He woke up gasping.
For a moment, he did not know why.
His heart was racing, his breath shallow, his thoughts scattered like birds startled mid-flight. Sensation returned in fragments — the cold ash beneath his knees, the stiffness in his back, the dull throb where his arm should have been.
Something was wrong.
That much, at least, was familiar.
He pushed himself upright slowly, swaying as the world tilted. The forest around him looked… incorrect. The giant trunks were still there, towering and broken, but their shapes felt distorted, as if seen through warped glass. Some leaned inward unnaturally. Others twisted, their surfaces rippling faintly, like wood trying to remember how to be alive.
He swallowed.
Then he looked forward.
And froze.
The tree was not merely large.
It was impossible.
A wall of blackened wood rose before him, so vast it blotted out what little sense of scale remained. Its surface was scarred and hollowed, veins of darker rot running through it like fossilized lightning. The broken end of the trunk stretched upward beyond sight, disappearing into the ashen sky.
At its base lay bodies.
Hundreds of them.
Skeletons piled haphazardly, some collapsed where they had fallen, others stacked into crude mounds as if arranged by desperate hands. Some were ancient, bones bleached and cracked. Others were disturbingly intact, clinging to scraps of clothing from eras that did not belong together.
He stared at them, mind sluggish.
"…That's new," he murmured.
Set into the trunk was an arch.
Not carved — formed.
An enormous, gaping archway of warped wood and fused bone, leading to a door so massive it felt less like an entrance and more like a mouth. Darkness pooled beyond it, thick and patient.
His thoughts felt… slippery.
He knew he should be afraid. He was afraid. But the fear came dulled, softened by something else — a lingering confusion, a faint sense of detachment, like he was only half-present in his own body.
Then he felt it.
A shiver ran down his spine, sharp and electric. The air around him vibrated, subtle but undeniable, as if filled with whispers just below the threshold of hearing.
He held his breath.
The murmurs rose.
Not one voice.
Many.
Soft, overlapping, brushing against his thoughts like fingertips trailing over skin. Some sounded distant. Others close enough to feel warm.
Fragments slipped through.
— remember— come home— you are tired
His chest tightened.
Something tugged at him from the inside. Not physically — deeper than that. A sensation like being gently pulled apart at the seams, his awareness loosening, his soul — if such a thing existed — testing the idea of leaving.
"Hey," he said weakly, shaking his head. "No. Don't do that."
The whispers shifted.
One voice grew clearer than the rest.
Not louder.Focused.
It slid into his thoughts smoothly, confidently, like it belonged there.
You are lost, it murmured. We can help you remember who you are.
He snorted.
"Oh, sure," he muttered. "Because this place screams 'healthy self-discovery.'"
The voice paused.
That alone was unsettling.
You suffer, it continued, a note of something like curiosity coloring the words. You are broken. We can make you whole.
He laughed.
The sound echoed strangely, swallowed too quickly by the vastness of the trunk.
"Wow," he said, rubbing his face. "You sound exactly like every adult who ever told me they knew what was best for me."
The murmurs fluttered, some growing sharper, others retreating.
The dominant voice persisted.
You have no identity. No purpose. No place.
"Bold of you to assume I ever did," he replied, grinning crookedly. "Also, if this is your recruitment pitch, you might want to work on it."
A strange warmth bloomed in his chest — not comfort, but amusement. Real, genuine amusement. He hadn't felt that in… he couldn't remember how long.
Which, admittedly, was concerning.
He took a step forward.
Did not realize it.
Another.
He noticed a massive carcass, evidence that something enormous had once fought here, though the thought barely registered.
The skeletons crunched beneath his feet, bones shifting, collapsing into unstable piles. He barely noticed. His focus was drawn inexorably toward the arch, toward the door.
The voice softened.
Rest, it whispered. Let go.
He glanced down suddenly.
He was halfway up the pile.
Bones stacked just high enough to form a crude slope leading toward the base of the door.
"Huh," he said, blinking. "That's convenient."
He laughed again, louder this time.
"I mean, imagine if it wasn't," he added, climbing awkwardly with one hand. "I'd have to actually think about how to get up there. Terrible design choice."
The murmurs thickened, excitement bleeding through them.
Yes, several whispered. Yes.
He reached the top.
His hand brushed the edge of the arch.
Something inside him screamed.
"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh shit."
The realization hit him all at once — how far he had walked, how easily, how little resistance he had felt. The confusion sharpened into panic, sudden and overwhelming.
"Nope," he said quickly. "No, no, no—"
The world lurched.
Darkness surged up, swallowing sound, thought, sensation.
As he fell, the voices followed.
Thank you, the dominant one murmured, almost tenderly. You have done more than you know, you will be the last so enjoy your short life.
—
He woke again.
This time,not far away, the sky was different.
The forest thinned around him, the titanic trunks giving way to a bleak, open expanse. Pale earth stretched ahead, dotted with crooked mounds and ancient stone markers.
The Land of Barrows.
Behind him, the Burned Forest loomed, silent and vast.
He lay there for a long time, shaking, his mind still fogged, his sense of self fragile but intact enough to know one thing with terrifying certainty.
He had escaped.
And somewhere behind him, in the dead heart of a god—after eons and thousands of deaths, something had escaped. And like an insect with a thousand legs, it would slither through time, its misery echoing for centuries to come.