When Arthur woke up the next morning, the world still hadn't changed.
Same gray sky. Same unmoving clouds. Same unnatural silence. He blinked against the dull light, the strange absence of birdsong somehow louder than any noise could've been.
Even the surrounding trees haven't changed at all, they were the same green and had the same look as the day before. It felt as if time was standing still at this place.
As the seemingly fake sun turned, the shadows of everything around Arthur also circled with its flow
The shadows looked even darker, more harrowing and more mysterious when they were cast on him.
He sat up slowly, every joint in his body protesting like rusted hinges. His back cracked. His legs were sore. His hands were scabbed and raw from crawling, climbing, scraping bark, and whatever else this dream demanded of him.
Except it didn't feel like a dream anymore.
And it was definitely too real to be a nightmare.
After a moment, he muttered, "Okay, next goal—don't die."
It was all he had to go on.
He spent most of that day building.
He didn't know why he felt the need to make something. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was to fight the feeling that the world was staring at him. Maybe it was to prove he could.
He found a slope near the stream with two collapsed trees forming a triangle. It was a start. He wedged sticks between them, layered moss for insulation, and tied everything together with vine strips. The thing barely held its shape, but it stood.
"Well," he muttered, crawling into it, "if it doesn't kill me, it'll probably kill someone else. So that's a win."
The forest still felt wrong. Not dangerous, exactly. Just...observant. Like a room that turns quiet when you enter. Like holding your breath and realizing the world's holding it too.
That night, he sat by the doorway of his shelter, chewing on bitter berries he'd foraged earlier. They were tart and mealy, but they filled his stomach with something other than knots. At least he wasn't hungry anymore, as the appetite flew away at the bitter taste of the berries.
The stars came out again, shining even brighter now as they stood atop everything.
He hadn't noticed them the first night—not really—but now that he did, he couldn't unsee how wrong they looked. It were too many. They were too bright. They pulsed instead of twinkling, like they were alive. Worse, some of them moved. Not like shooting stars or meteorites—slow, drifting glides, as if they were fish swimming behind a layer of glass.
Arthur stared at them for a long time.
After sighing, he went back inside his makeshift shelter and tried to sleep.
That was until sounds started to form outside his new home.
"Can the scratching stop? I'm feeling itchy all of a sudden" He said in a sleepy voice.
He started to open his eyes again and realize what actually happened, listening closely he hugged the ground and stayed absolutely still, even forgetting to breathe.
It started low. Far away. Like the claws of a raccoon against bark. Then it grew louder, closer, as if it was right outside his shelter.
He held his breath completely, not even noticing it.
Then came the whispering. Not words. Just the sound of air being pulled through invisible teeth.
Then the footsteps.
Soft. Deliberate. One step. A pause. Another. Silence. Repeating itself for a long time
Arthur didn't move. Didn't even twitch. His eyes were locked on the stick he'd jammed into the ground at the entrance, connected to his wrist by a makeshift vine cord. His alarm system. His only alarm system.
The stick didn't move. Not even by a centimeter.
But the footsteps circled the shelter once.
Then again.
Then silence.
The kind of silence that made his heart beat louder than the world itself, just to remind him he was alive.
He stayed awake the entire night. Not getting any sleep and nearly collapsing again and again.
The next morning, Arthur checked the dirt.
There were footprints.
Not animal. Human-like—but wrong. The toes were too long, and the heel was shaped oddly, as if it had split into three points.
He didn't speak. He didn't joke. Just stared at them.
Then he erased them with a branch and began carving lines in the dirt—circles, arrows, a checkerboard of pebbles. If something moved, anything, he'd know.
The next night, he drew a large ring around his shelter, then a square of stones outside it. He tied extra vines. Scraped markers into the trees.
"An improved alarm system, hope that helps me get some sleep" He mutters.
The night was silent. Too silent.
But the next morning, the stone square had been rearranged into a perfect spiral.
Arthur didn't scream. Didn't cry. Just sat there, staring at it.
Then he laughed. Quietly. Bitterly.
"Okay," he whispered, "you want to play games? Let's play."
The days passed in a rhythmless blur.
He scavenged more food. Mostly berries and roots, some bitter bulbs that made his tongue sting. Nothing had killed him yet. That was either luck or mercy. He wasn't sure which scared him more.
He built a better spear. Made traps, though they caught nothing. Started stacking flat stones for some reason he couldn't explain—maybe it felt like building a wall between himself and whatever was watching.
He also started naming things.
The stream became The Lifeline.
The tree behind his shelter was Old Scar, from the deep gash it bore.
The gray stretch of trees to the south, where the branches seemed to whisper when he passed, became The Hushed Woods.
Naming things helped. Gave the illusion of control.
He began talking more, too. Out loud. To himself. To the forest. To whatever might be listening.
"Look," he muttered one afternoon, sitting by the water with a sharp stick in hand, "I get it. You're creepy. You're weird. You win the award. Now can I please just find a hamburger or a bed or literally anything that makes sense?"
Silence.
As always.
Then something moved.
Not close—far off, across the water, through the trees.
A flicker. A ripple. A shape too tall, too thin.
He blinked. It was gone.
Arthur didn't chase it.
Instead, he whispered, "Sure. You do you."
That night, he didn't sleep.
Not out of fear—but instinct.
Something was different.
The forest wasn't quiet anymore.
It was humming.
A low, constant vibration beneath the silence. Like the earth was holding a note just beyond hearing. His teeth itched. His bones felt...hollow.
He stared at the stars.
They were brighter than before. Closer.
One of them pulsed in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
He stared too long.
When he blinked, there were afterimages burned into his vision—patterns. Shapes. Spirals.
He shut his eyes tight and buried his head in his arms.
In the morning, everything looked normal.
As normal as this place could be.
But something inside him told him to move.
He couldn't stay in the shelter forever.
He packed what little he had: a crude pouch of berries, his spear, a few sharp stones, and the length of vine he now wore like a belt.
Then he set off, following the stream downstream this time, deeper into the woods.
The trees grew taller. Thicker. The light barely filtered through. And the air smelled...wet. Like something had recently passed through.
Hours passed. Maybe more.
Then the forest opened.
And he saw it.
A lake. Smooth. Silent. The surface flat as glass. Not a single ripple. It reflected the sky above so perfectly it looked like a mirror laid across the earth.
He stepped closer.
The trees reflected in the water didn't match the trees around him. They were taller. Twisted. Dead.
He looked down at his own reflection—and saw nothing.
No face.
Just a shadowy circle-like shape where his head should be.
He stumbled back, heart pounding, mouth dry.
Then, slowly, he crouched forward again.
The water didn't ripple. Didn't shift.
And the moment he stepped closer, the reflection changed—showing something behind him.
He spun.
Nothing there.
He turned back—and now his reflection was staring at him.
Not copying him. Not mirroring. Staring.
It smiled.
He didn't.
Arthur took a slow step back, spear raised.
The reflection vanished.
The water turned black.
He stood at the edge of the Lake of Mirrors, frozen.
Then whispered, "...Guess I found something."
He didn't know if that was good or bad.
But the forest behind him suddenly felt like it was holding its breath. Matter of fact, the whole area seemed like everything was standing still, nothing moved except him. Nothing breathed except him, but yet everything seemed so alive that it felt surreal...
"This place keeps a little too many mysteries for my taste."
Arthur felt as if the real dream was just beginning.