The day passed in a surreal blur as a heavy silence replaced the camp's usual rhythm. Even as I busied myself preparing breakfast, the usual banter was absent. The sizzle of the fire was the only thing to part this eerie stillness that had settled over us like a shroud.
Off in the distance, the thunderous echoes of explosions gradually faded, leaving a heavy silence that seemed to stretch on endlessly. But after some time, Amelia finally emerged from the tunnel.
Her face was streaked with tears and sweat, her hair clinging to her damp skin. But she said nothing, her expression unreadable as she carried the stone coffin into the clearing. With painstaking care, she placed it down, her hands lingering on its surface for a moment before moving to a nearby tree, where she slumped against it, as though the weight of the day had finally drained the last remnants of strength from her body.
Her gaze remained fixed on the ground, unfocused and hollow, her trembling hands resting in her lap. The look on her face told me everything I needed to know. She had no intention of talking to anyone or burying whoever it was here.
The hours crawled by as the sun's slow descent cast long shadows across the forest floor, shifting from golden hues to the cooler tones of dusk, wrapping the camp in an uneasy stillness. Still, no one spoke. Even the rustling leaves seemed to hold their breath.
Off to the side, Henry sat apart from the rest of us, his focus entirely on poisoning plants along the perimeter, as if the repetition was the only thing tethering him to the present.
As the shadows deepened, exhaustion settled over me like a weight. My body ached, but worse was the fog in my head. My thoughts were sluggish, drained, like something unseen was pressing down on me, smothering every spark of focus and leaving only silence.
I drifted toward what was left of the fire, nothing more than cold ash and faint embers. Dropping down, I barely registered the uneven ground digging into my back or the chill of the earth seeping through my clothes. None of it mattered.
I drifted off without realizing it, my exhaustion overwhelming even the gnawing unease in my chest.
When I woke, I looked around to see that Henry was the only one left, perched on a makeshift chair near the edge of the camp. His gaze was distant, fixed on the darkened woods beyond. "Where did everyone go?" I asked, my voice still rough from sleep.
"In the tunnel," he muttered without looking up. "Ella said she couldn't stand being here any longer."
I sighed, glancing at the tunnel. "We should catch up."
Henry nodded reluctantly, rising to his feet. Together, we gathered our belongings and headed into the forest to join the others. The journey felt like an endless trek into a labyrinth of nature's chaos. The forest seemed to grow thicker with every step, the trees intertwining into an impenetrable wall of bark and branches. There were no gaps for sunlight to pierce through the canopy above, just a dark, oppressive cocoon of leaves and vines that twisted like they were alive. It was as if the forest itself were resisting our passage, tightening its grip the further we went.
The air grew heavy, damp with an almost suffocating humidity, and the distant cracks and booms of Amelia's power reverberated through the trees. Each explosion sent a faint tremor underfoot, a reminder of her relentless advance.
When we finally reached the others, it was clear that Amelia's frustration had reached a boiling point. Her form stood rigid, framed by the flickering glow of molten stone. Her shoulders rose and fell with labored breaths, and her hands clenched into fists, trembling with barely contained rage. The path she carved through the forest was a scar of devastation, trees reduced to splinters and charred stumps, the ground scorched black.
But ahead, the forest was unlike anything I had ever seen, with trees so dense they formed a seamless wall, their trunks fused together as though the forest had become a single living organism.
Amelia's frustration finally boiled over as her shout carried through the suffocating stillness. "Enough!" With a motion sharp as a blade, she thrust her hands forward, summoning a torrent of molten stone. The ground beneath her rumbled violently, cracks spiderwebbing outwards as lava surged in every direction. A deafening roar followed as the volcanic force obliterated the forest wall in a final, explosive assault.
The earth groaned and trembled under the sheer magnitude of her power. Smoke billowed into the air, mingling with the acrid scent of scorched wood and earth. For a moment, everything was chaos, a cacophony of destruction that left the world shrouded in an eerie haze.
When the smoke finally began to clear, what lay beyond it felt almost surreal.
The suffocating density of the forest abruptly gave way to a vast circular clearing. Its edges were so sharply defined it looked unnatural, as if the world itself had drawn a boundary. The ground inside was untouched, as though the chaos behind us had never reached it.
But we weren't alone.
At the center of the clearing stood something I could only describe as a being shaped like a colossal elk, its body formed entirely of emerald vines that pulsed with a faint golden light, weaving together into muscle and bone.
From its eyes, lights swirled endlessly from compassion, sorrow… and something darker, as if it was begging us to leave.
That's when I saw it.
From its chest, the golden vines began to writhe. As if something were beginning to push outwards, the creature let out a strained, pained sound and staggered. Then an ashen vine forced its way out from within its body, pushing through the glowing emerald mass and stretching toward us.
"Amelia?" Ella muttered, taking a step back. "What do we do?"
Unable to answer, she just watched as more vines began to blacken, spreading like rot through its body.
Then, before any of us could react, a massive intertwined vine erupted from the ground and slammed Amelia into the wall of the dome. The scorched edges of it wrapped around her, tightening as she struggled to breathe.
For a split second, I expected her to fight.
Instead, her expression softened, like she was ready to accept it.
Don't you dare give up on us.
I shot forward, saber forming in my remaining hand, and severed the vines in a single clean strike.
The moment the blade cut through, the clearing shuddered as if something had screamed without sound.
All around us, vines exploded from the earth.
They came in a relentless barrage.
Twisting, I barely dodged an incoming strike, but froze when Ella screamed.
Whipping around, I caught sight of her just as a vine clipped her mid-motion and sent her flying across the clearing.
"Ella!" I shouted.
Then, without pause, the ground beneath me pulsed again, then ruptured. An unending tide of blackened vines burst upward, slamming through the canopy above before recoiling as it reached Henry.
The moment his hand closed around it, the vine shrank.
"It worked!" Henry yelled, triumph flashing across his face for a split second before a second vine struck him from the side, hurling him into the wall. Even then, the one he had touched withered and collapsed into blackened dust.
"Keep it up!" I yelled, dodging another glancing strike. Twisting mid-step, I fired a bolt of lightning toward the creature's center, only for a vine to shoot up from the ground and keep it from reaching the center mass.
But something about this was wrong.
I watched as more of the elk's body darkened, the corruption spreading faster now. And yet… its eyes weren't on us.
They were fixed on something behind me.
Following its gaze, my brows furrowed in confusion as the blackened vines were attempting to break into the coffin of… of who?
I shook my head hard, forcing the thought away.
Amelia was on the ground nearby, coughing now that the vines had released her. But she still wasn't moving.
"Amelia! Snap out of it!" I hissed before a vine slammed into me with enough force to crack something in my chest.
"Ahh—"
I crumpled, sucking in a broken breath, ribs screaming in protest.
Through blurred vision, I spotted Ella a few feet away, where a vine had wrapped around her leg and was dragging her toward the creature's center.
"Ella…" I rasped.
But no matter how hard she kicked, it held tight.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself upright despite the pain and lunged for the nearest vine. The moment my hand closed around it, I channeled lightning straight into its core.
Energy surged through it in violent torrents. The section I held stiffened, freezing in place.
Using the brief opening, I sprinted toward Ella and sliced through the vine binding her. I caught her as she fell, skidding across the smooth ground to a rough stop.
She yelped as I twisted sharply, barely dodging another strike that shattered the earth where we'd been standing.
I dashed backward, only to see a vine attempt to lunge again, but it stoped mid motion, quivering as if held in place.
Exchanging a nod with Emily, I was about to sever the vein before Amelia finally acted.
A torrent of lava erupted from the ground around her, spiraling outward in violent arcs. The creature recoiled, vines jerking back as if burned by more than just heat.
One vine lashed toward her, only for a flaming stone spike to shoot upward and impale it before erupting into fire.
For the first time since this started, the creature hesitated.
All around us, the vines stilled.
Then we heard it.
A sound unlike anything before.
A hollow gasp.
Like a corpse dragging in its first breath.
And from the source of that sound, we all turned to see that the corpse from inside the coffin was standing.
He took a slow step forward, like someone waking from a dream. But something was wrong. Beneath his skin, blackened vines writhed and shifted, moving as though they had minds of their own. They twisted under the surface, bulging and crawling, stitching together what had been broken.
His mouth opened.
At first, only garbled noise came out.
"Ghh… wh… what… what is hap—happening to me?"
The distorted voice scraped against the air like a broken record.
And in that moment, something clicked in my mind like a long-forgotten memory snapping back into place.
Benjamin.
He's Benjamin.
The realization hit me a second too late as the vines surged up his neck as if seizing control.
Then he moved.
He shot forward with impossible speed. And in an instant, his hand was around Amelia's throat, lifting her as if she weighed nothing.
Her eyes widened in horror as she clawed at his arm, gasping as his grip tightened.
The veins beneath his skin no longer pulsed with blood. They writhed with something darker, something that moved like rot beneath a corpse's flesh.
"Benjamin—" Amelia choked, trying to pry his fingers loose without hurting him. But nothing she did made a difference.
Frozen in shock, no one moved to help her, but seeing as Amelia's breaths came in shorter, more frantic bursts, I forced it down.
This isn't Benjamin.
Whatever stood before us was wearing his body.
That was all.
I shot forward, summoning a blade, its edge humming with blue energy. My chest tightened. I wanted to close my eyes. I didn't want to watch him die a second time.
But if I hesitated, Amelia would die instead.
As I closed the distance, my gaze flickered off to the side as if searching for anyother way out of this, only to lock eyes with the Elk.
And in that fraction of a second, the golden light within them flared with something I couldn't begin to explain.
With it came Understanding.
At the last possible instant, I shifted the blade into a gauntlet.
Instead of taking his head, I drove my fist into Benjamin's sternum.
The impact detonated through him.
Both he and Amelia were sent flying across the clearing.
Benjamin crashed into the wall.
For a second, he didn't move.
But when he did, it was like seeing him alive again as relief flooded across his face for the briefest moment before the vines inside his chest shuddered.
They twisted violently around his sternum, as if trying to repair what I had damaged. At that same instant, the elk behind me dissolved, its emerald body breaking apart into drifting strands of light. The last of its golden energy shot into the ground—
And reappeared beneath Benjamin.
A single golden vine erupted upward and pierced into his chest with explosive force, slamming him back into the wall.
Opposing energies writhed within him.
Black and gold.
They fought like rabid animals trapped in the same cage, tearing at each other beneath his skin. But whatever I had damaged in his sternum had weakened the dark presence, whose movements grew erratic before fading entirely.
Benjamin's ashen skin began to regain color. The lifeless gray receded, replaced by his normal skin tone, now slightly luminous, a faint glow radiating from his chest as the golden energy spread through him, cleansing the corruption from within.
Then, for the first time, he moved on his own.
He clutched his chest and gasped, dragging in air like a drowning man breaking through the surface.
When he looked up, he took in the destruction around him, then us, before his gaze fell back to his hands as too many emotions crashed over him at once. He froze, overwhelmed, as if he didn't even know where to begin.
I collapsed backward onto the ground, staring up at the sky, trying to process what had just happened.
And then the world changed.
All around us, the once suffocating forest began to dissolve. The dome, the blackened vines, the shattered earth—everything faded like smoke caught in a breeze.
In its place stood open skies, where soft clouds drifted lazily over a valley of lush greens stretching into the horizon
Utterly bewildered, I pushed myself up slightly and looked toward the horizon where green grass swayed gently in a warm wind.
Scrambling for an explanation, my mind seemed to stall before a single idea surfaced.
Was it all fake?
Had the suffering, the battles, the fear been nothing more than an illusion?
It would've been easier to believe that.
But when I looked at Benjamin and saw the shock still etched into his face, something inside me rejected that answer.
It was something far more complicated than I could begin to understand.
Around me, everyone else stood just as stunned.
Amelia was the first to move.
She ran to Benjamin and threw herself into his arms, sobbing as everything she'd been holding in finally broke free. Days of fear, grief, and confusion poured out at once.
Benjamin hesitated only a moment before wrapping his arms around her shaking frame, holding her tightly as the field swayed quietly around us.
"I–I thought we lost you," Amelia choked, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
Benjamin, still visibly disoriented, hesitated before awkwardly patting her back. "It's alright. I'm okay," he murmured, sounding like he was trying to convince himself just as much as her.
She pulled back slowly, wiping at her eyes, searching his face like she was afraid he might disappear again.
Benjamin glanced down at his legs.
His brow furrowed.
"Wait…" He shifted his weight experimentally. "I can stand?"
He stared at his legs as if they didn't belong to him. "What's going on?"
Then his gaze unfocused, like he was reading something only he could see.
"I have… a stat screen?"
The words came out quietly as if he didn't quite believe it himself, then, like this was all too much, Henry finally snapped.
He threw his hands into the air. "I'm losing it. I've officially lost it," he said, pacing a step. "One minute we're trapped in an endless forest, then we're attacked, then you get possessed and come back to life—and now everything fades like it was some bad dream and you've got a core?"
He ran a hand through his hair, voice rising.
"You were dead. Dead two minutes ago! What is even happening?!"
Benjamin looked down at himself again, still trying to process. "I wish I knew," he muttered—
And then Emily collided with him.
She tackled him in a sudden, emotional hug, clutching onto him as if letting go wasn't an option. She didn't say anything at first, just cried. The shock of everything had clearly broken through whatever composure she'd been holding onto.
Strangely enough, Ella wasn't focused on Benjamin.
She was scanning the open field around us, eyes narrowed.
"Could it all have been an illusion?" she muttered, echoing the same thought I'd had.
Then she turned back to Benjamin. "What happened to you?"
He opened his mouth to answer.
"I can't even begin to understand, I—"
"No," Ella clarified. "I mean, when you died. What happened?"
He went still.
For a moment, he looked almost embarrassed. Then a shadow passed over his face.
"I… went to sleep," he said slowly. "And then the next thing I knew, I was holding Amelia by the throat."
His voice faltered. "Choking the life out of her."
"That wasn't you," Amelia said firmly, though the bruise forming along her neck told a harsher truth.
Benjamin's eyes lingered on it.
"Can I try something?" he asked quietly.
She leaned closer, confused but trusting. "What is it?"
He hesitated again, his gaze drifting briefly as if checking something unseen before refocusing.
"My core says I have a skill called Saint's Blessing," he said. "And from what she's told me, it can heal others."
I raised an eyebrow.
She?
No–wait. That wasn't the important part.
His core talks to him?
Seemingly unconcerned, Amelia stepped closer and gave him a small nod.
"Go ahead."
Smiling gently, Benjamin extended his hand.
He muttered a few quiet words, and something shifted beneath his skin. It looked like golden vines moving just under the surface, carrying a warm radiance as they flowed down his arm and into his palm. The light stretched outward and brushed against the bruised marks on Amelia's neck.
The moment the light seeped into her skin, the dark discoloration faded at an impossible speed, leaving her unblemished.
Hesitantly, Amelia touched her throat, then blinked in surprise when there was no pain.
Benjamin looked up at me with a faint smile. "Would you like to try?"
I hesitated.
What if something was still hiding there, just waiting to attack?
But seeing his expression, I decided to trust him.
Stepping forward, I sat beside him just as he murmured those same words again. "Saint's Blessing."
The moment the light reached me, a strange warmth spread through my body, like sunlight on a clear summer day. It wrapped around me gently, almost tenderly, and for a fleeting second, I wasn't here anymore. I was a kid again, running barefoot through cool stream water, laughter echoing between the trees, shouting to my friend as we raced through the forest without a single worry clinging to my shoulders.
Then the warmth began to fade.
When I opened my eyes, I realized I'd closed them without meaning to.
A small portion of my missing arm had returned.
But before the transformation could continue, Benjamin's body trembled with a rough shudder, as though the effort had taken far more from him than he'd expected.
"Are you okay?" Amelia asked softly, hovering close but afraid to touch him, as if he might collapse at any second.
"I'm fine," Benjamin said between ragged breaths. "I just didn't expect it to drain me like that, but I'll be alright. Just… a little worn out."
"Take your time," I insisted.
And with a grateful smile, he leaned back and looked twords the sky above.
Then Ella froze.
"Wait," she breathed, then pointed toward the horizon. "Look!" Far off in the distance, a jagged silhouette broke the line between land and sky, faded towers and spires just barely visible through the shimmering haze.
"That's a city!" she shouted in disbelief. "We actually made it!"
Then, like she was possessed, she took off into a sprint. Leaving the rest of us sitting there in utter astonishment.
"Hey, Ella!" I called after her, but she ignored me as she gained speed, like the whole world had tilted just to carry her there.
The rest of us exchanged stunned glances, but then almost without thinking, we ran too.
The field became a blur of green and gold as we chased her, the sunlight breaking through scattered clouds above, casting dancing shadows across our path.
But even as we reached the city and found it in ruins, that didn't seem to dampen anyone's mood.
Half-toppled buildings leaned against one another like tired giants, cloaked in vines and swallowed by time. But even in ruin, it was a beautiful sight. Ella skidded to a stop, eyes wide with wonder. "Look at that!" she said, pointing to a large building that still held most of its shape. "It might still be intact inside. Come on!"
Without waiting for an answer, she bolted across the cracked stone path ahead, making it difficult to trail after her as she darted through a gaping archway and into a hollowed-out building like a kid tearing into a birthday gift.
Entering the space, I had to admit the place had a strange charm. Ivy clung to the outer walls like nature's patchwork, and the sagging roof let warm light spill through in angled beams. Dust swirled lazily in the air, catching the sunlight and dancing like tiny golden spirits. Although time had done its damage, with old furniture reduced to nothing but rusted metal, the stone bones of the building still stood strong.
"It's perfect!" Ella spun in a slow circle, arms stretched out as she soaked in every cracked brick and cobwebbed corner. "We could explore the whole thing! There's gotta be a second floor still intact, and look, that doorway leads somewhere!"
She was halfway to a side corridor when Amelia stepped over the threshold behind us, gave a brief, thoughtful look around, and said the one thing Ella hadn't expected.
"This is a good spot to set up camp."
The words hit like a splash of cold water to Ella, who froze mid-step.
"What?" she blinked.
Amelia dropped her pack with a dull thump and stretched her arms overhead. "You heard me. We're staying here for the night."
Ella spun around. "But–wait–what? Aren't we going to explore more?"
"Nope," Amelia said, already unrolling a blanket. "We all need a break."
Ella's jaw dropped. "But we just got here!"
Amelia gave her a look, one of those slow, raised-eyebrow glances that spoke volumes without a word. "Exactly. You just got here. And I haven't sat down in hours."
Ella looked genuinely offended, hand to her chest like she'd been betrayed. "I didn't run that fast."
"You were practically flying," I chimed in from the corner, already rummaging through my bag.
Ella groaned and threw her head back with theatrical agony. "This is actual torture."
Amelia smiled faintly. "You'll live."
With an exaggerated huff, Ella dropped her bag to the ground and flopped onto it.
CRACK!
The sharp sound cut through the moment, warping her frustrated expression to one of horror.
"No… no, no, no—"
She spun around and tore into her bag only to deflate the moment she pulled out the radio with its cracked casing, a bent antenna, and pieces barely hanging on. With many lost inside the bag.
She laid it all out carefully on the ground, trying to piece it back together. But the damage was obviously too much to repair.
Henry leaned back with a sigh, watching the scene unfold. "Yeah... that's toast."
Ella didn't argue. She just stared at the mess, clearly trying to will it back to life.
But she didn't have the tools.
With a deep sigh, she slumped to the ground, the weight of it all draining out of her.
Amelia crouched beside her, inspecting the radio briefly before huffing. "Well… that's disappointing."
Ella blinked, confused. "Wait—you're not mad?"
Amelia shrugged. "No. I mean, it sucks, sure. But we've already got the direction from the last signal, and we found this city. That was the hard part."
But after a moment, she smirked. "Still… there will be consequences."
Ella flinched. "What kind of consequences?"
"You're on dinner duty." Amelia clapped her hands. "Come on, it's getting late. Get off your butt and help me."
Ella groaned again but dragged herself up. Eventually, she resigned herself to the task, though helping might've been a stretch. She hovered nearby, stirred food that didn't need stirring, and kept glancing back at the broken radio like it might fix itself if she looked long enough.
As the night settled over the ruined city, the fire crackled inside the shelter, casting warm, flickering light across the walls. Shadows danced gently, and for a while… it almost felt like peace.
I lay back and stared up at the sky. Without the haze of Earth's light pollution, the stars looked impossibly sharp, as if someone had taken a fine brush and painted each one onto a canvas of velvet.
Across from me, Ella had finally settled, legs tucked under her, a blanket draped haphazardly across her shoulders. But her gaze was still fixed beyond the firelight, drawn to the silhouette of the forgotten city.
I followed her gaze.
The ruins stretched out before us, silent and haunting in the moonlight. Vines coiled around old walls, and stone arches stood like the ribs of some long-dead beast. But even in decay, the city had a strange kind of beauty, like a secret waiting to be told.
What stories did it hold? Who had lived here? What had they built, and why had they abandoned it?
Lying back, I let the weight of the day sink in, the questions swirling in my mind like a storm. The ruins were a mystery, but something else was gnawing at me, something bigger than just the city. How had we even ended up in that field?
It felt almost too surreal to believe. One minute, we were moving through dense forest, the trees crowding in on us from all sides, and then, nothing…
The walls vanished, and there we were standing in an open field as if it had never existed in the first place. Was it some kind of teleportation? The thought gnawed at me. But if it had been, wouldn't we have felt something? A pull or a shift? It had happened so seamlessly that it made me question if the forest had even been real to begin with.
That any of that had been real. In a way, it felt like a trial of some sort. Why didn't we just find a way around if it had gotten so dense? But thinking back to Bejnamins' rapid decline, it all seems somewhat rushed. Was that all to push us to the center, so Benjamin could claim… well, whatever it was that he had received?
Glancing twords him, I watched as he stared absently ahead, lips moving slightly as if he were speaking to something only he could see.
Was his core really talking to him?
The questions seemed so odd when I looked at it from my angle, yet when I imagined that thing twisting beneath his skin, I couldn't help but shiver at the thought of something whispering things from within,
Yet despite my willingness to get to the bottom of all this, my body was exhausted from everything that had happened. I leaned back against the makeshift bed and closed my eyes before I could spiral any further.