The fire had burned low, little more than coals glowing faintly beneath a veil of ash. Cipher stirred first, sitting up with the silent ease of someone who had trained themselves to never wake slow. His hand brushed across the scythe; the runes pulsed once, as though sensing the shift in the air.
Red was still curled near the firepit, breathing softly. For a moment, she looked almost like a child tucked into bed, the harsh edge of her fear softened by sleep. Cipher let her rest a little longer.
Then the trees groaned.
Not the simple creak of wood under wind, but something deeper—like the sound of bones straining under weight. Cipher's eyes lifted toward the tree line. The moonlight still spilled silver across the clearing, but the forest beyond had changed. The trunks leaned at strange angles, branches twisting like arms reaching for something just out of reach. The shapes reminded him of ink smeared on paper, dragged across the page by an impatient hand.
He stood slowly, letting his scythe settle into his palm. The runes glowed, faint starlight against the dark.
A whisper followed. Not one voice, but many. Dozens. Hundreds.
"…and the girl walked… the girl walked… the girl walked…"
Cipher's brow furrowed. The voices overlapped, broken, repeating lines with no conclusion. His grip tightened.
Red stirred, eyes blinking open. "Cipher…?" She rubbed at her face, then froze when she heard the whispers. Her entire body went stiff. "They're here…"
He didn't lie to her. "Yes."
She scrambled to her feet, pressing close to him, her gaze darting wildly across the tree line. The whispers grew louder, more insistent.
"…to grandmother's house… to grandmother's house…"
Then the Fades appeared.
They seeped from the trees one by one, their forms barely more than smudges of human silhouettes. Faces incomplete, limbs blurred, they staggered into the clearing like paper figures cut badly from the page. Their mouths moved in unison, voicing broken lines of the tale.
Red clutched Cipher's sleeve. "Why now? We left the village—why won't they stop?"
Cipher studied them, the firelight painting their hollow shapes in pale orange. "Because this story refuses to end. The closer we come to breaking it, the harder it tries to bind us."
The Fades circled the clearing, their murmurs weaving tighter, overlapping until the words became almost unbearable. Cipher raised his scythe slightly, but he didn't strike yet. Their presence wasn't an attack. Not yet.
Instead, his gaze shifted upward.
The trees themselves seemed to move. Their branches stretched, weaving together overhead, blotting out stars one by one. Bark split with the sound of tearing cloth, and from the fractures seeped more of that same shadow-stuff that made the Fades. It dripped like ink, pooling black against the roots.
Red's breath came sharp and ragged. "It's the Wolf… isn't it?"
Cipher shook his head slowly. "No. Not yet. This is the story itself pulling back, forcing the path."
As if in answer, the whispers shifted. Louder now. Urgent.
"…the girl goes to grandmother's house… the girl goes to grandmother's house…"
The Fades lurched forward in jerks and stumbles, arms raising, pointing toward the deeper woods. Every finger aimed the same direction.
Cipher narrowed his eyes. The pressure in the air felt almost like a command. His students once looked to him with the same expectancy—waiting for him to move, to tell them the next step. But this was no hopeful gaze. This was a demand, a narrative chain.
Red shook her head violently. "I won't go back there. I can't—"
Her voice cracked, raw with fear. Cipher placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, grounding her. "Then we don't."
The Fades faltered, their whispering stuttering into static. The trees groaned louder, their twisted limbs clawing against the night. For a brief moment, Cipher swore he could see a face in the bark—long muzzle, teeth bared, eyes like coals hidden behind layers of wood. Watching. Waiting.
He lifted his scythe, the runes flaring like constellations breaking through storm clouds. His voice cut through the whispers, calm but resolute.
"We are not your script."
The Fades shrieked, their bodies glitching violently, limbs bending wrong. The fire at their backs flared, as though trying to protect the clearing from being consumed. Red pressed against Cipher, trembling, her eyes wide as the trees themselves leaned closer, branches dragging across the ground like skeletal claws.
And then, somewhere deep in the woods, the Wolf howled.
It wasn't the broken mimicry of the Fades. It was a sound alive, vast, shaking every leaf and stone. The clearing quivered, shadows thrashing like waves in a storm. Red dropped to her knees, hands clamped over her ears.
Cipher stood his ground, scythe gleaming in the firelight. He knew what this meant.
The forest had stopped testing them.
The story was done whispering.
It was calling them back into its jaws.