(Author: Sorry for the delay—I bought some games on Steam and ended up playing a lot in the meantime.)
Tanner followed Mike from a distance, pedaling his own bike carefully to keep enough space between them and avoid being noticed. Before Mike could sense anything out of the ordinary, Tanner took his planned detour, slipping into a quiet shortcut that cut through the neighborhood and led straight to Mirkwood.
Mike would still meet up with Dustin and Lucas before entering the forest.
Tanner wouldn't.
As soon as he reached the edge of the woods, he stopped. He got off his bike, leaned it against a tree farther from the road, and pulled a flashlight from his backpack—one he had brought specifically for this moment. The weight of it in his hand brought him a small measure of comfort—only to make his mind even more conflicted about his situation.
'Well… here we go,' he thought.
Without hesitating any longer, Tanner stepped into the forest.
His figure was quickly swallowed by the tall trees and dense undergrowth, branches closing behind him as if the woods were alive. As he moved deeper inside, the sky above began to change. Dark, heavy clouds spread rapidly, covering all of Hawkins, blotting out the faint starlight and making the night feel even more oppressive.
A few minutes later, Mike—now joined by Dustin and Lucas—arrived at the entrance to Mirkwood.
The forest felt different at night.
More closed in.
Deeper.
More erratic.
RUMBLE!
The sound came from above, violent and sudden.
The approaching storm finally arrived, announcing itself with a powerful clap of thunder that shook the sky, followed by a white flash that lit up the road and the forest entrance for a brief instant. The shadows of the trees stretched long and twisted, like hands trying to reach for anyone who got too close.
"Guys… did you feel that?" Dustin asked, his voice tight with nerves as he gripped the handlebars of his bike. His eyes scanned the woods, wary. "I think we should go back."
"No!" Mike answered immediately.
His voice was firm. Determined. Far too authoritative for someone his age.
"We're not going back," he continued, looking at the two of them. "Just… just stick together."
He got off his bike and left it at the edge of the road without bothering to prop it up properly. He walked over to the police tape and lifted it without hesitation.
"Come on," Mike called, crossing first. "Stay on Channel Six. And don't do anything stupid."
(Author: You're doing something stupid, but okay.)
Lucas was the first to follow, quickly pushing his bike under the tape, as if he just wanted to get it over with. Dustin, however, stayed behind for a second longer, fear clearly written on his face.
"Guys… wait for me," he said, awkwardly getting off his bike. It slipped from his hands and hit the ground with a dull thud. "Wait for me!"
Without wasting any more time, Dustin ran, ducking under the tape and entering the forest after Mike and Lucas, who stopped a few meters ahead to wait for him.
RUMBLE!
Another thunderclap echoed, closer this time.
The first raindrops began to fall—thick and cold—striking the dark soil of Mirkwood. The smell of wet earth rose quickly, mixing with the forest's heavy air.
Inside the forest, something broke.
Tanner felt it the moment he took a few more steps deeper into the woods. It wasn't pain—it was disorientation. As if his mental faculties, steady until then, began to slip one by one, losing their grip on reality. The air felt too heavy for his lungs, dense, almost viscous. The sky, visible only between the treetops, took on a dark, earthy hue, as if the night itself were rotting above him.
His steps grew unsteady.
His legs gave out.
Tanner staggered, the world spinning at wrong angles, until he finally dropped to his knees in the mud with a muffled impact. Cold water splashed around him, mixing with the soaked earth.
"What… what's happening…?"
The question came out weak, broken by heavy breathing. He braced his hands against the ground, inhaling deeply, trying to gather the strength to stand. His heart was beating far too fast, and each beat felt delayed, as if it weren't fully synchronized with the rest of his body.
Then he heard it.
A sound.
"Tan…"
It wasn't exactly a voice.
Too faint to be a whisper. It had no direction, no defined tone. It felt more like the memory of a sound than a real one. Still, it sent a chill down his spine.
Tanner lifted his head, his eyes scanning the forest.
Nothing.
Only the dense darkness between the trees. The rain falling relentlessly, striking the leaves, running down his face, soaking his clothes, pressing the cold fabric against his skin. Thin strands of hair stuck to his forehead and fell over his eyes, blurring his vision even more.
And then… his mind began to connect the dots.
At first, he thought it was his imagination.
Then he realized it wasn't.
Eyes.
They emerged slowly.
Eyes of different colors, impossible to categorize, opened along the tree trunks like sentient wounds. Others formed in the darkness between the branches, glowing for a brief moment before vanishing. Some appeared on the ground, reflected in the pooled rainwater, blinking on the muddy surface as if they were just beneath it—watching.
All of them fixed on him.
"Tanner…"
This time, it was a whisper.
Far too close.
Tanner lowered his gaze on instinct.
His hands were caked with mud, his fingers trembling as they sank slightly into the soaked earth. That was when he saw it.
Something moving.
A black sludge began to spread through the water and mud around his hand. It didn't drip—it climbed. The thick substance coiled around his fingers, coating his skin like living ink, slowly advancing up to his wrist.
Cold.
Heavy.
Far too familiar.
Tanner's eyes widened, his breath caught in his throat.
"Sea of Chaos…" he murmured, his voice almost failing. "How…?"
That shouldn't have been there.
Not like that.
Not so soon.
And yet, as the black sludge continued to rise, pulsing almost imperceptibly, Tanner felt something far worse than fear.
"We need to talk, Tanner."
The sentence didn't echo—it asserted itself. It didn't come from the air, nor the sludge, nor anywhere that could be pointed to. It simply appeared inside him, carrying a weight impossible to ignore.
Before Tanner could react, the black sludge moved.
It didn't drip. It surged.
The thick liquid rose like a living thing, wrapping around his arms, then his chest, his neck. Tanner tried to pull away, but the ground ceased to exist beneath his feet. In an instant, he was pulled, swallowed, dragged into the Sea of Chaos.
The world unraveled.
There was no body anymore. No direction. Only consciousness.
Voices emerged from all sides, overlapping, distorted, chaotic. Some murmured fractured truths. Others whispered forgotten lies. There was laughter without joy, lamentations without pain, words in languages that should not exist—and yet he understood them.
Absolute chaos.
Then, one voice stood out among the others.
"You have been straying from the Path of the Spectator, Tanner…"
The accusation struck deep. Even without lungs, Tanner felt the need to swallow hard. The pressure crushed his mind, but he gathered enough strength to respond—not in sound, but in pure thought.
"Don't blame me for this. Even as a Spectator, I need to exist in the story. I can't just watch while everything happens."
His consciousness wavered, but it did not yield.
The Sea of Chaos reacted.
The voices ceased all at once, torn from existence as if they had never been there. The silence that followed was suffocating, more threatening than the noise before.
For a brief moment, Tanner thought he had gone too far.
Then another voice emerged.
Deeper. More stable. Male.
"Spectator or not, blaming him for stepping onto the stage now is pointless."
There was no anger there. Only certainty.
"Above all, he belongs to the Path of the Visionary."
The Sea of Chaos stirred slightly.
"Sooner or later, the stage will no longer be merely a place he steps onto—it will be something that belongs to him."
The voice paused briefly, as if choosing its next words with care.
"Like Adam… he is the closest to being capable of becoming the Visionary and occupying the Position of God Almighty."
The collective murmur returned. Some voices vibrated in agreement. Others sounded uneasy, unsettled by that possibility.
Among them, a new voice made itself heard.
Soft. Feminine. Cautious.
"He is still immature. He is not ready."
Another voice, more distant, followed.
"He is young… there is still much to mature."
Tanner absorbed everything in silence. His mind tried to build some pattern, some logic that could explain the existence of so many consciousnesses speaking at once.
But before he could advance that reasoning, the first voice returned.
"Do not think about this now."
The tone was direct.
"Listen to us, Tanner."
The Sea of Chaos seemed to close in around him.
"'That thing' still lives."
A shiver ran through his consciousness.
"It came to this world. In his sacrifice, Adam never imagined that it would survive… migrating to another dimension and anchoring itself to another being."
Tanner's mind tightened.
"'That thing'?"
A heavy silence preceded the answer.
"It is still too early," the voice replied. "You are weak now, Tanner… but that thing is also weak."
The Sea of Chaos calmed slightly, as if awaiting his full attention.
"Listen carefully. Progress in your sequence. Progress within the story of this world."
"But do not put yourself at risk until you reach Sequence 5."
"If you do so before that… he will notice your presence." The final instruction came low, almost conspiratorial.
"Be discreet, Tanner."
And slowly, the Sea of Chaos began to recede.
The black sludge did not vanish all at once. It withdrew like a tide obeying an invisible will. The thick substance peeled itself away from Tanner in viscous strands, sliding back into the darkness from which it had emerged, dissolving into the ordinary mud of the forest.
The voices followed the same path.
First, the closest whispers ceased. Then the distant murmurs lost their shape, becoming noise, and then nothing. A heavy silence took hold of everything, so dense it felt as though it were pressing against Tanner's ears.
It was not a natural silence.
It was the silence of something that had just finished watching.
Then, the weight returned.
Gravity asserted itself all at once—brutal and real. Tanner was spat out of the Sea of Chaos, thrown sideways onto the forest floor. His body slammed into the soaked mud with enough force to tear all the air from his lungs.
He rolled slightly, his face turned toward the ground, his chest rising and falling unevenly as he tried to pull the air back into his lungs. The rain poured heavily onto his back—cold, relentless—mixing with sweat and mud.
"Damn…" he murmured.
The word came out weak, broken, almost swallowed by the sound of the storm.
His heart hammered in his chest, far too fast, out of sync, as if it were still trying to keep up with the impossible rhythm of the Sea of Chaos. Each beat echoed in his head, reminding him that he was alive. Present. Trapped in that body.
He blinked a few times, trying to focus.
The forest was there.
The tall trees, their trunks darkened by rain, the leaves trembling under the violent wind of the storm. Everything looked… normal. Familiar.
And yet, wrong.
Tanner felt it with unsettling clarity. As if the world had slipped a single centimeter out of place while he was gone. As if reality itself had been subtly—almost imperceptibly—rearranged, and only he had noticed.
The air felt heavier. The silence between the thunderclaps lingered longer than it should have.
He planted a hand on the ground to push himself up.
And froze.
The mud slid between his fingers, cold, thick… but for a brief instant, it didn't feel like mud. The substance moved on its own, retreating slightly, as if avoiding direct contact with his skin.
As if it recognized him.
The movement was far too subtle to be dismissed as imagination—a small withdrawal, almost respectful. Enough to send a shiver up Tanner's spine.
He slowly pulled his hand away.
The mud returned to normal.
But the sensation remained.
Tanner rubbed his hand hard against his soaked pants, as if he could erase what he had felt.
"No… not now…" he whispered to himself, his voice nearly lost beneath the rain.
His mind was still reverberating.
The words did not come like ordinary memories, but like marks burned into his consciousness—impossible to ignore.
Visionary Pathway.
Sequence 5.
It still lives.
Adam.
The sacrifice.
Another dimension.
Another being.
Each concept carried an unbearable weight—ideas far too vast, far too ancient, far too dangerous for a twelve-year-old. And yet, Tanner didn't feel confused.
He felt pressed.
As if he were holding pieces of a cosmic puzzle far too large for his hands, yet somehow fitting perfectly within his mind.
Thunder tore through the sky above him.
RUMBLE!
The sound was deafening, vibrating through the ground, the air, and Tanner's own body. In the same instant, lightning split the sky, bathing the forest in a raw, white light for a full second.
And in that second…
Tanner saw it.
Something moved between the trees.
It wasn't an ordinary shadow. It wasn't a branch swaying in the wind. There was intent in that movement—a fast, low, almost furtive glide that vanished the moment the light died.
Tanner's heart lurched.
He got up too fast, his feet slipping in the mud as he nearly fell. He managed to steady himself by pure reflex and groped along the ground until he found the fallen flashlight.
His fingers trembled as he pressed the button.
Nothing.
The flashlight flickered once… and died.
The darkness rushed back in full force, thicker than before, as if it had drawn closer.
"Of course…" he muttered, frustration masking the fear rising in his chest.
He clenched his hand around the useless flashlight, taking a deep breath, trying to steady his own rhythm. The rain kept falling, relentless, and the forest seemed to watch in silence.
The rain grew heavier, pounding between the trees, and the cold began to seep slowly into Tanner's bones. Each drop seemed to carry weight, making the air denser, harder to breathe.
Then, in the distance, he heard voices.
"…Mike, wait!"
"Dustin, hurry up!"
Tanner's heart gave an uneasy jolt.
'Of course,' he thought bitterly. 'Because nothing can ever happen at the right time.'
He mentally cursed his absurd bad luck. Everything was converging too fast. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen—not for a Spectator.
And then—
Crack!
The sharp sound of a branch snapping echoed right behind him.
Tanner spun around on instinct, his entire body snapping to alert.
And he saw it.
A girl about his height stood a few meters away. Her shaved head gleamed under the rain, water streaming down her pale, expressionless face. She wore an oversized yellow shirt, clearly meant for an adult, plastered to her thin frame by the rain, revealing just how fragile she looked. Her feet were bare, sinking into the cold mud, and her eyes…
Her eyes held pure desperation.
Not ordinary fear.
For an instant that felt eternal, they simply stared at each other.
Then something happened.
Tanner's eyes flared gold, a brief, instinctive reflection, like a flame lit without permission. At the same time, the girl's eyes flashed a deep red—fierce, defensive—before both quickly returned to their natural brown, as if nothing had happened.
But they both felt it.
Tanner swallowed hard.
"You're—"
Before he could finish, a strong light flared up behind him.
Tanner glanced over his shoulder.
Flashlights.
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas emerged from between the trees, water streaming down their hoods and jackets. The beam of light swept across the forest… and found the girl.
She startled immediately.
Her entire body tensed, her eyes widened, and without thinking twice, she turned to run—a desperate, almost instinctive movement.
Tanner reacted before he even realized it.
He stepped forward and gently caught her wrist, firm enough to stop her, soft enough not to hurt.
The girl struggled once, twice, eyes wide, breathing fast.
"Hey—" Tanner said quickly, his voice low, urgent, but calm. "It's okay."
He loosened his grip on her wrist slightly and looked into her eyes, holding her gaze.
"We're not the bad men."
The words were simple… but they carried a weight that eased the girl's heart in a way nothing else could.