He woke up with a confused expression.
There was no sound, no threat, no monster standing over him — but something had changed.
The air.
It was heavier. Thicker. Like the whole forest had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Arthur wiped the sweat from his brow and stood slowly. His head throbbed. His stomach churned from whatever had poisoned him at the lake. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching, even if he no longer knew whether that something was outside... or inside.
He limped away from the tree he'd curled under, still tasting bile on his tongue. The forest had shifted in tone. What had once been eerie silence was now deeper, like a sound that was being eaten before it was able to reach his ears.
He looked up and froze at what he saw.
The sky — smooth and glassy like always — twitched.
He saw it. Just for a second. Like a skipped frame in a video.
One sun... became three.
All in different places. One low on the horizon, orange and bloated. Another hung directly above him, white-hot and distant. The third was thin, almost crescent-shaped, like a bleeding eye smeared across the clouds.
Then it blinked.
Reality snapped back. One sun. One sky. Quiet as ever.
Arthur stood in the clearing for a long time, mouth slightly open, breath hitching. "What... the hell."
He spun around slowly, half-expecting something to emerge — some giant hand to reach down from the heavens and pluck him out of the forest like a splinter. Nothing came.
No animals. No wind. Just the distant creak of old branches — as if the world itself was stretching in its sleep.
"I saw that," he whispered. "You saw that, Arthur. That wasn't your imagination."
He wasn't sure if he was talking to himself anymore or trying to convince the forest to respond. Either way, the silence stayed.
It was wrong. The world was wrong. Dreams didn't glitch.
His mind raced.
Maybe it was a simulation. A virtual world glitching. Or maybe a coma. Brain damage? Maybe he was dying on a sidewalk somewhere in Astrana, and this was just the part where the brain sputtered out one last messed-up reel of false memories before the lights went off for good.
But that didn't explain the pain. The thirst. The weight in his limbs. The blood on his tongue.
And the suns — that wasn't a hallucination.
He began walking again, driven less by purpose and more by the need to move. To not sit still long enough for the fear to settle back in.
Every few minutes he'd glance up, paranoid the sky would flicker again.
It didn't.
But it wanted to.
He could feel it. Like static behind his eyes. When he looked away, the sky would flicker again, so he didn't. For hours and hours, he gazed at the sky, barely daring to blink.
The forest around him felt stretched. Larger. Trees that should've been familiar now bent in unfamiliar shapes. The bark twisted like it had been grown in pain. And though he hadn't seen any paths before, now he kept stumbling onto them. Trails that led to nowhere. Circles that closed back on themselves.
And then he found it.
A structure.
It wasn't large. Maybe ten feet tall, leaning crookedly against the trunk of a warped pine. Wood, bound together with something that looked like sinew. Rough and ancient, covered in a blackish moss that glistened in the filtered light.
Arthur stepped closer.
His heart leapt — carvings.
Symbols had been etched into the beams with careful, deliberate hands. Lines, spirals, jagged triangles. Some looked like stars. Others like teeth.
They meant nothing to him.
But someone made them. That was what caught his attention to its fullest. After all, it meant that he wasn't alone, even though that alone wasn't something he should be happy about. But he was, against all logic, he was the happiest since he came to this place, or 'was brought'.
His breath caught. "I'm not alone," he whispered. Then, louder: "Hello?"
No response. Again, what did he think would happen when he tried it again...
But he felt it again — that exhale of something enormous and hidden. Like the world was listening.
He circled the structure, fingers brushing against one of the carvings. The wood was warm. Slightly damp.
Beneath one of the beams, he found something else — a handprint. Human-sized. Burned into the wood, as if someone had pressed their palm to it hard enough to scorch.
It felt fresh. As if someone did it only a few minutes ago, but Arthur was here the entire time. Now his happiness faded away and was replaced with a slight feeling of fear.
He backed away slowly. Step by Step until he had made a reasonable space between him and the carvings.
For a while, he just stood there, eyes scanning the tree line, every nerve on fire.
And then the sound came back.
A low groan — not from an animal, but from the forest itself. A creaking sound, like something heavy turning over underground.
The leaves rustled for the first time in hours.
That was enough.
Arthur turned and walked. Then jogged. Then ran.
Branches whipped his arms. Thorny underbrush sliced his pants. He didn't care. His only thought was to get away.
He didn't stop for a long time.
Eventually, his legs gave out beneath him.
He collapsed into a patch of moss beside a narrow stream. His chest heaved. His skin burned. Sweat clung to every inch of him.
The sky hadn't glitched again. But it didn't need to.
Something had changed.
Or rather, everything had changed.
He dipped his hands into the stream and splashed his face. The water was warm. Not refreshing. Not natural. Arthur was a little bit scared of water after what happened the last time he met it.
"Where am I?" he asked aloud.
The forest didn't answer.
He stared at his reflection — and saw his eyes twitch just half a second after he moved.
He scrambled backward with a curse.
The reflection corrected itself, now matching him perfectly.
"Okay," he muttered. "Alright. Cool. Very fun. Love that. Now even mirrors are my enemy..."
Arthur started to notice that his mental state wasn't the best anymore. Out of nothing, he slapped himself, staggering back.
"Ouch, well that hurt, I should be more careful next time."
It was his way of remembering who he was, how to come to his senses and to release himself out of his inner thoughts.
He took a look at his hand, holding it in front of his body.
"Well, the color resembles a tomato" He said while laughing.
In less than a heartbeat he slapped himself again, again and again. Only after 10 to 15 times, he stopped.
"Woah, that was refreshing, even more than the water after nearly dieing of thirst."
Finally, his mind is clear, even clearer than the lake before.
His mind was now giving 100% to get out of this damn land.
He now had a huge amount of motivation, but it soon faded away again as he spent the rest of the day circling the area. No more suns appeared. But he found more oddities. Trees with bark like glass. Mushrooms that pulsed faintly in the shadows. And once — just once — at least he could swear he heard laughter echoing through the trees.
His thoughts started to turn inward again. Paranoia, spiraling. Every bush became a possible watcher. Every stone, a hidden eye. He began muttering constantly.
"You see me? Fine. I see you too. Let's keep it fair."
"Don't follow me. I'll know. I always know."
He scratched lines into trees as he passed, marking where he'd been. Drew shapes in the dirt to see if they were disturbed when he returned.
He never caught anything in the act.
But sometimes, the lines were gone.
Sometimes... new ones had appeared.
That night, before sleeping, Arthur lay flat on the mossy earth, staring at the sky. No stars. Just the dim, pale gray above.
And somewhere behind it, he could feel the suns waiting. Watching. Even though it was night, the suns felt as if they were still in the sky. Just not shining so that he wouldn't notice them.
He whispered: "What are you?"
And he swore something blinked. But maybe he has already gone insane, so hallucinating was an option too.
The only thing that kept him from going absolutely insane at the things happening was that he still had a will to survive, besides that everything felt too real. Way too real.
Arthur wanted to survive, he fought against the flow of life for his entire lifespan, he wouldn't give up now. Not against a stupid forest, or rather a simulated world.
But right now, he didn't care, he just wanted some rest to regain energy. One thing was for sure tho:
He would survive... One way or another.