Aira forced herself upright, each breath scraping raw against her throat. The silence pressed in, heavy and unnatural, broken only by the hammer of her pulse. The forest watched her. She felt it in every twisted root, every gnarled branch.
She stumbled forward, clinging to motion as if stillness might let the earth swallow her whole again. Moonlight slipped through gaps in the canopy, thin and pale, painting the ground in shards of silver.
Then it shifted.
The shadows lengthened unnaturally, stretching toward her like fingers eager to grasp. The trees swayed though the air lay still, and the path ahead rippled like a mirage.
She stopped. Blinked. No—the path was moving.
What had been a narrow deer trail moments before now slithered sideways, bending deeper into the dark. Behind her, the way she had come folded shut, trunks leaning together to lock her in.
Her chest tightened. The forest was steering her.
"Walk, or be broken."
The whisper threaded through the leaves, and though it bore no voice she knew, the weight of it pressed against her skull, pushing.
Aira shook her head violently. "No," she rasped, though the word felt weak against the trees.
A low creak answered ,wood groaning as if amused. Then came the smell.
Rot. Damp earth gone sour. The stink of something long dead and freshly unearthed.
Her stomach lurched as the undergrowth parted to reveal a hollow, wide as a crater, its edges slick with black moss. Inside lay bones, animal, human, too many to count. Ribcages jutted from the muck like the ruins of broken ships. Skulls stared hollow-eyed, jaws frozen in silent screams.
The earth pulsed beneath her feet. Not alive, hungry.
Her knees buckled, the sight pressing down harder than flame or rope had. This wasn't just punishment ,it was promise. A graveyard for those who resisted the forest's will.
The ground shifted, and the bones stirred.
First a fingerbone clinked against another. Then a whole arm slid free of the muck, followed by the curve of a spine. The remains twitched, rattled, then began dragging themselves together in a grotesque mockery of life.
Aira staggered back, but the hollow widened with every step, as if the pit wanted her. Skeletal forms rose half-assembled skulls with ribs, spines without legs dragging themselves across the slick earth with wet, sucking sounds.
Her chest heaved. She could feel Kieran's curse burning in her blood, pulling her toward the pit, whispering that she belonged among them.
She clenched her fists until her nails dug bloody crescents in her palms. "No," she hissed again louder this time, though fear choked her.
The bones froze, the forest listened.
Then, all at once, the hollow erupted skeletal hands clawing for her ankles, the muck heaving upward as though the grave itself had chosen to rise and drag her under.
Aira ran.
She didn't think just tore herself free, stumbling blind through the dark, branches tearing her skin, roots clawing at her boots. The whispers followed, the stink of death chasing her with every breath.
She burst into a small clearing, chest burning, lungs raw. The trees circled close, branches knitted overhead like a cage.
There was no path out.
And in the center, waiting, was something worse than bones.