The deeper they walked, the more unnatural it became.
The trees no longer looked like trees. Their trunks were twisted, like bone pushed into bark, and the leaves shimmered between red and black, even though no wind touched them. Shadows moved in ways the sun couldn't explain.
Caelum stopped.
"Where's… the path?"
It was gone.
They turned in slow circles, only trees now. No landmarks. No willow. No scent of firewood. Just breathing wood and watchful silence.
Serai took a step toward Caelum, her lips parted to speak—
And the forest snapped.
A high-pitched crack like a branch breaking inside their skulls.
Suddenly Caelum was alone.
"Serai?" he called out.
No answer.
He turned.
The forest was darker now. The ground is damp. His boots sinking slightly into mud. He spun around. "Serai!"
But what he saw stopped his breath.
Her.
Serai.
But not the same.
She stood between two trees, her eyes weeping blood, a blade in her hand. Her mouth moved, but no sound came. Her lips formed words.
"You left me."
Caelum stepped back.
"No. I didn't— Serai, this isn't—"
She took a step forward.
Her shadow split into three on the ground. All of them reached for him.
Caelum drew his sword. It shook in his hands. "You're not her."
But a part of him, the deepest, smallest part, wasn't sure.
"You left me," she repeated. "Just like you left your mother."
His blade clattered to the dirt.
"Stop— STOP!"
Meanwhile Serai stood frozen.
Caelum had vanished from her side, as if pulled into smoke.
"Caelum?"
A flicker ahead, firelight. She ran toward it.
And found herself in a courtyard of stone. Familiar. Far too familiar.
She looked down her hands were covered in red.
And before her, piled like meat in the center of her family.
No faces. Just shapes. All of them twisted. All of them burned.
The same golden hair. Her hair.
She staggered backward, but her foot caught on something. A chain.
She was shackled.
To the throne.
The same bone throne from the dream.
And a voice soft, like her mother's, whispered:
"You bring death to all who love you."
She screamed.
And suddenly like shattering glass, the illusions broke.
Caelum awoke first, face down in moss, sobbing. He clawed at the dirt, whispering Serai's name again and again.
A few paces away Serai lay on her side, shaking, her eyes wide open, silent tears running down her face.
When their eyes met again, it was like the first time.
Tentative. Hollow. But something flickered there.
A knowing.
They crawled toward each other, hands reaching not out of habit or comfort, but desperation. Like two people who just saw hell and chose not to stay.
They didn't speak.
They just held each other under the warping trees of the cursed forest, breath syncing, fear fading into a single heartbeat between them.
And above, unseen in a branch far too high for birds a pair of eyeless faces carved into bark turned slightly… and smiled.