The first thing was the cold. Not burningly cold, not the type that stings—but damp, insidious cold that seeped under the skin and lodged in the marrow of the bone. It felt ancient, old—the type where the air had remembered nothing of the warmth of sun.
Then the smell. Dirt, damp moss, tree bark, and something else—definitely metallic. Blood, or rust. Hard to tell when your skull is ringing as though it has been split in twain.
When she opened her eyes, she saw trees. Too many trees.
They were sentinels, tall and ominous. Not for their strangeness, but for the way they looked. intentional. Trunks spaced evenly. Branches reaching like scratching hands.
Leaf quiet somehow in a world where the wind was forbidden. The forest was not silent, not really; but the forest was not supposed to sound like this; little clicks every now and then, a faint sound of something being pulled through some leaves, a static hum, always just out of reach.
Slowly, the girl or maybe the woman stood up and pressed her palm to her brow. No name was coming to her.
No memories. Only the thought that she was, and that something watched her.
Across from her, someone stirred.
A man. Quite young, possibly thirty. Whitened face with confusion, flashing eyes characteristic of some feral beast. Clothes stained with dirt and green moss. He didn't speak—just looked at her as if she was some puzzle with all the edge pieces stripped away.
Then another one—a large man grunting, turning onto his side. Then two others.
Was it not a necklace that a woman dressed in super unruly curly hair hugged tightly? There hangs a very tall, extremely thin man with a dried blood caked at the corner of his mouth.
Five total. None of them said anything for quite some time.
Above, the mist grew denser.
It wasn't natural fog. It didn't swirl or change or burn off. It simply… sat. There. A gray dome, pressing down over the tops of the trees. There was light in it—dull, clean, like the inside of a broken fluorescent tube. But no sun. No direction. No warmth.
The first un-forest noise was the mechanical chirp, clean-sounding and too clean, that emanated from the back of the trees. The group turned as one.
A radio sat on a tree stump.
It hadn't been there previously.
Small. Black. Humming softly.
The heavy man stepped forward, spurring on his legs. He glared at the thing as though it would bite, then knelt down.
Static cleared.
And a voice came through. Emptily. Indifferently.
"Night One begins now."
"Survive."
"99 nights remain."
Then silence.
The fog exhaled.
And the forest was transformed.
Branches twisted. Leaves curled. What had once been a path between trees now curved back on itself. In the distance, something howled—not an animal, not a person. Something in between.
The five froze.
Then the tall man spoke, his voice low and deliberate.
"…We're not getting out, are we?"
The wild-haired woman's lips moved, nearly too quietly to be heard: "Not yet."
Nameless Woman clasped her fists, trying to hold on to something—sanity, clear thinking, something. All she knew was that awful pulsating sense of wrongness.
She looked at the others.
Five strangers. No memories. No answers.
And a voice through the fog counting down from 99.
End of Chapter 1