The forest was quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses against your ears, making you aware of your own breathing, your own heartbeat. I had been walking for what felt like hours, circling without realizing it, trying to understand where I was—or when.
Then the sound ripped through the silence.
"Help… please… help!"
I stopped instantly.
The voice was weak. Broken. Shaking so badly it barely held together.
A woman.
It came from deeper inside the forest.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to stay where I was. I didn't know this place. I didn't know its rules. I didn't know what kind of men lived here—or what kind of things they did when no one was watching.
But fear doesn't wait for permission.
Before I could think, my legs were already moving.
I ran.
Branches clawed at my arms and face as I pushed through the trees, thorns tearing into my skin, roots nearly sending me face-first into the dirt. My lungs burned. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
The trees suddenly opened into a clearing.
Moonlight spilled across the ground.
And that's when I saw them.
A girl lay on her back, half-dragged through the dirt. Her hands clawed uselessly at the ground as she tried to pull herself away. An old man stood over her, one hand gripping her arm with terrifying ease.
He wasn't struggling.
He wasn't rushing.
He looked… comfortable.
Like this was something he had done before. Many times.
The girl's face was streaked with tears and dirt. Her clothes were torn. Her legs shook violently as she tried to crawl away, but every time she moved, his grip tightened and yanked her back like she weighed nothing.
"Please—someone—"
"Let her go!"
The words tore out of me before I could stop them.
The old man turned his head slowly.
He looked at me.
Not surprised.
Not threatened.
Amused.
His eyes scanned me in a single glance—my posture, my breathing, the way my weight shifted slightly forward.
He smiled.
"You picked the wrong night to walk alone," he said calmly.
He didn't release the girl.
Instead, his fingers dug deeper into her arm. She cried out in pain.
I stepped forward.
"Leave her," I said again, my voice louder, sharper. "Now."
The old man stood up, dragging the girl with him as if she were nothing more than a bag of cloth. Up close, I saw him clearly.
Lean.
Scarred.
His body wiry, dense, shaped by years of violence rather than age.
His eyes were the worst part.
Cold. Sharp. Knowing.
This wasn't desperation.
This wasn't drunken rage.
This was routine.
"You think you can stop me?" he asked.
I swallowed hard.
But I didn't back away.
I rushed him.
It was a mistake.
Pain exploded across my face before I even realized he had moved. His fist crashed into my jaw with horrifying precision, snapping my head sideways. White light burst behind my eyes as I stumbled back, barely staying upright.
Before I could recover, he was already there.
Too fast.
A kick slammed into my ribs with brutal force. Something inside me cracked—or maybe that was just the air being driven from my lungs. I dropped to one knee, choking, gasping like a fish thrown onto land.
I tried to stand.
He didn't allow it.
His elbow came down on my shoulder like a hammer. My arm went instantly numb, useless. I swung wildly with my other hand, desperate, blind.
He caught my wrist.
Twisted.
A sound tore out of my throat that wasn't human.
White-hot pain ripped through my arm as my joints screamed in protest.
"Pathetic," he muttered.
He flung me aside like broken furniture. My body slammed into the ground. Dirt filled my mouth. My ears rang violently, the world tilting out of focus.
I tried to crawl.
A boot came down on my back.
Hard.
The air left my lungs in a choking rush. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. My fingers dug uselessly into the dirt.
The girl screamed.
The old man lifted his foot and grabbed my collar, hauling me upright. My vision swam. His face hovered inches from mine, calm, disgusted.
"You should've minded your own business," he said softly.
Then he drove his head into mine.
The world shattered.
I drifted in and out of darkness.
Voices bled into each other—angry, sharp, distant.
Then something changed.
A sound cut through the noise.
Not shouting.
Impact.
Flesh hitting flesh with terrifying force.
A sharp cry of pain—one that wasn't mine.
The pressure on my body vanished.
I tried to open my eyes.
I couldn't.
Someone shouted nearby, "That's enough."
Another voice answered—low, controlled, dangerous.
I felt myself being lowered to the ground again.
This time… carefully.
Footsteps moved away.
I wanted to see who had come.
I wanted to understand what had just happened.
But the darkness pulled me under before I could.
The last thing I felt was pain.
And the last thing I realized was this—
Whatever kind of world this was…
I was far too weak to survive it alone.
THAT MAN'S POV
He arrived too late.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The forest was quiet again—but not naturally so. This was the silence that followed violence, the kind that lingered because something had been broken and hadn't yet understood it was over.
He stepped into the clearing without hesitation.
One look told him everything.
The girl had run.
Smart.
Alive.
The boy lay crumpled on the ground, unmoving. Blood soaked into the dirt beneath his head. His breathing was shallow, uneven. One arm hung at the wrong angle.
And standing over him—
The old man.
Still calm. Still upright. Still dangerous.
The man studied him without emotion.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Assessment.
"You shouldn't have touched the boy," he said.
The old man turned slowly, irritation flickering across his face.
"I didn't know he was yours," the old man replied. "He interfered."
"He wasn't mine," the man said. "That makes it worse."
The old man smiled faintly. "You think you can—"
He never finished the sentence.
The man moved.
No warning.
No wasted motion.
No mercy.
One step forward.
The sound that followed was sharp and final.
The old man staggered back, genuine shock flashing across his face for the first time that night. He tried to raise his arm.
Too slow.
A second strike landed—clean, brutal, precise.
Bone cracked.
The old man collapsed to his knees.
The man grabbed him by the collar and forced him upright, their faces inches apart.
"You've grown careless," he said quietly. "That's how people die."
The old man tried to laugh.
Blood spilled from his mouth.
The man ended it.
No rage.
No hesitation.
Just finality.
The body hit the ground and didn't rise again.
The man turned toward the boy.
He crouched beside him, checking his pulse.
Weak.
But present.
"Idiot," he muttered—not cruelly, but without sympathy.
He scanned the forest once.
Footsteps would come.
They always did.
He lifted the boy carefully, adjusting his grip to avoid worsening the injuries. The boy groaned faintly, his body twitching.
"Unlucky place to grow a conscience," the man said under his breath.
He disappeared into the trees, silent as the night itself.
The boy never woke.
Never saw who saved him.
Never knew who had killed for him.
Never realized he had already disturbed something old and dangerous.
And he definitely didn't know one more thing
In this place, survival was never free.
It was borrowed.