The trees weren't trees. Not really.
They were... watching.
Bent and blackened, knotted like fists, they stood too close together, their trunks pressed like secrets whispered between broken lovers. Even the shadows had teeth. The air buzzed—low, tight, like it didn't want us here.
The waterfalls behind us shivered, then parted, revealing the entrance: not a path, not a cave. A maw.
The forest opened like a curse that knew our names.
Antic sucked in a sharp breath beside me. "Oh no. This... this ain't sparkly at all, luv," he muttered. "I think I just saw a squirrel blink sideways."
I didn't answer. The edges of the forest pulsed. Not with light. With hunger.
Grin's scythe hissed softly as he shifted his grip. His voice, when it came, was slow as always—dragging each word like it might break in half.
"Shadowwood... don't... kill you fast. It... remembers you. Shows you... what you left buried."
Dolly cracked her knuckles. "If one more branch touches me, I'm burning the whole thing down."
The leaves rustled. Not with wind—there wasn't any—but like they were laughing.
"Wait," Antic whispered. He adjusted the strap on his flute case, muttering something under his breath about bad omens and musical therapy. "No-Eyes, you feelin' that too, yeah? The... pull?"
I nodded. My fingertips were already trembling. Not with fear. With recognition.
The Shadowwood didn't want blood. It wanted truth. And truth had claws.
"Don't follow the lights," Grin warned, his voice low and heavy. "Don't... answer voices. Don't trust... what you miss."
Behind me, Dolly cracked her neck. "Don't pet anything. Got it."
I took a breath that tasted like old dust and wet feathers.
This wasn't a forest.
It was a memory with roots.
And we were stepping into it, one lie at a time.
The first thing that hit me was the cold.
Not air cold—not the kind that turns breath to fog. It was bone-deep, soul-first, like shame. Like the moment after a scream when no one answers.
We crossed the treeline.
The light went flat.
No birds. No rustle. No breeze. Just the squelch of our boots in dirt that felt too soft—like it had remembered flesh.
Antic's flute clinked against his side as he walked. His usual bounce was gone, swallowed by branches that closed in the moment we passed through. His eyes darted toward me.
"You seein' it too, yeah?" he asked, accent thicker when nervous. "All... this?"
I didn't answer.
I saw everything.
The trees stretched too tall. Their trunks were hollowed, but not by time—by mouths. Wide, ringed with splinters. Hungry. Watching.
"Don't like this," Dolly muttered behind me. "It feels like someone's touching the back of my brain with wet hands."
Grin exhaled behind her. Slow. "Don't... run. If you run... it chases. If it chases... it remembers you better."
A flicker to my left.
A door. No. A house.
Perfectly clean, standing between two gnarled trees that shouldn't have had room to make space for it. Lights in the windows. Curtains moving.
Antic stopped walking.
He stared at it like it had whispered something soft and filthy just to him.
"Mum?" he said.
I grabbed his wrist.
He flinched.
"Don't," I said.
"But that's her," he breathed, voice cracking like sugar glass. "I swear it's her. She's wearin' the apron. The yellow one—wore it when she baked banana cake, back when—"
"Antic." I turned him to face me. "Look at me."
His eyes were glassy. His body shook. He smelled like sweat and old paper and something sharp—panic sharpened with nostalgia.
I squeezed harder. "She's not here. She never was. That's not her."
The wind picked up. Or tried to. It sounded more like... breathing. Heavy. Close.
Antic blinked hard. The house flickered. For half a second, it wasn't a house at all. It was a ribcage. A dead one. Something moved inside it.
"Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck. Okay."
He stepped back. The door creaked open behind him anyway. A hand—long, pale, gloved in ash—reached out, beckoning.
Dolly snarled and hurled a stone at the thing. It hissed and folded in on itself, sucked back into the forest like spit through teeth.
"That's one," she said, brushing her hands off. "You're welcome."
Antic trembled. His hand twitched toward his flute but didn't play it. I could tell he wanted to. But nothing here wanted music. Nothing here deserved it.
"You good?" I asked him.
He gave a jerky nod. "Yeah. Just... almost got mum-trauma baited into shadow hell. Again."
"I've done worse," Dolly muttered. "I once kissed a mime. On purpose."
Grin's voice cut through again, low and steady.
"More will come. It knows we've seen. It gets... sharper now."
I didn't want to ask what that meant.
Because something behind me—soft and low—just whispered my name.
Not "No-Eyes."
Pecola.
It was my mother's voice.
"Pecola..."
The voice wasn't echoing from the trees.
It was inside me.
No—beneath me.
I looked down and saw nothing. Just my own hands, trembling. Dirt beneath my feet, worming with pale roots.
"Pecola..." It said again, curling into my skull like steam.
"I hear it too," Grin said, his voice slow, even. "You're not... broken. It's... close now."
My mouth went dry.
He was watching me—barely moving, his grip tight on the scythe. He didn't blink, didn't breathe.
"Do not... talk to it," he murmured. "If you do... it knows your version of the story."
I nodded, but it was too late.
The forest changed.
No—remembered me.
Ahead, through the trees, a flickering hallway stretched forward.
Wallpapered. Floral. Ripped.
I didn't recognize it at first.
Then—
The table.
The chair with the chewed leg.
The tiny fork bent into a spiral, still on the linoleum floor.
The ashtray—overflowing.
My childhood kitchen.
And there she was.
Mother.
Leaning on the counter like she hadn't been buried ten years ago.
She was smiling.
But it wasn't love. It was the kind of smile you use to tell someone they're stupid before they even speak.
"You look like nothing," she said.
My breath caught.
"You were always nothing. Blind and dumb. Ugly little accident."
I tried to step back. My body wouldn't move.
Grin's hand suddenly clasped my wrist—firm, grounding. I didn't realize he'd come closer. His voice was right in my ear.
"It's not her. It's... her shadow."
"She's got my voice," I choked.
"She's got your doubt," he corrected. "She found it here."
Antic shuffled forward, looking pale as hell. He didn't speak. Didn't joke. Just watched her.
"You're her mum?" he asked, soft, unsure. "'Cause if so... your parenting's shite."
Mother's eyes snapped to him, feral. Her face stretched into a grin too wide. Teeth too many.
"You'll never save her," she crooned. "She'll drag you all down. Just like her father did. Just like she always does."
"Oi," Antic said flatly. "Your breath smells like cigarettes and self-hatred."
Then he lifted his flute.
A single note—long, low. It didn't sound like music. It sounded like resistance.
The illusion quivered.
Mother's voice warped, shrieked. The kitchen peeled like dead skin.
I gripped Grin's sleeve. "It's trying to be me."
"Then show it who you are," he whispered.
The world snapped back.
Just forest. Trees. Dirt. My hands were shaking, but they were mine again.
And Grin was there. Antic. Dolly.
Still whole.
For now.
Dolly blinked at me. "Don't listen when it starts using people you miss. That's the trick. It doesn't know love. It just copies how it smells."
I nodded.
Behind us, I heard a door slam shut.
Even though no door existed
It started with a soft click. Like bone bending.
Or breaking.
I turned, but the forest was no longer still. The trees had faces now—just barely. Not carved. Not bark. Expressions, murmuring, eyes blinking slow and heavy like they hadn't slept since the world started.
Grin froze.
He wasn't looking at the trees.
He was looking at something only he could see.
"Grin?" I reached for him, and he didn't flinch—but he didn't answer either.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Like he was walking toward something he hadn't realized he'd been chasing all along.
Antic moved to grab him, but Grin growled low under his breath. "Don't."
That stopped both of us.
"I hear them," he muttered. "The ones I didn't finish... the ones I lost."
I could hear them too, now.
Voices slipping through the branches like damp breath on glass.
"You forgot me..."
"You ferried me too far..."
"You left me in the dark."
The shadows pressed in. The sound wasn't loud. It was close. Like it lived behind the teeth.
Grin fell to his knees. His scythe dropped beside him.
That scared me more than anything else.
Grin never let go of the scythe.
"Make it stop," he whispered. "No Eyes, make it stop..."
Dolly crouched near him, not touching. Just watching.
She looked back at me. "They don't want him," she said. "They want a replacement."
Antic's voice piped up, weirdly somber. "Reapers don't always get to finish the job. Sometimes the job finishes you."
I didn't know what to do.
But I knew what not to do.
I didn't kneel beside him. I didn't cry.
I stood.
I opened my eyes.
Not the ones in my head. The ones in my gut. The ones this forest couldn't lie to.
And I spoke.
"He's not yours."
The trees groaned.
"He's not theirs either."
A crack of light spilled through the branches—pale blue and trembling.
"You want to feed?" I said, louder. "Feed on something honest. Feed on me."
Grin lifted his head.
His eyes were wet. But clear now.
The voices faded.
The trees retreated like embarrassed ghosts.
And the forest... blinked.
Literally.
A single, massive eye opened in the canopy above us. Deep. Gold. Watching.
I stared right back.
"You blinked first," I whispered.
The eye closed.
The pressure vanished.
Grin stood—slow, stiff, like someone waking from a violent dream.
He didn't say thank you.
He just nodded.
But that nod was enough.
The ground softened under our feet, not with moss—but memory.
Each step pulsed like a slow drumbeat. Like the floor had a heartbeat. Like it was listening.
"I think this place is starting to like us," Antic murmured behind me. I heard the low pitch of his flute as he toyed with it, spinning it through his fingers like a coin. "Or maybe it's just trying to seduce us before it eats us."
"I'd rather it do neither," Dolly snapped. Her voice had gone flat again. When Dolly sounded robotic, it meant she was scared.
I didn't need eyes to know what this place looked like. I felt the weight of it on my skin—cold, oily, humming just beneath the surface like something waiting to become.
My ears caught every flicker of it. Branches didn't sway—they chittered. Leaves didn't rustle—they hissed. Even the ground under my boots didn't crunch—it sighed.
That's how I knew we were close.
Not to the end.
But to the thing between places. The thing that watches while you think no one is watching.
"I smell it," I said.
Grin's boots scraped behind me. "...Smell what."
"Salt," I said. "And iron. And... linen. Like a wound wrapped up in Sunday clothes."
He didn't answer.
Antic whispered, "Is it bad that I like that description? Like, if trauma wore perfume, that's what it'd smell like."
I raised my hand and touched the air.
It pushed back.
A ripple. A boundary.
A doorway. But not one we could see.
It was stitched from silence. From hesitation.
I could hear it. The stitching.
That's when I knew what to do.
I drew in a breath, dug my nails into my palm just hard enough to feel it—and stepped forward.
The ripple broke around me like water around a stone.
The air was different here.
Thicker. Colder. But not dead.
More like... bracing.
Like the pause before someone says something unforgivable.
Antic let out a breath. "Well. That feels cursed."
Grin muttered, "...This is where the forest changes."
Dolly asked, voice clipped, "How can you tell?"
He didn't answer right away.
He waited for me.
"Because she crossed," Grin said finally.
His voice was steadier now. Slower again. "...No Eyes always finds the path. Even if it's not there yet."
There was something gentle in his tone. Almost reverent.
I didn't reply. Not with words.
I just tilted my head, listening to the trees breathe like lungs.
We were closer to the center now.
I could feel the shadow waiting.
Like it knew our names.
Like it was almost ready to speak them.
It started with a hum in my teeth.
Not a sound exactly. More like pressure. The kind of pressure that makes your gums itch and your molars want to fold inward. I paused, hand hovering just above a vine that pulsed with a rhythm almost like speech.
"Something's watching," I said.
"Of course it is," Dolly snapped. "Everything in this forest has a voyeur kink."
Antic's voice was quieter. Too quiet for him. "No. She means... something's focused now. Like we've got its attention."
He was right.
The forest had gone quiet—but not the peaceful kind. It was the breath-hold before a scream. And underneath that quiet? A wet sound. Barely audible. Like something licking its teeth.
Grin stopped beside me. His scythe didn't hiss like it usually did when danger got near. It shivered.
"...I don't like this," he said.
"You never like anything," Antic whispered.
"...Exactly."
Branches creaked, but nothing moved. The air turned syrupy, sweet and rotten, like overripe fruit left in a coffin.
I crouched down, pressed my palm flat against the soil.
It throbbed.
Once. Twice.
Then: Step. Step. Drag.
Antic hissed. "Did anyone else hear that?"
"I felt it," I said.
"Like... something walking?"
"No. Something pretending to walk."
That's when the shadow moved. Not fast. Not in a blur. Just one single, deliberate step forward from behind a crooked tree.
It wasn't faceless.
That would've been a relief.
It had a face.
My face.
But twisted—like someone tried to sculpt me from grief and resentment and then left it out in the rain.
Its mouth was too wide. Its skin looked cracked where no skin should crack. And its eye sockets?
Empty. Like mine.
Only it wasn't blind.
It saw.
I felt it. That gaze. Wet. Heavy. Familiar.
It tilted its head. Mimicked my breathing. Then it spoke—not aloud, but inside me.
You think you're special because you made it through?
You think you're whole just because you're broken in prettier ways?
Antic choked. "Uh. No Eyes. That's not you, is it?"
"No," I said quietly. "That's what I left behind."
Dolly clutched a jagged rock in both hands. "Say the word and I'll break its knees."
"It doesn't have knees," I whispered. "It has regrets."
The thing smiled. Its teeth were mine—but wrong. Too many. Too sharp. Too knowing.
Then it opened its arms like it wanted a hug.
I stood.
I stepped forward.
Grin hissed, "...Don't."
But I already was.
Because I knew the rule here: what you run from, grows teeth.
What you walk toward, shrinks.
One more step.
Its mouth widened. It whispered in my voice, soft and dry like paper:
You'll never be anything but what they made you.
I reached it.
Raised my hand.
And touched its cheek.
It shattered like glass under pressure. No blood. Just sound—wet, shivering static.
Then the trees sighed again.
The air lightened.
Grin's scythe steadied in his grip.
Antic breathed, hard and fast, like someone who'd just remembered his lungs existed.
"Okay," he muttered. "Ten out of ten for creep factor. Would not bang."
"Shut up," Dolly snapped. But even her voice was shaking now.
Me?
I just knelt again.
Listened.
The forest wasn't silent anymore.
It was curious.
It had seen something it didn't expect.
The trees thinned like they'd been shaved back with a rusted blade. The ground turned soft and springy beneath our feet—wet moss and cracked quartz. I couldn't see it, but the scent changed. Sharp. Metallic. Almost like... burnt flowers, if that makes sense.
Grin exhaled next to me. Not relief—just the weight of another thing survived.
We'd made it through the Shadowwood.
But something was still watching.
A low hum buzzed at the base of my spine, high-pitched like a whisper only bones could hear.
Dolly clicked her porcelain fingers together. "We're out."
"No we ain't," Antic said, fanning his face with his hat, his accent curling around the words. "We're just... somewhere worse, but it looks like a poem, so we're s'posed to feel safe. Y'know the type."
Grin pointed ahead with the handle of his scythe. "...Cairns."
I stepped forward slowly. Felt the change with every toe. The forest gave way to open stones, stacked high and clean and cold. Cairns—hundreds of them. Tall and thin and humming with energy I didn't need eyes to notice.
The moment we crossed the threshold, the whispers began.
Soft at first. Like wind. But then:
"Two truths and a lie."
Antic flinched.
"Answer or dissolve."
Dolly stiffened.
"Who do you love most?"
Grin didn't move. But his scythe buzzed in his hand.
"What is this?" I asked aloud, voice low.
Antic crouched beside a smooth black stone and ran his fingers along its face. "Riddles," he said. "These rocks talk in riddles."
I touched one myself. Immediately, a voice slipped behind my ear.
"What do you see, girl with no eyes?"
I froze.
"Do you hear that?" I asked the others.
Grin nodded slowly. "...I do now."
"Me too," Dolly said, rubbing her arms. "And I don't like it."
The cairns loomed, reaching toward a sky we couldn't see, humming their riddles like lullabies for liars.
I pulled my hand back.
"They're not testing us," I said.
Antic looked up from the stone. "What then?"
"They're measuring us."
He went quiet.
Then, from somewhere deep in the field of cairns, a new voice rose—not whispered this time. Clear. Croaking. Ancient.
"If you seek the Breath that weeps...
Bring me a sock.
Worn by the one who hops.
Lost to the fireflies."
Antic blinked. "Did that rock just ask for a gnome's laundry?"
"...Yes," I muttered. "And I think it's serious."
Grin sighed. "Of course it is."
Dolly squinted. "Do gnomes hop?"
Antic stood and dusted off his knees. "Some do. Some twerk. Don't stereotype."
The whispers started again—faster now, overlapping like static.
"Three truths. One lie. One gnome."
"What lives but never breathes?"
"You are not welcome... unless you're clever."
I pressed my hand to my chest, grounding myself. The Breaths in this place were closer. Fainter. As if they were inside the stones themselves.
"Whatever they want," I murmured, "it's not the right answer."
Antic tilted his head. "Then what?"
"They want us to think in the wrong ways until we find the right ones."
Dolly clicked her tongue. "Riddle realm," she muttered. "I hate riddle realms."
Antic spun on his heel and bowed low to a crooked cairn. "Well then, dear stacked-up stony bastards, where's our clue?"
The cairn beside him glowed.
"Find the fireflies.
Find the sock.
But beware...
Not all riddles are meant to be solved."
Then silence again. Like the forest had swallowed its tongue.
Grin looked at me. "…Guess we're solving laundry-based riddles now."
"Of course we are," I said, already turning.
My bare feet stepped over the moss, the whispering stones behind me.
I didn't know where the fireflies were.
But I could feel where the air tugged differently.
And I followed that.