I stepped into the grove.
Not a sound, not a movement, not the slightest response. I took a few steps among the trees, then a few more. The snow still crunched under my feet, and the silence remained deafening and unbroken. If it weren't for my own breathing, I might have thought I had ceased to exist at all.
And yet…
something was changing.
I couldn't say exactly what, but the sensation was distinct. It was as if the air had grown thicker. As if the space between the trunks had narrowed slightly. The trees weren't moving, but their presence felt stronger than before, as if I had stepped not just into a grove, but into something.
I stopped and listened.
Still nothing.
My mind told me there was no danger. My intuition remained silent. And the longer I stood there, the clearer it became to me: I didn't want to spend the night out here in the open wilderness.
I decided to wait out the darkness here.
I chose a tree with a particularly massive, protruding root and settled down at its base. The root curved into the ground, forming a sort of natural shelter-rough and uneven, but still offering protection from the wind, should it suddenly pick up.
I took off my backpack and pulled out a hatchet.
The feel of metal in my hand seemed strangely… fitting. The work was simple. The wood turned out to be hard, dry inside, despite the snow. The blows echoed hollowly, as if the tree wasn't resisting but enduring. I chopped enough firewood, stacked it in a neat pile, and built a small fire.
"Without the fire, I definitely wouldn't have survived"
A couple of dozen minutes later.
I was staring at the flames when I realized that the cold wasn't my only problem.
The grove had changed.
The shadows between the trees had grown deeper. Not darker-deeper, as if there were more space hidden behind them than there should be. Sometimes it seemed to me that they shifted when I looked away.
Then I heard a sound.
Not a footstep or a rustle.
A quiet, drawn-out creak, as if huge masses were moving slowly somewhere very far away. I froze, clutching my hatchet. The sound repeated-closer now. And then another.
I shifted my gaze to the nearest tree.
It stood motionless.
But the bark…
it seemed to rise and fall slightly, as if something beneath it were breathing slowly, lazily.
The fire crackled, sending up a shower of sparks, and in that moment, I realized:
the grove hadn't been empty during the day.
It had been dormant.
And now-it was coming to life.
I didn't know if anyone was watching me.
I didn't know if anyone could hear me.
But the feeling was unmistakable-I was no longer alone.
I moved closer to the fire, keeping my eyes fixed on the darkness between the tree trunks, and for the first time since waking up, I didn't feel the cold.
Instead, I felt a real, slow,
deliberate tension.
The night was just beginning.
I was still hoping to ride it out. I sat under a tree root, huddled closer to the fire, clutching my knife and telling myself it was just my nerves, that the darkness was playing tricks on my senses, that if I waited until dawn, everything would go quiet again.
But the longer I sat there, the clearer one thought became.
I hadn't seen a single living creature not because this place was empty.
But because there was no one here who could be alive.
The realization hit me like a punch to the chest.
The grove wasn't a place.
It was a living thing.
A single, slow, infinitely patient organism. The ultimate predator, needing neither teeth nor claws. It simply waits. Waits until its prey stops moving, until it grows weary, until it decides it can wait it out.
The fire crackled, and at that very moment, the ground beneath me shifted.
At first, I thought the trembling was my own. But no. The snow swelled, burst open, and roots began to emerge from beneath it. Thin, dark, and supple, like fingers. They moved quickly-too quickly for plants. The grass, hidden underground, came to life along with them, intertwining to form a trap.
At first, I thought the trembling was my own. But no. The snow swelled, burst open, and roots began to emerge from beneath it. Thin, dark, and supple, like fingers. They moved quickly-too quickly for plants. The grass, hidden underground, came to life along with them, intertwining to form a trap.
They were reaching for me.
"Damn…"
I exhaled and lunged forward.
I swung the knife wildly, not aiming, just hacking at anything that reached out toward me. The blade sliced through the roots, and no blood flowed from them-only gray frost fell. But new roots immediately sprang up in place of the ones I'd cut through.
"Run,"
I whispered to myself.
With trembling hands, I grabbed a burning branch from the fire, stripped off the excess twigs, and fashioned it into a crude torch; it didn't burn very brightly. But as soon as I thought about it, the flame shot higher and grew brighter, as if obeying my will.
The grove reacted instantly.
The roots trembled, as if in pain. Somewhere deep within, there was a low, drawn-out crack-not a sound, but a sensation that made everything inside me tighten.
I ran.
Snow swirled beneath my feet, my breath came in gasps, but my body still obeyed. I raced between the trees, swinging my torch, and saw the darkness moving. Roots burst from the ground, trying to entangle my legs. Branches creaked and lowered themselves, as if trying to block my path. The ground beneath me caved in places, as if the grove were trying to pull me inside.
With every passing second, a sense of dread grew inside me.
It wasn't panic, nor was it the fear of death.
It ran deeper than that.
It was as if reality itself were screaming at me:
if you don't get out of here now, something worse than death awaits you.
I felt it in every fiber of my being. The cold was no longer my greatest enemy. It receded into the background, giving way to a clammy, suffocating sensation that they didn't want to kill me, but to leave me here forever. To make me part of the roots. Part of the silence.
I ran, stumbling and gasping for breath, waving the torch as if it were the last barrier between me and this world.
"No… no, no, no…" I gasped between breaths.
The grove moaned silently.
Darkness was closing in.
The roots were creeping ever closer.
But I kept running.
Not just fast-but at my absolute limit, faster than I'd ever run before. The torch in my hand cut through the darkness; the flame flickered, barely keeping up with me-the fact that it hadn't gone out yet was nothing short of a miracle. Trees flashed by on either side like a solid wall, and the grove no longer pretended to be motionless.
Huge branches were crashing down from above at a deafening speed. I heard the whoosh of air a split second before the impact, felt something massive fly past just inches from my head. One branch slammed into the ground right in front of me, tearing through the snow and soil; another swept past my shoulder so close that I felt the rush of air against my skin.
I didn't dodge on purpose.
I was just lucky.
Pure, unbelievable luck.
The roots tore through the snow beneath my feet, trying to knock me down, entangle me, break me. I stumbled, fell to my knee, jumped up, leaving blood and shreds of fabric on the ground. The branches closed in, as if they wanted to slam shut over me, but every time I broke through them-a step ahead, a breath ahead.
At some point, I realized the torch had grown heavier.
Too heavy.
My hand shook, I caught my foot on a root-and the torch slipped from my fingers. It fell into the snow, the flame flared up one last time and died out with a dull hiss.
"To hell with it…" I blurted out.
I didn't stop.
I burst out of the grove and ran on, into the darkness, into the open wilderness-anywhere but there. The snow became smooth again, the landscape open, but I didn't slow down.
And yet…
something wasn't right.
I turned around.
The grove was behind me. But the distance between us was growing too slowly. The trees seemed to glide across the snow, their roots slipping underground and resurfacing closer. She was chasing me. Unhurriedly. Confidently. Like a predator that knows its prey will tire.
I kept running. Longer. Until my lungs began to burn and the world narrowed down to the pounding of my heart and the crunch of snow.
And suddenly I realized.
The chase was over.
I looked back again.
The grove was receding.
It wasn't me moving away from it-
it was retreating.
That realization struck me harder than the fear of death.
Who could such a creature possibly run from?
I stopped.
And at that very moment, the cold, which I had barely noticed before, crashed down on me with all its might. It pierced, squeezed, shattered, and made every inch of my body tremble. My teeth chattered, my muscles cramped, and my vision blurred.
And then…
A flash.
Almost silent. Like lightning striking from the ground. The world was flooded with light-blinding, cold, unreal. For just a few seconds. Maybe ten.
That was enough.
I looked up and nearly lost consciousness.
There it was, towering above me.
A huge spider. Not just big-monstrous. Its size could be compared to the tallest skyscrapers on Earth. Its long, twisted legs stretched out of sight. Its body was covered in spikes, growths, and wet folds. It was vile, repulsive-and worst of all-it instilled terror simply by existing.
The air around it was heavy. Thick. It was hard to breathe, as if every movement of my lungs required effort. The space felt oppressive.
At that moment, I didn't want to run.
I didn't want to scream.
I didn't want to live.
I wanted to cease to exist.
I lay down in the snow, as slowly and quietly as possible. I pressed myself against the ground and closed my eyes, as if trying to become one with it. My breathing became barely perceptible. I convinced myself: I didn't exist. I was an empty space. I was cold snow.
I didn't know what happened next.
I heard distant screams.
The crack of a tree snapping.
Dull thuds that made the ground tremble.
I was afraid to move. The cold felt deadly. It seemed that if I waited just a little longer, I would simply fall asleep forever.
But I didn't die.
I don't know how much time passed.
The darkness began to lift. Whatever was replacing the sun here seemed to be charging with energy, slowly bringing light back to the world. I lay there and cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks, freezing, but I didn't care.
I got lucky.
They didn't notice me.
But will I be so lucky next time?
I couldn't feel my limbs, but I forced myself to get up. My legs were shaking, and my body wouldn't obey me. And then I saw the grove.
Or rather, what was left of it.
The fragments of giant trees were scattered across the snow like toys. The trunks were snapped, the branches torn apart. Everywhere, a strange green liquid-thick, viscous, and pungent-spilled across the white snow. Among the roots and splinters lay organs-unlike anything earthly. Fleshy, deformed, still twitching slightly.
I almost threw up.
But I didn't turn away in disgust.
I chopped up whatever wood was left that could still burn. I lit a fire. The flames shot up, driving away the cold and bringing back a sense of reality.
I warmed myself right on the corpse of that abomination that had tried to kill me that night.
And sitting by the fire, I realized:
Why no one had ever managed to return from here.