If this person is Matthew…
If he is truly the same Matthew I know from the novel, then we absolutely cannot allow him to be like this.
We can't.
No—we mustn't.
No matter what happens, no matter the cost, we have to save him.
First… first, we have to save him from that tree.
My thoughts spiraled wildly as I stared at the twisted scene before me.
My chest felt tight, as if invisible hands were closing around my heart, squeezing harder with every second that passed.
I knew this character.
I knew his fate.
And that knowledge burned inside me like a curse.
If Cassel is my favorite character—the one I fell in love with, the one who made my heart race and ache at the same time—then Matthew is the character most like me.
He is the only secondary character whose death ever made me cry.
In the novel, Matthew didn't truly die.
At least… not completely.
Instead, he was trapped inside that tree, sealed within living wood like a grotesque cocoon.
