One day, he went farther.
There was no clear reason. Hunger wasn't worse than usual. Pain hadn't eased. Maybe that was the problem. The routine had started to feel… stable. And stability, here, was a lie waiting to kill him.
He packed nothing. There was nothing to pack.
The forest opened in the same broken way it always did—endless pillars, stacked deadfall, narrow paths that weren't paths at all. He moved for hours, careful, deliberate, marking nothing because there was nothing to mark with.
The farther he went, the worse it became.
The trunks grew thicker. Older. Some were split open, their insides black and glassy, as if fire had burned through them and never left. The gaps between them widened, dropping into darkness so deep his ears popped when he leaned too close.
He didn't.
He listened.
The singing stones appeared more often. Not in clusters—scattered. Random. As if the forest itself had grown tired of placing warnings neatly.
Once, something fell far above him.
It never hit the ground.
The sound just… stopped.
He froze there for a long time, afraid that moving would remind whatever had dropped that something that he existed.
When he finally sat down to rest, exhaustion crushed him all at once. His vision dimmed. His hand trembled violently. For a terrifying moment, he thought he might simply lie down and not get up again.
He laughed weakly.
"So that's it," he whispered. "That's the edge."
He climbed higher.
It took everything he had, one-handed, slipping, bleeding again through old scabs, to reach a vantage point where the deadfall thinned just enough for him to see.
There was no horizon.
No clearing. No break.
Just more black pillars, fading into the ashen distance. Endless layers of ruin stacked upon ruin, stretching so far his eyes ached trying to follow them.
The forest did not end.
It didn't even change.
Something inside him folded.
Not snapped. Not shattered.
Just… gave up holding its shape.
He went back.
The return took longer. It always did. His legs dragged. His thoughts wandered into dangerous places. More than once, he had to stop himself from sitting down and letting the forest decide the rest.
When the shelter finally appeared, small and pathetic between titanic remains, he collapsed inside without relief.
He had not found a way out.
He had only proven that there wasn't one.
--------
After that, he stopped trying.
Not all at once. There was no dramatic decision, no moment where he sat down and declared the end. He simply… let things slide. A step less careful. A pause a little longer. When hunger came, he waited before answering it.
The shelter became his world.
He lay there for hours, staring at the carvings without really seeing them anymore. The warnings blurred into scratches. The drawings lost their meaning. Skeletons stopped being reminders and became furniture.
Sometimes, he talked.
At first, it was just muttering—complaints, curses, half-formed thoughts. Then, slowly, it became conversation. Long, rambling speeches spoken to the stone, to the bones, to the empty air.
"I had it good," he said once, quietly. "Did you know that?"
His voice cracked from disuse.
"I wasn't rich. Wasn't special. But I had hot water. Coffee in the morning. Friends who complained about exams like it was the end of the world." A weak laugh escaped him. "I complained too."
He closed his eyes.
"I used to think my life was boring."
The word tasted bitter now.
He thought about his parents. Not often—thinking about them hurt too much—but sometimes, their faces surfaced without warning. He wondered if they were still paying the rent for an apartment that would never be used again. If they were angry. If they were worried. If they were waiting.
"I didn't even say goodbye," he whispered.
Days passed. Or maybe weeks.
He stopped counting.
The forest did not press closer. It did not retreat. It simply existed, massive and patient, as if certain that time would do its work for it. Hunger gnawed, dull and constant. Pain faded into something distant, replaced by exhaustion so deep it felt like gravity had increased.
Once, lying there, he imagined himself back home.
Not doing anything special. Just lying in bed, phone in hand, sunlight slipping through the curtains. He imagined the sound of the city, cars, voices, life happening without caring whether he participated or not.
Tears ran silently into his hair.
"I didn't know how lucky I was," he murmured. "I really didn't."
For a long time, he considered letting go.
Not actively. Just… not tightening the tourniquet next time. Not going back to the stream. Letting thirst or infection decide for him.
It would be easy.
Comfortably easy.
The thought scared him.
And somehow, ridiculously, stupidly, it made him angry.
"No," he said, voice rough. "You don't get that."
He didn't know who he was talking to. The forest. Fate. Himself.
"I don't have a reason," he admitted. "Not a good one."
He laughed weakly again.
"But I had a life. And it was mine."
So he stood up.
Slowly. Shaking. Still broken. Still lost.
Not because he believed he would escape.
Not because he saw a future.
But because giving up felt like letting this place be right.
And for reasons he couldn't explain, even now. He refused to let that happen.