Tears are streaming down her face. Her sister is no more.
She stumbled, hit the ground hard, cheek scraping bark and dirt. She pushed herself up with a grunt, dizzy, trembling. Every instinct screamed to keep going.
Amanda didn't stop running until her lungs burned like fire and the trees around her began to blur together in streaks of dark green and black.
Branches tore at her arms. Roots caught her feet. Her breath came in shallow gasps, like her ribs were collapsing inward. She didn't care.
She just ran.
The sun had vanished, and darkness began swallowing the forest. Shadows stretched longer, thicker—like the woods were folding in on her. Her breath turned ragged, hot against the cold air. Her vision tunneled.
Then—
Her knees hit the ground first. Then her palms. Then her whole body, slamming into the earth like a marionette with its strings cut.
Her fingers clawed at the earth once, weakly. Then stilled.
She had nothing left. No strength. No scream. No sister..
Only silence.
And then—
darkness.
A sound dragged her from the void.
Thump… thump… thump…
It was steady. Deep. Almost calming.
She thought at first it was her heartbeat—loud and rhythmic, still panicking beneath her ribs. But as she lay still, trying to steady her breath, she realized…
It wasn't coming from her.
Her pulse had slowed. But the sound didn't.
It kept beating. Around her. Beneath her.
All through her.
She could hear voices now—low, guttural murmurs that seemed to echo from the very air around her. The sound reverberated deep in her chest, as though it was a part of her, an extension of her heartbeat. But she wasn't sure anymore. She wasn't sure of anything.
Cold stone met her skin, and she stiffened. Her body felt heavy, unresponsive, as though it didn't belong to her. Her vision swam as she slowly blinked open her eyes, the world blurry. For a moment, she thought she was still dreaming. Or dying.
Her eyes snapped open. Dazed, she turned her head slowly.
A flicker of orange light danced in her vision, casting long, writhing shadows that twisted like living things.
Is this... a festival?
For a moment, her mind clung to the thought like a fleeting dream. The movement of the figures around her, the rhythmic drum beats, the flickering flames—it all felt too structured, too ceremonial to be anything else. She could almost imagine the laughter, the revelry, the sense of collective joy.
She was wrong.
Everyone wore a mask crafted from bone, bark, and painted symbols, their eyes glinting through small slits. The masks were crude yet intricate, part of their ritualistic garb, but they left no room for expression, no room for humanity.
There was no joy in their movements. No celebration. Just a collective reverence, silent and heavy, like they were bound by some unseen force. They move with purpose.
A ritual.
The realization hit her like a cold wave, and it froze her to the bone. She couldn't move. She couldn't scream. All she could do was lie there, eyes wide open, as the figures danced and chanted around her, each movement in perfect unison.
The firelight flickered, casting grotesque shadows that twisted and writhed across the stone slab beneath her. The moon above them, now fully risen, bathed the scene in an eerie, silver glow, as though it, too, was complicit in this twisted ritual. It felt like everything was watching her—the figures, the forest, the very earth beneath her.
She was trapped.
One of the masked figures knelt beside her, their eyes—those cold, unfeeling eyes—locked onto hers through the slits of their mask. Their breath was slow, measured. The space between them felt charged, heavy with anticipation.
She wanted to scream, to fight, to flee—but her body remained still, as if it had forgotten how to obey.
Then—suddenly—a presence.
A single figure stepped forward, moving silently through the circle. The drumming stilled, the fire crackled louder in the heavy air, and all at once, every pair of masked eyes shifted toward her. The figure, taller than the rest, paused just before her, the mask glinting like an obsidian moon.
It stopped, perfectly still.
Her chest tightened, her pulse racing in her ears.
And then—a flash.l
A jagged line of lightning sliced across the sky, its blinding light illuminating the tribe, their masks frozen in a collective, unnatural stillness. The thunder that followed was deafening, a low, rumbling growl that shook the earth beneath her.
The rain came next—heavy, sudden, and cold. It poured down in torrents, drenching the firewood, the earth, and her skin in an instant.
The fire hissed, crackled, and died in a violent sputter, its bright flames swallowing into the storm's fury. The tribe's chanting faltered, their movements pausing as they glanced up, their faces obscured by their masks.
Amanda could hardly hear anything over the wild thunder and the rain slashing against her.
The leader—standing before her—did not flinch. He stared at the dark sky, his posture rigid, as though waiting for something. The rain fell harder, drumming against the leaves, pounding into the earth like a thousand restless heartbeats.
And he looked at her—really looked at her—like he could see through skin and bone and time itself.
He looked at her like he could see her soul. He raised a single finger — slow, deliberate, as if it were a command that had echoed for centuries.
The crowd stirred.
She was tied to the wooden post — not gently, not carelessly. No, she was pinned to it as if she were an offering, a sacrifice. The ropes dug into her skin, leaving angry marks, but it wasn't the pain that made her blood run cold. It was the ritual.
Then he appeared. The man. The giant.
He was monstrous — towering at least two meters, his face an impassive mask, pale and stretched tight over muscles that seemed to throb as if it about to burst.
With a grunt, he lifted the wooden post with one hand. She and it together. Her body jolted, the ropes cutting deeper into her flesh as he hoisted her up. He didn't pause. He didn't check her.
He began to dance.
He spun the post around like it was weightless, her body flailing in the air with each twisted turn. The crowd, no longer just standing, started to join in. They began to move — slowly at first, their bodies jerking and shaking as they stomped their feet. The rhythmic beat of their movements grew louder, faster, as if they were being drawn into a frenzy.
It wasn't graceful. It wasn't anything close to a dance she understood. It was jerking, wild, like some ancient rhythm pulled him, forced him to spin the post in the air. With each violent motion, her body whipped in unnatural angles. Her head snapped back. The rope creaked.
The world around her felt like it was bending, distorting with every turn. The air pressed in on her lungs. The shadows in the corners of her vision shifted, crawling like dark tendrils reaching for her.
The noise was deafening. Screams mixed with manic laughter, and the drums, though distant, pounded like thunder.
The rain made the earth slippery beneath the dancers' feet, but they kept moving, faster, wilder. The storm felt like a living thing, thrashing against them. Her hair was plastered to her face, the water mixing with dirt and sweat. She couldn't see through it, couldn't breathe without the heavy weight of the downpour pressing on her chest.
The giant man spun her with increasing speed, the post creaking, her limbs jerking with each movement. The rain hammered down harder, a constant torrent that made the world around them feel like it was drowning in darkness. The air was thick with the smell of wet earth and the sickly stench of sweat. The crowd, now lost to the frenzy, moved as one — no longer human, just a mass of bodies caught in a fever dream.
She wanted to scream, but the rain filled her mouth, stinging her eyes. The world was spinning, the faces around her grotesque and blurred by the water. The chants became a low hum in the back of her skull, pulling her deeper into the madness.
And the rain poured harder still, drowning everything in its unrelenting storm.