Emily didn't remember falling asleep.
One moment she was staring at the ceiling, palm still warm from burying the charm in her closet floor—and the next, she was somewhere else. Somewhere cold.
Somewhere familiar.
The forest.
But not the forest as it was now.
It was whole. Green. Almost beautiful. Sunlight shimmered through fresh leaves. The branches swayed with calm grace. Birds chirped. Wind rustled gently.
There was no fear in this place.
Yet Emily's skin crawled.
Because she knew this was not real.
She was standing in a memory.
Not hers.
She turned in slow circles, trying to make sense of where she was. The trees looked familiar—but younger. Less corrupted. There was no black bark, no bleeding moss. Just a trail worn down by time and children's feet.
A voice called out behind her.
"Emily! Come on!"
She turned sharply.
A girl ran past her on the trail, laughing—young, maybe eight or nine. Her brown hair was in pigtails, face glowing with joy. Behind her ran two other kids: a boy with a gap-toothed smile and another girl holding a bright yellow ribbon.
Emily froze.
She knew that laugh.
It was hers.
But she didn't remember this.
She followed them.
The children ran toward a clearing and disappeared behind a large oak tree. As Emily approached, the world shimmered around her. The colors twisted, dimmed. Shadows seeped in at the edges of her vision. The warmth bled away.
When she stepped into the clearing, the scene had changed.
She saw herself—only younger, barely six—sitting alone on a swing made from rope and a crooked plank. Her feet didn't touch the ground. She was pushing off the dirt with her toes, eyes distant.
Behind her, the forest loomed darker now.
The other children were gone.
A voice drifted down from the trees above:
"Do you remember this day?"
Emily turned around slowly.
Wren stood on a branch, watching her.
But her eyes were wrong now—pitch black, like the hollow of a tree.
"This isn't my memory," Emily said.
"No," Wren replied. "But it's what you've forgotten."
The world shifted again.
Emily gasped as she stood now in her childhood home's hallway. Dim lighting. Old wallpaper. A ticking clock echoed in the background.
Down the hall, she heard raised voices.
Her parents arguing. About her.
"She's not adjusting, Melanie. She just sits in the woods and talks to herself."
"She's grieving. You think this is easy for her? She's just a child!"
Emily's breath caught. She knew this day.
The day after her older brother died.
He'd slipped and fallen during a hike. Emily had been with him. She'd run for help. But she was too young. Too slow.
Too late.
The memory slammed into her like cold water.
Her legs buckled, and she sank to her knees.
A photo frame on the wall cracked as the wallpaper peeled back, revealing bark underneath.
The forest is using your grief.
The thought was a whisper—but it wasn't hers.
Wren stepped out of the shadow of the kitchen door.
Except it wasn't Wren anymore.
It was Emily's reflection—older, eyes empty, skin pale and cracked like bark.
"You don't belong here," the shadow-Emily said. "You were supposed to be taken back then. When the game first looked at you."
Emily backed away. "That wasn't the game."
"Oh, but it was," the shadow said. "It reached for your brother. It just missed you."
Emily clenched her fists. "You're lying."
The hallway darkened.
The wallpaper curled up like leaves. Bark pulsed along the floor.
The photos on the wall changed—now showing scenes of the forest, each one closer to the Hollow, to the tree with faces, to the moment she planted the charm.
"You think you've won," the voice hissed. "But we've rooted in you."
Emily's throat burned. "I'm not afraid of you."
"No?" The shadow smiled with her face. "Then why are you still here?"
She ran.
Through memory.
Through nightmares.
Each room she entered showed her more of what she'd buried:
Her brother's grave, empty and overgrown.
A classroom where no one noticed her vanish from her seat.
Her own reflection whispering to itself in the dark.
Each one tried to pull her down, to convince her she never left the game. That she'd always belonged in its loop. That she was only ever hiding from the truth.
At last, she reached a room with no door—just walls made of twisting roots.
A voice echoed within:
"You gave the forest an ending… but it wants a beginning."
A child sat in the center.
But it wasn't Wren.
It was Emily.
As she'd looked the night of the first game.
Eyes wide. Mouth trembling. Counting softly:
"One… two… three…"
Emily dropped to her knees.
"Stop," she whispered.
"Four… five…"
Tears spilled from her eyes.
"You don't have to finish."
The child looked up. "But if I don't… they'll never come back."
Emily reached forward, hand trembling.
"They're not coming back," she said gently. "Not my brother. Not the lost kids. Not the ghosts. But I'm still here. I'm still real."
The child blinked.
The counting stopped.
The root-walls cracked.
And the forest groaned.
She woke up screaming.
Sweat drenched her sheets.
The sun hadn't yet risen.
Her palm itched—hot, burning. She looked down.
The spiral mark had returned.
But now it was red—not black.
A warning.
A change.
Later that day, Emily sat with Ava, Marcus, and Leah in the library. Her hands trembled as she recounted the visions. Wren. Her shadow-self. The memory of her brother.
"They're trying to weaken me," she said. "Trying to make me question what's real."
"They're afraid of you," Ava said. "You're the one who got away."
Leah nodded. "You told the girl in the tree 'no.' That's new."
Emily opened her notebook.
She turned to a new page beneath the old rules.
NEW ENTRY: FOREST TACTICS
It uses memory as a weapon.
It attacks guilt. Regret. Grief.
If it can't pull you into the game, it'll make you believe you never left.
Marcus leaned over. "You're writing this down?"
"Yes," Emily whispered. "Because if we don't remember what's real—then we lose."
They sat together in the flickering light of the old library, surrounded by stories.
But theirs was still being written.
That night, Emily placed a new charm beneath her pillow.
Not to ward off dreams.
But to anchor her mind.
And as she drifted into sleep, she whispered to the forest:
"You can show me the past. But I don't live there anymore."