He woke up mid-sprint—barefoot, breathless, bleeding.
No memory of how he got here. No warning. Just the wild lurch of his body slamming forward through undergrowth, lungs straining, legs burning.
Cold air sliced through the forest like a blade, stinging every inch of his exposed skin. His arms pumped, scratched and raw, torn shirt clinging to his back with a mix of sweat and blood. The world around him blurred in greens, browns, and shadows, too vivid for dreams and too cruel for reality.
The first thing he felt was the cold. Not the cozy kind that hugged your skin, but the kind that bit, scraped, hunted.
The second thing was the forest floor—needles, dirt, jagged rocks. A landmine of pain underfoot.
And the third thing? The thing chasing him.
It let out a low growl that didn't belong to any sane animal. Wet, thick, and guttural—like something dragging steel over gravel inside its throat.
Arthur didn't look back.
Rule number one: Never look back.
Because monsters—real or imagined—only became real when you made eye contact.
He didn't know who had taught him that. Maybe no one. Maybe the streets just whispered things into your bones after a while.
"Alright, alright," he gasped between sharp breaths, "you've been through worse. Remember the junkyard? Same vibe. Less teeth. More rust. Just pretend it's another Tuesday."
Branches slapped across his face, a vine tangled around his ankle, nearly yanking him down. He tore it loose with a hiss and kept going, lungs now ragged knives in his chest. Every breath felt like swallowing ice and smoke at the same time.
Then came the footfalls.
Heavy. Rhythmic. Four-legged.
Thump. Thump. THUMP.
"Okay. Okay. Not a bear. Definitely not a bear," he muttered, dodging a gnarled root. "Could be a wolf. A really messed up wolf. A freak experiment from some lab. Sure. That's less terrifying."
A flash of movement in the corner of his eye—a thick tail, like a rope made of muscle, dragging through a patch of ferns.
He didn't check. Just ran harder.
The terrain changed fast. One second it was tight forest, the next it was marshy, the ground sucking at his feet with every step. The mud grabbed like hands. Cold water splashed up his legs. But still he ran.
The sky overhead was… wrong.
Pale gray, like an old bedsheet left out too long. No sun. No clouds. Just that endless dull smear stretching above the trees. And the light didn't feel right—like it was coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
None of it made sense.
He didn't know this place. Had never seen a forest like it. And Arthur had seen a lot—sleeping in alleys, ditches, beneath billboards, he'd learned every flavor of "outside" the hard way. But this? This forest watched you.
He could feel it. Like static in his blood.
A flicker of motion—up high. A shadow flitting between the branches.
Arthur nearly tripped. "Nope. Not going to think about that. Not dealing with flying things. Focus on the ground stuff. Focus on—"
A howl exploded behind him. Deep. Piercing. Shaking the leaves from their branches.
He made the mistake of glancing.
Not a full turn. Just enough to glimpse teeth. Too many. A blur of matted fur and eyes that didn't shine—they absorbed the light.
His legs pumped faster than they ever had before.
"Dream. It's a dream," he said, ducking under a bent pine. "It has to be. There's no way this is real. No way I just woke up here being hunted like a chew toy."
But dreams didn't make you bleed.
And he was bleeding. His leg was cut, his foot raw from a sharp stone, his arm gashed from a branch that struck like a whip. He could smell his own blood, warm and metallic.
A fallen tree loomed ahead. He vaulted it, barely clearing the trunk.
The chase went on. Over a slope of slick moss, through a curtain of ferns that tried to tangle him, then down a narrow ravine choked with fog.
He burst into a clearing. Skidded on the wet grass. Looked for cover.
To his right—dense trees. To his left—an animal trail.
Straight ahead?
A steep incline of broken rock and roots, leading up toward a jagged ridge.
Behind him, claws scraped against bark.
"Up it is!" he wheezed, clawing his way up the slope. Fingers bled. Feet slipped. Pebbles rolled beneath him. A rock gave way and nearly took him with it. He caught himself on a crooked root and hauled his body upward.
He didn't look back again.
Not when the breath of the creature was so close it made the hairs on his neck stand up.
At the top of the ridge, he pulled himself over and scrambled away from the edge. Just in time.
The thing below leapt—but didn't reach him. It landed just short, snarling as claws slid against stone.
Arthur crawled backward, heart in his throat.
And then the creature stopped.
It didn't retreat. Didn't howl.
It just stood there at the edge of the ridge, hidden mostly in shadow.
Watching.
Its breath fogged the air, thick and slow.
And then it turned. Vanished into the woods without a sound.
Arthur didn't celebrate. He didn't trust it.
He stayed where he was, panting, shaking, every nerve lit up like live wire.
It took a full five minutes before he moved again.
When he did, it was slow. Careful.
He slid down the other side of the ridge, entering a stretch of forest that felt older. The trees grew wider here, gnarled and thick. Moss coated everything. The air was damp and smelled of earth, iron, and old rot.
There was no wind. No birds. No insects. Just silence.
He limped deeper into the woods, each step an act of pure will. His hands were scratched, and his body ached in places he didn't know could ache.
Eventually, he found a small stream, bubbling quietly beneath twisted roots.
He dropped beside it like a sack of bones, dipped his hands into the water, and splashed his face.
It was ice-cold.
He stared at his reflection in the water—mud-streaked face, wide eyes, short black hair sticking to his forehead with sweat and dirt.
He looked like a ghost trying to look human.
"This is insane," he whispered, voice shaking. "None of this is normal. This isn't a street corner. This isn't a shelter. This is..."
He looked around again.
The trees. The light. The stillness.
He didn't finish the sentence.
Instead, he sat there. Staring into the water. Letting his thoughts unravel.
How had he gotten here?
He remembered falling asleep.
Right on the side of a street. Raining hard. Wrapped in his usual tarp.
And then... nothing.
No lights. No weird dreams. No sound. Just this. Waking up mid-run with a beast behind him and a forest ahead.
A place that felt more real than anything he'd ever touched.
He clenched a fist, then slowly opened it. Watched how the skin folded. Felt the sting of a scrape on his palm. Counted the hairs on his arm.
"I don't think I'm dreaming," he said softly.
And that thought—more than the monster, more than the forest—terrified him.
Because if this wasn't a dream… what was it?
A low breeze stirred the leaves above. He looked up, startled.
But the trees didn't move.
The sound wasn't from the wind.
It was a whisper. A rustle. A presence.
He stood slowly, eyes scanning the canopy.
A flicker again.
A figure—no, a shape. Perched in the branches.
Thin. Human-shaped. Unmoving.
Watching.
He blinked—and it was gone.
Not vanished. Just no longer there. As if it had never existed.
His stomach turned. His heart began to thud again.
"I don't like this. I really don't like this."
He backed away from the stream, gaze flicking to every shadow.
Eventually, as the light dulled into a deeper gray and the fog thickened in the low places, he found a crooked stone outcrop near a hollow tree. He crept inside the half-rotted trunk, curled up tight, and pressed his back to the wood.
For the first time in hours, the world didn't move.
His body ached with the kind of weariness that went past exhaustion and into something bone-deep. His thoughts unraveled like thread from a frayed coat sleeve.
And for a few short moments, he felt almost... peaceful.
Not safe. He never felt safe.
But still.
The wind rose softly through the trees. The stream whispered down the hill. The sky, though blank, had shifted—tinged with a cold lavender glow.
And Arthur, for the first time in a long time, cried.
Not loudly. Not even with sound.
Just silent tears, barely visible, slipping down his cheek as he curled tighter into the tree hollow.
He didn't cry because he was afraid.
He cried because he didn't want to go back.
Back to the cold alleys. The empty eyes. The city that pretended he didn't exist.
Because whatever this place was—whatever nightmare it had waiting for him—at least it felt real.
And maybe, just maybe, something real was worth surviving for.
He closed his eyes.
The last thing he heard before sleep finally dragged him under... was the sound of something breathing just beyond the tree line.