woodland, he noticed something else.
It was quieter.
Not in the comforting way forests sometimes fell silent, but in a way that felt… watched. Staged. The wind had vanished. The distant sounds of insects, birds - anything natural - were absent. Even the ever-present clicking he'd grown used to was gone.
He slowed his steps, ears straining.
Still nothing.
The trees stood still, frozen like tall silhouettes painted on a canvas. Their branches didn't sway, their leaves didn't rustle. The air grew thick. Dense. Heavy.
His foot landed on something soft. He looked down.
A patch of fur.
Black.
Coarse, matted. Torn at the edges, as if ripped from a larger hide.
Kassian crouched, his fingers hovering above it but not touching. His mind flashed back to the eyeless feline that had circled his fire. The red-streaked beast that had moved like smoke and vanished into the trees.
This was the same.
Or something close.
But why would one of those leave fur behind?
He turned his gaze upward, following claw marks on a tree. Long, jagged slashes ripped through the bark - fresh and deep.
A fight?
Territorial?
Or worse… wounded.
Kassian rose and moved on, more carefully this time. Every step measured. Every breath quiet.
Something had changed in this part of the forest.
It wasn't just the silence.
It was what had silenced everything else.
While Kassian moved swiftly through the undergrowth, he felt a subtle dryness creeping into his throat. He had secured food - those heart-shaped leaves were sweet and oddly satisfying - but they lacked the juiciness of the mushrooms he had relied on before. His body was running dry. He needed water soon.
That's when he heard it.
At first, it was faint - an unfamiliar hum in the air. Then came the rippling, a burbling sound, like air being pushed through something heavy. He froze.
To someone who had lived his entire life within city walls, the noise sounded almost mechanical - like a massive fan churning in the distance. But there was no breeze. No whirring blades. Just the steady, fluid rhythm of something natural.
Drawn by instinct and curiosity, Kassian followed the sound.
Each step forward brought a subtle shift in the atmosphere. The oppressive gloom thinned, like a veil being peeled away layer by layer. The trees grew thinner here, but the space between them widened. Light began to filter through the canopy - not the dim, gray luminescence he had grown used to, but soft, warm sunlight.
Then he saw it.
An opening.
The corrupted forest simply… stopped. Abruptly. Its twisted trees and diseased roots refused to cross a vast clearing of bare soil - no grass, no weeds, no creeping vines. It was like the land itself had called a truce.
And beyond that empty space…
Kassian's breath caught in his chest.
Another forest waited. Not dead and festering - but alive. Radiant. Towering trees with vibrant leaves of gold, emerald, and violet shimmered beneath clear skies. Flowers bloomed in clusters. Strange birds flitted between branches, their feathers glittering in the light.
It was beautiful.
Alive in ways he had almost forgotten.
But what chilled him wasn't just the contrast - it was the separation.
The clearing between the two forests was unnatural. Too precise. Like both sides were unwilling to touch. Even the corrupted creatures he had feared for days did not step into it.
Not a single movement stirred the bare soil.
It was a boundary.
And Kassian stood at its edge.
The burbling sound - the one that had called him - was coming from that bright forest. Water. A stream or a spring, hidden just beyond the first row of trees. He could hear it clearly now, inviting him with its calm rhythm.
He had reached it.
His destination.
But still, he didn't move.
Because something told him - crossing this boundary would change everything.