The forest swallowed them for hours.
Derek walked ahead with a tension that pulled the boys along with him,
as if his fear alone were carrying them forward through the dark.
Vernon kept glancing at their father's back - it looked smaller now,
bent not just from exhaustion but from something heavier.
Something hollow.
Bruce walked quietly at Vernon's side, clutching the frayed strap of his backpack.
He didn't ask where they were going, or why the path kept turning deeper into the woods.
He only matched their pace, breathing through cold air like someone determined not to fall behind.
Eventually, Derek stopped.
A thick cedar tree towered above them, roots twisting like old knuckles gripping the earth.
To anyone else, it was just a tree.
But Derek pressed his palm to a knot in the bark, and something clicked deep inside.
The roots rumbled.
Earth shifted.
A narrow passage breathed open beneath the tree.
A hidden door.
Derek exhaled shakily, as if releasing breath he'd been holding for years.
"Inside," he whispered.
The boys followed him into the dark.
The passage widened into a small underground dusty room but alive with history.
Shelves of notebooks and glass vials lined the walls, all meticulously arranged.
A soft smell of dried herbs and old paper lingered in the air.
Vernon recognized some of the handwriting on the labels.
He had seen it in the margins of their mother's letters.
"Alice's..." Derek's voice cracked.
"She built this place before either of you were born."
Bruce stepped closer to a shelf, tracing his finger over a faded symbol carved into a wooden box.
"It feels... familiar," he murmured.
Vernon blinked at him.
"Familiar? How would you know-"
"I don't know." Bruce shook his head, frustrated with himself. "It just does."
Derek knelt at an old chest and unlocked it with a key he wore around his neck.
Inside were two canvas bags, packed neatly too neatly.
Not recent.
Prepared.
"For you," he said, pushing one bag toward Vernon and the other toward Bruce.
"Your mother knew a day like this might come."
Vernon's hands trembled as he touched the fabric.
It felt like Alice was still here, guiding them.
Bruce didn't open his bag immediately.
He stared down at it, jaw tight, shoulders stiff.
"Dad," he said slowly, "when you said we need to survive... what does that mean for us?"
Derek hesitated.
"It means," he answered quietly, "that you will need to be stronger than I ever was."
Bruce swallowed hard. His fingers curled around the strap of his bag.
"How?" he asked. "How do I get strong enough to protect Vernon? To protect... anyone?"
There was no desperation in his voice.
No panic.
Just a steady, stubborn spark - small, but unbreakable.
Derek looked at him for a long moment, as if seeing something he hadn't allowed himself to notice before.
"We'll start with what your mother left behind," he said.
"And the rest... you will decide for yourself."
Bruce nodded once, slow but firm.
Vernon watched him silently.
He had never seen that expression on his brother's face before-
a quiet resolve, almost frightening in its steadiness.
A resolve that could grow into something powerful.
Something dangerous.
The room hummed faintly with old secrets.
Above them, the forest roots creaked against the shifting wind.
Tonight, the family slept in Alice's hidden sanctuary,
surrounded by the echoes she left behind.
Some to guide them,
And some to tear them apart.