Arthur couldn't sleep. Not really.
He closed his eyes sometimes, but that was all. Sleep, when it came, was fractured—like glass stepped on, dreams splintering into sharp shards. He woke up too often and too suddenly, as if something had pulled him out. Every time his mind drifted too far into unconsciousness, something tugged it back. Not out of mercy. Not out of fear.
Out of possession.
He felt a little sick, not really knowing what to do.
The headaches had started small. A dull throb behind the eyes. Then they bloomed—hot and constant and mean. It felt like something was drilling into his skull, but gently, like it wanted to make a home there.
The kind of pain that made you forget what "normal" feels like.
But normal, was never a word Arthur knew. He grew up in the streets, a real street rat. The thing that 'normal' people would call 'trash' or rather the bottom level of life. The people that could be disposed of at any time.
But Arthur didn't give a shit about them. He led his own life, had his own mind, nobody would ever get to 'dispose' of him.
He lived on stolen goods, was more criminal than a normal kid. But on the streets, there was no one who wasn't a criminal.
Every person, no matter how good they seem, no matter how good their reputation is, no matter if rich or poor, man or woman, young or old. Every person had a bad site, because being all good, would mean perfection, perfection meant coming to a stop. The human race was evolving since it was created. It wasn't possible to become 'perfect' even if everyone dreamt about it.
Arthur stopped his desire for perfection long ago.
He lay still, one hand pressed to his temple, eyes wide in the dark. The world outside his shelter was utterly silent, and that was the worst part. He could deal with fear. Could deal with hunger, cold, even the echoes of that soundless creature he'd killed. But this—this gnawing, pressurized silence—was unbearable.
When he finally rose, it wasn't out of bravery. It was escape.
He stumbled out of the shelter like a drunk, half-blind from the ache behind his eyes. The forest met him with a damp stillness, fog curling around his ankles like curious fingers. His skin prickled. The cold here wasn't the kind that came from air—it came from existence.
He hated it, but what could he do about it...
Maybe it was a bad idea. No—definitely a bad idea.
But Arthur didn't care.
He needed to move. Just to feel like he still had a body. Like he still had control. Sitting still meant listening to the whispers in the back of his mind. It meant admitting that something inside him had started to come undone.
He wandered without direction. The headache pulsed with each step like a second heartbeat. The trees around him didn't look familiar anymore, not even in the way dreams sometimes repeat things wrong. They had changed.
Again.
The trunks leaned too far over the path, like they were eavesdropping. Some of the leaves had turned translucent, glimmering like fish scales. Others were pure black. The underbrush clawed at his legs harder than before. And beneath it all, that weight pressed on his chest.
Like the forest was waiting for him to notice.
He passed a row of flat, round stones that hadn't been there yesterday—or an hour ago. Each one had symbols etched into it, deep and perfect and in a language Arthur's eyes rejected. Just looking at them made the pressure in his skull twist.
He walked faster.
Soon he came to a stream—a thin thread of water crawling through the roots. It steamed faintly, and when he leaned close, the stench hit him: sulfur, metal, something like rot and ozone mixed together.
He didn't cross it. He didn't remember crossing it.
But suddenly it was behind him.
The forest had rearranged itself again.
And ahead—through twisted brambles and ferns the color of dried blood—he saw it.
A glow.
Red. Not firelight. Not sunrise.
Something else.
It pulsed, slow and wet, like a heartbeat.
He should have turned back.
He should have run.
But his legs moved on their own. Slowly. Like being pulled by a tide.
The clearing was wrong.
There were no birds. No bugs. No wind. Even the trees that circled it stood at odd angles, their trunks curved inward as if bowing to what stood in the center.
The tree.
It rose from the earth. Leafless, black as coal, its bark cracked and peeling. Tall. Unmoving. Limbs like antlers twisted toward the sky in contorted agony. From a deep fissure in the trunk, something flowed.
Sap.
No—not sap.
Blood.
Thick and dark, so red it was nearly black. It glistened in the moonlight, dripping slowly and steadily. The roots soaked it in like thirsting mouths. The scent hit him in a wave—rust, iron, rot. Like a butcher's floor on a hot day. Like old coins in a sewer. Like something long dead and angry about it.
Arthur froze at the edge of the clearing. What he saw made him shiver.
Every part of him screamed to turn around.
But he stepped forward.
Not fast. Not slow. A dream walk. The kind you only did in nightmares, where choice wasn't part of the process.
The blood tree watched him.
It didn't have eyes. But it watched.
He reached it. The bark was rough, ridged like old scars. Blackened from fire, maybe. Or something worse. His hand moved. He couldn't stop it.
His fingers touched the bark.
Ice shot up his arm.
His breath left his lungs.
Then he touched the sap.
And the world—shifted.
He was falling.
Not through sky. Through wood. Endless corridors of roots and veins, bark folding in on itself like paper. Faces blinked into view and out again. Screaming mouths. Silent, all of them. The silence burned louder than any sound he'd ever heard.
Arthur's arms flailed. There was nothing to grab.
Nothing to stop the fall.
Shapes moved in the walls. Creatures, maybe. People. But wrong. Warped by time or memory or madness. They looked at him with mouths sewn shut and eyes full of recognition.
"You see now."
The voice was not a voice. It was a truth.
It slid under language. Straight into his brain.
Then came fire.
He didn't see it. He felt it.
It filled his lungs, clawed down his throat, tore at his skin. He tried to scream, but no sound came. The silence had followed him here. Wrapped him in it. Made him a vessel.
"You belong."
The whisper was beside his ear now.
"You've always belonged."
"You are the seed."
Then the dream cracked like glass—and he was back.
Arthur woke with a scream that never left his throat.
He bolted upright, gasping. His body was soaked with sweat, his shirt clinging to his ribs. The fire in his shelter had burned down to coals. The stars overhead blinked erratically, like they were out of sync.
His hands trembled.
In his right fist—
A branch.
Thin. Black. Splintered at one end. The same wood as the tree. Slick with drying blood.
He dropped it. Scrambled away like it might grow legs.
"No," he gasped. "No, no, no. What the hell—what the hell is happening?"
He looked around wildly. The blood tree was gone. Nowhere in sight. No red glow. Just trees and shadows and fog. Just the ordinary madness.
But the smell was still there. Faint. Lingering. Copper and decay and something… floral.
The kind of scent you remember more than smell.
He stood too quickly. Stumbled. "Nope. Nope. Not going crazy. I'm not—no."
He started pacing.
Hands in his hair.
Muttering to himself.
Rocking. Back and forth. Just like the winters on the street. Just like the nights when all he had were rats, his knees, and a broken bottle for warmth.
He slowly started talking to trees, rocks and nearly everything surrounding him. He didn't care, it was better then sitting still and thinking about nothing.
"You belong."
The voice echoed in his head.
He pressed his hands to his ears.
"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."
The branch was still there, on the dirt.
He picked it up.
Threw it.
It hit a tree with a flat thunk—
—and bounced back.
It landed by his feet.
Unburnt. Unbroken.
He didn't touch it again.
Just stood there. Breathing.
He didn't sit. Didn't blink. Didn't move more than he had to.
Because something had changed.
The forest wasn't watching him anymore.
It was speaking.
It had claimed him.
He didn't know what the blood tree was.
He didn't know what it wanted.
But he knew this: from now on, every time he closed his eyes…
It would be waiting.