I pushed myself off the ground, my entire body aching as if it had been crushed under a thousand feet.
My bones were heavy, muscles numb, and the gash on my chest had torn open from the escape. Warm blood seeped into the coat.
But I knew—I couldn't stop.
Behind me, the sound of screeching tires tore through the dawn, followed by the heavy thuds of boots on damp soil.
"He's close! Search the area!"
Heart pounding, I forced myself to rise and stumbled toward the distant woods.
The forest loomed— dark, dense, like a beast waiting to swallow me whole.
The Rumours said it was haunted.
But I knew better— Humans were far more terrifying than ghosts.
I plunged into the trees. Thorns tore at my coat, reopening my old wounds. Blood dripped down my legs, soaking the leaves in my wake.
"He went into the forest?"
"Damn it. This place… you sure we should follow?"
The footsteps halted at the tree line.
I crouched behind a tree, chest heaving. Their voices drifted through the leaves and filled with hesitation and fear.
"You forget the last guys who went in? None of them came out."
"He's not worth dying for."
I heard their vehicle engine start. The sound faded.
They were gone.
But I didn't breathe easy.
The forest was too quiet.
No birds, no breeze—
Not even the sound of my own heartbeat.
As if the whole world had… died.
I moved forward, leaning on trees. My body was growing cold; my lips were drained of colour.
I was close to collapsing.
I didn't know how long I had walked. The slope steepened. I stepped on a branch, slipped, and tumbled into a muddy pit.
Mud flooded my mouth and nose. I struggled upright but fell again. My chest had stopped bleeding—not from healing, but because I had nothing left to bleed.
I leaned against a dead tree and looked up at the faint morning light breaking through the canopy.
My fingers went numb and my vision became blur. I thought I heard whispers in the wind.
"If I die here… maybe it's better that way."
I closed my eyes, feeling myself sink.
My body sank into the earth. My mind sank into the silence.
They said this forest held ghosts.
But no one ever said—
I wouldn't become one of them?