Morning, 04.50 am, when the sun had not shone enough, through misty woods.
The trees looked like faded silhouettes, their shapes hidden in a soft, bluish haze. Dew clung to every leaf, each blade of grass, and the air was still—thick with the smell of freshly fallen rain that had come overnight. Atama stood by his bed, hurriedly packing a worn bag.
The zipper caught twice, but he managed to force it shut. Inside, the essentials:pencil, the lighter, a stolen bundle of food wrapped in cloth. The essentials of escape.a flashlight with half-dead batteries, Just enough to get him going.
He crept through the narrow hallway, each step muffled by the soft creak of old wooden floors. The morning light had barely touched the house, only a pale hue filtering through the cracked windowpanes.
Atama paused at the doorway of his parents' room. The door was ajar. Inside, he could see the slow, steady rise and fall of his father's chest, his mother's hand curled loosely on the blanket. In sleep, the worry lines on their faces softened. The sight was a physical ache in his chest, a magnet pulling him back into the safe, suffocating orbit of home.
Selfish. Stupid. The words echoed in his head, his own voice laced with their imagined accusations. But beneath the guilt, a colder, firmer current flowed: Necessary.
He placed a hand on the doorframe, the wood cool and familiar. "Goodbye," he breathed into the stillness, the word vanishing the moment it left his lips. Then he turned, shutting out the image of them, and stepped into the damp, waiting air.
Outside, where the wind stirred, Atama stood for a second, gazing upon the roots behind his house. Their thick, twisted forms stretched downward, guiding Atama toward the lake beyond.
"Here we go." And begin his journey into thin air.
But after only a few steps—
BANG!
The front door slammed open so hard it rattled on its hinges. Atama flinched and turned.
The voice was his father's, but strained thin, pulled taut like a wire about to snap. Atama froze, his blood turning to ice water.
He turned slowly.
Shaun stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light from within. He wasn't dressed. He was just standing there, his posture rigid. "Where," he said, the word a low rasp, "do you think you're going?"
"I have to go, Dad." Atama's own voice sounded small.
"No." The denial was flat, absolute. Shaun took a step forward, and a sharp, metallic pain spiked behind Atama's eyes. He winced, blinking. The world swam for a second.
When his vision cleared, something was wrong.
It was still his father's shape, his father's face. But the expression was all wrong. The mouth was set in a hard, humorless line. The eyes… they didn't seem to reflect the weak light. They were dark pools, too still.
"You're not going to that place," Not-Shaun said. The voice was closer now, a poor imitation, like a recording played back slightly slow. "You're not ready."
A coil of primal fear tightened in Atama's gut. "Dad? What's wrong with you?"
"Come. Here." Each word was a separate command, devoid of warmth. Another step forward. Another throb of pain in Atama's skull. This time, his vision rippled. For a fraction of a second, his father's face seemed to blur at the edges, the features sliding—a longer jaw, a sharper cheekbone, before snapping back.
It's not him. It's the thing from the dream. It's here. The thought was a lightning strike of pure terror. This wasn't an argument. This was a predator wearing his father's skin.
Atama stumbled back. "Stay away!"
Not-Shaun moved. It wasn't his father's tired gait. It was a liquid, efficient lunge. A hand shot out, fingers clamping around Atama's shoulder with inhuman strength. The touch was fever-hot and wrong.
Panic erupted. Atama didn't think. He twisted, driving his free elbow back hard into the thing's midsection. It felt like hitting solid oak, but the grip loosened for a crucial instant. Atama tore himself free, spinning to face it.
It stood between him and the house, its head tilted. "Foolish child," it whispered, and now the voice had a double timbre—his father's rumble layered over a dry, scraping hiss. "You are a key. You will be turned."
Atama's breath came in ragged gasps. He glanced toward the woods, his escape route blocked. His eyes darted to the ground, finding a half-buried stone. He snatched it up, hefting its rough weight.
"Let me go," Atama demanded, hating the tremor in his voice.
The thing that wore Shaun smiled. It was a ghastly expression, all teeth and no warmth. It raised a hand, palm outward. The air before it began to shimmer, like heat haze off asphalt. A low, vibrating hum filled the space between them.
"Vires in orbem exsolvo," it intoned, the words guttural and ancient.
The shimmering air detonated.
A wall of invisible force slammed into Atama. It didn't feel like a punch; it felt like the sky itself had fallen on him. The air was driven from his lungs. He was lifted off his feet and thrown backward as if by a giant's hand. He flew, weightless and helpless, for a terrifying moment before his back connected with the trunk of a young birch tree.
The crack was sickening—a mix of splintering wood and the scream of his own ribs. He crumpled to the muddy ground, agony blazing across his back. White spots danced in his vision. He tried to suck in air, but his body refused to obey.
Through a haze of pain, he saw it approach. The façade was crumbling. The skin around its eyes looked waxen, stretched. The shadow it cast seemed to twitch and writhe independently. It loomed over him, those dark, empty eyes peering down.
Then, a spasm rocked its frame. The creature—the mask—staggered. A different tension entered its body, a struggle from within. Its hand, raised to deliver a final blow, trembled violently in mid-air.
From its mouth, a new voice fought its way out, choked and desperate, yet unmistakably, beautifully real.
"Atama…!" it was Shaun, his true father, fighting from somewhere deep inside. "Look… at me!"
The creature's face became a battlefield. The cold mask fractured. For one glorious, heartbreaking second, Atama saw his father's true eyes—wide with terror, love, and immense strain—blazing through the darkness.
"You're… controlled…" Shaun's voice wrestled with the scraping hiss. "Its in your… head! Fight it… Wake up!"
The internal struggle reached a climax. With a final, convulsive shudder, the creature's form solidified back into the perfect, terrible imitation. The loving light in its eyes was snuffed out, replaced by vacant malevolence.
But the hesitation had lasted just long enough.
Adrenaline, sharp and clean, cut through Atama's pain. His father had broken through. To fight this thing was to risk his father's life trapped within it. There was no winning here. Only escape.
He rolled, ignoring the fire in his side, and scrambled to his feet. Without a backward glance, he plunged into the tree line, his legs pumping, driven by terror and a devastating new grief.
The thing did not immediately follow. From the clearing behind him, as the trees closed in, he heard a final, fading shout—a fusion of two voices, one a roar of rage, the other a fading echo of his name.
He ran until his lungs screamed and the image of his father's pleading eyes was burned onto the back of his own. The words echoed with every footfall, a terrible mantra: You've been controlled. You've been controlled.
Was it true? Was the fear, the desperation, the very need to flee to Anapados not his own? Or was it a lie, another layer of manipulation from the thing that wore his father's face?
He didn't know. And the not-knowing was the most frightening thing of all. It meant he couldn't trust his own mind. The only thing left was the path under his feet, leading away from the haunted house and toward the hanging roots in the sky.
* * *
For hours, he ran without thought, without direction, guided only by the primal urge to put distance between himself and the thing that had worn his father's face. Brambles tore at his clothes, low branches slapped his skin, but he felt none of it.
Deep in the woods, where a clear stream cut through the trees, he passed along the riverbank and caught sight of a playful child splashing in the shallows, laughing. The sound was a fleeting echo of a world that felt lifetimes away.
He kept moving. Mile after mile, the land began to rise beneath his feet. Climbing the long slope, his legs burned, but he pushed on.
At last, he reached the crest of the hill. Before him, stretching from the inverted sky to the anchored earth, stood the colossal roots—titanic, ancient, and so immense they seemed to hold the ceiling of the world itself in place.
From the hilltop, Atama could see it all, the lake that he had crossed lying behind him, and beyond its shore, the small town nestled close to the water's edge, while in front of him, the massive roots were surrounded by a mountain of hills, and he saw a path of river dividing the hills as the natural borders
Atama stepped closer to the slopes, looked down, searching for a path, any safe way to descend from the hill and draw closer to the roots.
From what I've seen, every side is steep. I'm not sure I can make it down safely… and if the sun starts to set, I won't have enough time, maybe I could camp here for a while… but if I do, Father will know where I'm going.
Atama stood there pondering what he wanted to decide as the wind tugged at his clothes.
"You know what… forget it. Just keep going. All I have to do is take it slow."
Each step was careful, Atama gripping at jutting branches and roots to steady himself as he slowly made his way down the hill. And as each step is made, it makes the dirt crumple down just to make Atama feel the uncertainty of falling down.
After a couple of minutes where he sees the ground around 30 feet tall, Atama tries to quicken his pace.
But in that action, he got his consequences as his foot slipped.
The ground crumbled beneath him, and the branch in his grasp snapped. He tumbled forward, sliding down the slope in a spray of dirt and leaves.