The howl came again, closer this time, followed by another from a different direction, and the fragile composure holding the group together shattered completely.
"Oh god, oh god, there's more of them." The wedding woman fumbled with her phone, fingers jabbing at the screen desperately. "No signal, why is there no signal, there has to be—"
"Of course there's no signal, we're in the fucking past!" One of the remaining teenagers was backing away from the trees, spinning in circles trying to watch every direction at once. "Did you not hear what she said? Different when, she said different when!"
Others pulled out their phones anyway, the modern instinct to call for help overriding logic, but every screen showed the same thing: no service, no WiFi, nothing but expensive pieces of dead technology.
"We need to run." Rou touched his hair, pulling at it harder than usual as he tried to think through the panic spreading through his chest. "Standing here arguing won't help anything, we need to find somewhere safer."
But nobody was listening, everyone talking over each other, voices rising with hysteria. The businessman was trying to get people organized but kept getting drowned out by the wedding woman's sobbing and someone else shouting about finding weapons.
Two people were kneeling by the dead teenager's body, one checking for a pulse that obviously wasn't there while the other just stared at the blood still leaking from his ears.
'Medieval era,' Rou thought while the chaos continued around him, his mind latching onto facts to avoid processing the terror. 'The way that witch dressed, the language she spoke before the spell, the rough wool on the dead traveler, it's obvious enough.' He watched the others panic while his thoughts raced in their own direction. 'She said Kasy was of her blood, which means the witch lived in our past, had descendants, and somehow that bloodline led to Kasy.'
Another howl, definitely closer, this one made someone scream.
'But what about the monsters?' His mind wouldn't stop analyzing even as his body tensed to run. 'The witch's magic? If this is really our past, then where did all of that go? Did humanity just forget? Did it die out? Or did something happen that erased it from history?'
The businessman appeared in front of him suddenly, grabbing his shoulder hard enough to hurt. "Hey! You listening? We need to go, now."
Rou focused on the man's face, saw the barely controlled fear there beneath the attempt at authority, and nodded. The businessman turned to the others, raising his voice over the panic.
"Everyone shut up and listen!" When that didn't work, he grabbed the nearest person, shaking them slightly. "The river! The witch said follow the river downstream. That's a direction, that's something."
"But which way is the river?" The wedding woman's mascara had run down her face in black streams. "I don't hear water, I don't see—"
A fourth howl cut her off, this one close enough that they could hear branches breaking under heavy bodies moving through the undergrowth. Whatever was coming wasn't trying to be quiet anymore.
"That way." One of the older members of their group, a man who'd been silent until now, pointed through the trees opposite from the sounds. "The ground slopes that way, water flows downhill, basic logic says we go that direction."
Nobody argued because another sound joined the howling, a chittering noise that made parts of their brains scream warnings about predators. They ran, all nine of them crashing through the forest with none of the careful stepping from before, branches tearing at their clothes, roots trying to trip them with every step.
Rou ran with them, his mind still churning even as his legs pumped. 'The witch knew exactly who she was looking for, knew Kasy's birthmark, her age, everything. This was planned, prepared for. But she also said her enemies were near, that religious group she mentioned. Witch hunters in a medieval world where magic is real.'
Behind them, the chittering grew louder, multiplying as more of whatever was making it joined the hunt. Someone tripped, went down hard, and two others hauled them back up without stopping, the whole group moving on pure survival instinct now.
The trees began to thin slightly, the ground definitely sloping downward, and through the gaps they could see brighter light that might mean a clearing or possibly water. The businessman led the way, batting aside low-hanging branches, his expensive suit already torn in multiple places.
'We're not prepared for this,' Rou thought, the obvious fact hitting him as they stumbled down an incline. 'Nine people in modern clothes with dead phones and no weapons trying to survive in medieval times where monsters are real. The witch was right, most of us probably won't make it two days.'
They burst out of the tree line onto a riverbank, the water moving fast enough to create white foam around rocks jutting from the surface. Everyone stopped, gasping for breath, looking back at the forest they'd just escaped.
The chittering had stopped, as had the howling, but somehow the silence felt worse.
"Why did they stop?" The wedding woman whispered, as if speaking too loud might summon them back. "Why aren't they following?"
The businessman was moving along the riverbank, looking for the safest path. "Does it matter? We follow this downstream like that woman said. Two days to a settlement."
"Two days." Someone laughed, but it was the broken kind that threatened to turn into crying. "Two days in this place with those things hunting us."
Rou looked at the group, really looked at them for the first time since the witch left. A businessman, a wedding planner, teenagers, office workers, people who ordered coffee through apps and complained when the WiFi was slow.
Now they were supposed to survive two days in a forest full of monsters with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
'No,' he corrected himself, watching as the businessman tried to organize everyone to start moving downstream. 'Most of us won't survive two days. The question is whether I'll be one of the ones who does.'
The forest behind them rustled, just once, just enough to remind them that whatever had been hunting them was still there, waiting.
They started walking, following the river, nine people who just a few hours ago had been waiting for a bus now trying to figure out how to survive in a world that history forgot existed.