The sun hung high above the neighborhood as Emily walked up the path to her house, each step heavier than the last. Her sneakers, still damp with morning dew and forest soil, left faint prints on the sidewalk. Everything looked the same—her house still blue and peeling at the corners, the porch light flickering even in daylight. The world had resumed itself as if nothing had happened.
But inside her, the forest still whispered.
As she reached for the doorknob, it turned on its own.
"Emily?" Her mother's voice cracked as the door swung open.
Emily barely had time to react before arms wrapped tightly around her. Her mother sobbed into her shoulder, rocking her in place. Her father stood just behind, tears in his eyes and hands trembling. Over her mom's shoulder, Emily saw a dozen flyers still taped to the walls. Her face stared back at her from every corner. MISSING. LAST SEEN AT BIRCHWOOD TRAIL.
"I thought I lost you," her mother whispered.
Emily's mouth opened, but no words came out. She simply held on.
The living room felt like a time capsule.
The TV was paused on an old movie she didn't remember watching. A plate of cookies had gone stale on the coffee table. A half-played board game sat abandoned in the corner.
Her room upstairs was untouched.
But something about the air was wrong.
Heavier.
Colder.
Like the forest had slipped in with her.
Later that evening, Emily lay in bed while her parents made phone calls downstairs—doctors, school officials, maybe even the police. She heard them arguing softly, words like shock, amnesia, and miracle floating up the stairs.
She stared at the ceiling.
Her hand still tingled from where she had planted the charm into the tree's roots.
She turned her palm over.
And gasped.
A faint imprint of the leaf-shaped charm had appeared in her skin, as if it had fused with her.
A brand.
Or a seal.
Emily sat up.
She wasn't done.
The next morning, a knock rattled her window.
Emily sat up, heart jumping.
Outside stood Ava, bundled in a jacket, hair messy, eyes wide. Behind her were Marcus and Leah.
Emily hurried downstairs and let them in.
"Did you feel it too?" Marcus asked immediately.
Emily nodded.
"I thought it was over," Ava said. "But last night, I saw something."
Emily's stomach tightened. "What?"
Ava hesitated. "I saw Devon."
The room fell silent.
Marcus looked down. "Me too. Not in a dream. In the mirror. He was behind me."
Leah's voice was barely audible. "He said it wasn't finished."
Emily didn't want to believe it. She wanted to believe that the charm had sealed everything—that the forest was satisfied. But her hand still tingled. The mark still glowed faintly.
"What do we do?" Ava whispered.
Emily closed her eyes.
"I think… we brought something back."
That afternoon, the four of them returned to Birchwood Trail—not to enter the forest, but to watch it. They sat in a tight circle on the hilltop near the playground where everything had begun.
The woods looked still. Innocent. But they all knew better.
"It's like it followed us," Marcus said.
"No," Emily replied, her voice low. "It didn't follow us. It chose us."
Ava swallowed. "What does that mean?"
Emily thought of Devon's eyes in the root chamber. The way he'd faded like dust. The calm in his voice when he'd said, "Maybe I finally get to sleep."
"What if the forest needs a guardian now?" Emily said. "Someone who knows the rules. Who won't play the game but will make sure no one else stumbles into it."
"No way," Marcus said. "We're just kids."
"So was Devon," Leah whispered.
Emily turned her eyes to the forest.
"I think we're the last players," she said. "But we're also the last line."
Ava shivered. "I hate this."
"Me too," Emily said. "But I think… the game changes if someone is watching. If someone's expecting it."
They all stared into the trees, the silence between them thick.
Then Leah stood up, surprising them all. "If I see anyone near the trail, I'm telling them to stay away."
Emily stood too. "Me too."
Ava and Marcus joined them.
It wasn't bravery.
It was responsibility.
Over the next week, strange things happened.
Emily's dreams twisted into half-memories of the forest—of the double, of the songs, of children's voices calling out her name. Her phone glitched constantly. Lights flickered when she entered a room.
One night, she found muddy footprints on the floor of her bedroom. Small ones.
They led from her closet to the window.
And vanished.
She didn't scream.
She didn't tell her parents.
She just cleaned it up—and added a strip of salt along the sill.
At school, the four of them began meeting every afternoon in the old library. They'd bring journals and notebooks, sketching the forest's layout from memory. They wrote down the rules of the game: the patterns, the voices, the tricks.
They created a manual—one Devon had never had.
"If this ever happens again," Marcus said, "someone should be ready."
They didn't know if anyone would ever read it.
But they wrote it anyway.
Sometimes, during those meetings, Emily would catch the faint sound of a lullaby—one Devon had hummed while in the tree chamber.
It no longer scared her.
It made her feel… watched.
But not alone.
One evening, as Emily walked home from the library, she saw a child standing at the edge of the forest.
A little boy, maybe six years old.
He was staring into the trees, eyes wide, body still.
Emily approached slowly. "Hey," she said gently. "You okay?"
The boy turned. His eyes were glassy, his skin pale. "I heard something."
Emily's heart clenched.
"What did you hear?"
He tilted his head. "Laughter. And someone calling my name."
Emily crouched next to him.
"It's a trick," she whispered. "Don't listen to it. And never go into those woods alone."
The boy looked up at her. "Are you one of the forest kids?"
Emily didn't answer.
Instead, she took his hand and led him back toward the sidewalk.
"I'm someone who remembers," she said.
That night, she stood at her window, watching the trees.
The wind didn't howl. The branches didn't twist.
But somewhere, deep in the forest, a game was still paused. Waiting.
And now… it had a guardian.
Someone who'd played.
Someone who'd survived.
Someone who knew the rules.
Emily turned from the window.
And wrote the first line in a new journal:
"Rule #1: Never play hide-and-seek in Birchwood Forest."