The forest swallowed them whole.
Two days became a week. A week stretched into two. Then nearly a month.
The air never shifted—always cold, always heavy. The trees stood so tall and dense that the sun was reduced to a pale, hidden smear. The ground never changed either: damp moss, rotting leaves, mud that clung to their boots. It was as if the forest was copying itself around them, endlessly.
Edwin's Breaking Point
Edwin, once the loudest with jokes, was the first to crack. His voice shook with frustration.
"Are we not there yet? What is going on? We've been walking in circles. Weeksnearly a month! Tell me I'm wrong. Please tell me I'm wrong!"
His shout ricocheted off the trees, returning to them like cruel laughter.
The others began to murmur, discipline unraveling.
"Why is the radio still silent?" Daria muttered.
"We should've reached the outpost days ago," Thomas said, his steady tone failing.
Even Aria whispered, "Something's wrong with this forest."
Command in Silence
Lady Gaga carried the radio every day, pressing its cold metal to her ear morning and night. Not even static answered.
Still, she pressed forward, stride unbroken, face like iron. Only the shadows under her eyes betrayed fatigue.
Blackwell's hand never left his sword. His knuckles were white now, distrust of the silence carved deep into his posture.
Realization
Suddenly, Blackwell raised a fist. The column froze. His eyes scanned the trees.
"Form up," he ordered, voice low. "Something's wrong here. Very wrong."
The children obeyed instantly. Weariness fell away as training took over rifles raised, steps measured, breaths drawn shallow.
Every sound magnified. A branch snapped somewhere far ahead. Leaves rustled like whispers.
Blackwell spoke again, softer, almost to himself:
"No forest is endless. But we've been here too long. Much too long."
The word long hung in the air.
This wasn't just distance. It wasn't just time. It was days stretched unnaturally, paths folding back on themselves, a feeling of being stalked by something unseen.
Zero finally looked up, eyes flat and unblinking.
"…We're not lost," he said. "We're trapped."
The word struck harder than a gunshot.
The Blade Drawn
Steel whispered as Blackwell unsheathed his sword. His voice carried like iron across the group:
"Ready yourselves. This is no forest. It's a graveyard waiting to claim us."
Metal clattered softly as blades and rifles lifted in trembling hands. Edwin's laughter was gone. The chatter of children silenced.
For the first time, they stood as soldiersbnot by choice, but by necessity.
The forest did not change.
Day bled into night, night into day, yet the world remained the same. Crooked trees. Damp earth. Silence pressing down like stones.
Cracks in Discipline
The silence gnawed at them. Hunger thinned their bodies. Sleep grew shallow and broken.
Ema muttered calculations under her breath, as if equations could hold madness back.
Daria cursed every twig that cracked beneath her boots.
Rowan walked like a wraith, silent and detached, as though he already belonged to the earth.
And Zero, Zero marched on, empty-eyed, as if none of this surprised him.
Signs in the Dark
Ema stopped first. "Commander," she whispered. "Tracks."
Blackwell knelt, brushing the mud with his gloved hand. His eyes narrowed. "Not ours."
The group stiffened.
Hours later they found scraps of rations, a torn strip of cloth clinging to a branch, and finally bullet casings gleaming faintly in the dirt.
Thomas picked one up, voice breaking.
"These aren't Naryan. Not Odelian. Look at the brass different mold, different caliber."
Blackwell's jaw clenched as he studied it. "No kingdom we know makes this."
Distant Gunfire
The first gunshot cracked the air like lightning. The children dropped to cover, instincts taking over.
Then another. And another. Soon the forest echoed with a battle somewhere unseen.
But none of it was aimed at them.
They waited, hearts hammering, until the echoes faded into silence again.
The woods mocked them with quiet.
The Clearing
The smell struck first iron, blood, smoke.
Bodies lay scattered among the roots. Soldiers, but not from Naryan. Not from Aria. Not from Iron or any kingdom known to them. Their uniforms bore no crest.
Edwin's whisper trembled. "Who the hell are they?"
Then they saw the weapons—sleek, heavy, precise. Not like anything their factories had ever built.
Blackwell lifted one. Its balance was alien, its markings strange.
"These don't belong to us," he muttered. "And neither do these men."
A War Beyond Kingdoms
The children stood frozen.
"Why here?" Aria asked softly. "Why this forest?"
No answer came.
But the truth was plain:
The forest wasn't endless it was occupied.
The silence wasn't natural it was a warning.
The war was no longer just between five kingdoms.
Blackwell's voice cut sharp through the fear.
"Remember this. Speak of it to no one. The kingdom has lied to us. The forest hides more than shadows."
The march resumed, boots heavy, eyes forward. The corpses and their strange steel were left behind, a secret buried in mud.
Twilight
Then Zero froze. His eyes narrowed. One of the "corpses" twitched.
Without a word, he sprinted.
"Zero!" Blackwell barked. "Get back here!"
"Damn kid!" Gaga cursed, giving chase.
The rest followed, crashing through undergrowth into another clearing.
There, a gaunt boy crouched with a strange rifle aimed at them. Beside him lay a wounded man, still clinging to life.
"Stay back!" the boy shouted, thin voice steady despite the tremor in his hands.
The children froze. Edwin raised his palms.
"Easy… where did you get that gun?"
The boy's eyes burned. "From the Wolves," he spat. "They came to our village. Promised protection. Taught us to fight. We believed them. Then they turned. Took everything. Left us with death."
The wounded man coughed blood, forcing words through clenched teeth.
"Wolves… outsiders… no king… no crest…" His voice broke away.
Blackwell studied the rifle. Compact. Deadly. Marked with symbols no smith in the kingdoms could make. Whoever supplied the Wolves wasn't some bandit lord. This was preparation. This was strategy.
New Recruits
They bound wounds with rags. The boy finally lowered his weapon, though suspicion lingered in his stare.
"What's your name?" Gaga demanded.
He hesitated. "Twilight."
The man forced a grim smile through his pain. "Jon Snow."
Gaga tossed them spare Naryan uniforms. Her tone was final.
"You're alive because of us. That makes you ours. From today, you fight under our banner. You are soldiers of the Naryan Army."
Twilight looked down at the cloth, then at Zero. For a heartbeat, the two locked eyes two weapons carved into boys, caught in a war far larger than themselves.
The forest loomed, silent and unending, but no longer just trees. It whispered questions they could not answer:
Who were the Wolves?
Where had their weapons come from?
And how far would this war reach?
The woods gave nothing back. Only silence.]