Emily stood frozen in the pitch-black clearing, the air thick with a suffocating silence. The lantern was gone. No embers, no lingering warmth. Just the cold, the darkness, and her name still carved into the earth like a curse.
Ready or not…
The words whispered again, this time closer. Emily's breath hitched. She turned slowly, the hairs on the back of her neck rising.
"Who's there?" she managed, her voice barely audible.
The forest didn't answer. Not with words. But it moved.
The trees creaked, their limbs groaning against one another as if reacting to some invisible presence. Leaves rustled in a wind that didn't touch her skin. From deep within the shadows, something shifted. A dragging sound—slow, deliberate, wet.
Emily backed away from the name scrawled in the dirt, eyes straining to see through the gloom.
She caught movement.
Just ahead, between two trees, a shape crouched low to the ground. It wasn't a child. It was too tall, too long-limbed, too… wrong. Its body blended into the darkness, all sharp edges and glinting eyes. She could barely make it out, but she felt it watching her, feeding off her terror.
Her legs moved before her mind caught up—running, pushing through thorn and branch, the forest tearing at her as if punishing her for trying to escape.
"Marcus! Sarah! Noah!" she screamed.
Still no reply.
She stumbled down a slope, crashing through underbrush, skin torn by briars, knees hitting rock. She didn't stop. Not until she saw it—a familiar landmark: the broken treehouse. Relief surged in her chest. She remembered this place. It meant she wasn't completely lost.
She rushed toward it, collapsing at the base of the rotting wood.
And there, lying in the grass just beside the old treehouse beams, was Marcus's red baseball cap—the one he wore every day, even when the teacher told him not to.
It was soaked in something dark.
Emily stared, willing her eyes to lie to her.
But deep down, she knew.
The forest had taken him.
And now it was her turn.
She stood slowly, gripping a broken branch like a weapon. The air was thicker here, heavy with the scent of mold and something metallic. Her mind screamed at her to move, to run, to find a way out—but her body refused to obey. It was as though the trees themselves were whispering to her, pulling her deeper.
From the far side of the clearing came the soft strains of that lullaby again. The one she'd heard before. A haunting, melodic hum that tugged at the edges of her memory.
It sounded like her mother.
But that couldn't be right.
Her mother had been dead for two years.
Emily's lips trembled. "Stop it… stop playing with me."
The song grew louder.
She turned slowly toward the sound and began walking, almost against her will. The melody wrapped around her like a net—comforting and terrifying all at once. It led her down a narrow, winding path lined with stones that pulsed faintly with an eerie blue light.
The deeper she walked, the stranger the forest became.
The trees thinned, revealing shapes hanging between them. At first, she thought they were wind chimes—twisting, dangling objects that clinked gently in the unnatural breeze. But as she drew closer, she saw what they truly were:
Toys.
Dolls. Teddy bears. Broken trucks. Jump ropes and action figures—all weathered, cracked, and suspended by red thread that wrapped around the branches like spider silk.
She reached for one—an old, dirt-smeared teddy bear—and froze when it turned its head toward her. Just a fraction. Just enough to be undeniable.
Emily backed away.
"No," she whispered. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
But the forest whispered back:
It is.
Then came the giggling again—this time louder, circling her like wolves. Shadows raced along the edges of her vision. Children's voices cried out in a chant, overlapping and fading like echoes from another world.
"Ready or not, here you die…
Turn around or lose an eye…
Count to ten and hold your breath…
Hide too long, and you'll meet Death…"
Emily slapped her hands over her ears, but the chant only grew louder. It burrowed into her head, into her bones, into her soul.
She ran again, blindly, no longer caring where she was going. Her only goal now was to get out. Get out of this nightmare forest before it took her too.
The chant faded as she ran, until only her ragged breathing remained.
And then she saw it.
Another child.
Standing motionless in the middle of the path ahead.
It was Ava.
Emily's heart leapt. "Ava! Oh my God, Ava—come on, we have to go!"
But Ava didn't move.
Emily rushed to her, grabbing her shoulders—only to gasp and fall back.
Ava's eyes were open, wide and empty, and her mouth hung slack in a silent scream. Her skin was pale, unnaturally smooth, and her limbs stiff like a doll's. She didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
She wasn't alive.
But she also wasn't dead.
She was caught.
Frozen in time. Preserved by the forest. A puppet waiting for a new game.
Emily staggered back, horror clawing up her throat. She turned and fled once more, sobbing now, the weight of grief and fear bearing down like a storm. Her legs carried her forward without direction, her lungs burning.
At last, she broke through the undergrowth into a small clearing bathed in pale moonlight.
And standing in the center, its back turned to her, was a tall, cloaked figure.
The song stopped.
The air stilled.
Emily took one shaky step forward.
The figure turned.
And she screamed.