It didn't attack right away.
That was the worst part.
He heard it moving somewhere beyond the shelter, slow and irregular, the sound of weight being tested rather than applied. Wood creaked. Something scraped, paused, scraped again. Not searching blindly. Listening.
His body locked up.
He stayed crouched in the darkness, breath shallow, teeth clenched hard enough to make his jaw ache. The pain in his shoulder pulsed dully, distant compared to the cold pressure building in his chest.
Listen. Do not see.
He pressed his forehead against the stone and listened until his ears rang.
The thing outside shifted position. The sound changed, closer now. The shelter felt suddenly too small, too exposed. His skin prickled as if something enormous had turned its attention toward him.
The pressure arrived like a slow wave.
Not violent. Not sudden.
Just… wrong.
His thoughts grew slippery, refusing to settle. His vision blurred at the edges even with his eyes shut. His heart began to race for no reason he could explain.
It knows.
That certainty settled into him without words.
Panic surged then, hot and uncontrolled. He pushed himself upright far too fast, dizziness washing over him as he stumbled toward the exit. A sharp crack echoed as his foot slipped on dead wood.
The sound felt loud enough to split the forest.
The thing reacted immediately.
A thin, tearing shriek slid through the pillars, not angry, not excited—alert. The deadfall trembled as it began to move faster, claws biting into ancient trunks with renewed purpose.
Run.
He didn't think. He ran.
Each step was agony. His legs burned, breath tearing in and out of his lungs as he half-ran, half-fell across the broken remains of titanic trees. He slipped once, crashing hard against the wood, pain exploding through his side.
He screamed.
The sound came out broken, pathetic.
Behind him, the creature surged forward.
The pressure intensified, crushing now, forcing his thoughts into a narrow, panicked tunnel. He couldn't see straight. Shadows twisted at the edges of his vision, shapes forming and dissolving before he could recognize them.
He was going to die like this.
Then memory cut through the panic.
The shelter walls.The carvings.The warnings scratched so deep they had torn the stone itself.
One place circled again and again.
Crossed out.Marked.Forbidden.
He veered sharply, nearly losing his footing as he changed direction. The ground dipped, the deadfall growing denser, more unstable. Every step felt like gambling with gravity itself.
The singing stones began to hum beneath his feet.
Low. Subtle.
Wrong.
The creature hesitated.
He felt it—a shift in the pressure behind him. Not fear. Not caution. Annoyance. As if he had moved in a way it didn't expect.
Good.
His lungs burned. Black spots danced across his vision. He nearly collapsed twice, catching himself against dead trunks slick with ash. His stump throbbed violently, blood seeping through the cloth again.
"Just… a little more," he gasped. "Just—"
He reached the edge of the marked zone.
The deadfall thinned there, opening into a chaotic slope of broken wood and darkness. Gaps yawned between trunks, deep enough that no sound ever returned from them.
He stopped.
Every instinct screamed at him to keep running.
Instead, he turned.
Not fully. Never fully.
Just enough to let himself be noticed.
The pressure slammed into him like a wall.
His knees buckled as the creature lunged, careless now, driven by something sharp and hungry. The deadfall beneath it groaned, ancient wood finally giving way under sudden weight.
The collapse was violent.
Trunks cracked and shifted, the false ground folding inward as if swallowing itself. The creature shrieked, a thin, furious sound, before it vanished into the darkness below.
The sound cut off mid-note.
Silence followed.
He dropped to his knees, retching, hands clawing uselessly at the wood as his body shook uncontrollably. His heart refused to slow, panic lingering long after the danger had passed.
He stayed there for a long time.
Too long.
Eventually, he laughed.
The sound was weak. Hysterical. Almost painful.
"I didn't fight you," he whispered hoarsely. "I didn't beat you."
The forest did not answer.
"But you fell," he added. "And I didn't."
His laughter died quickly.
Because he understood now.
This place didn't reward strength.It didn't respect courage.
It only punished mistakes.
And for the first time since waking in the Burned Forest, he had learned something useful.