The city didn't chase me.
That was the worst part.
If it had screamed, if alarms had blared or people had shouted, I might have believed there was still a place for me inside its walls. Panic would have meant reaction. Reaction meant humanity.
Instead, the city sealed itself and went quiet.
I stood alone beneath flickering streetlights that felt more like decoration than protection, lantern clenched in my hand, watching the darkness ahead breathe.
The alley stretched forward like a throat.
Narrow.Wet.Too long for the space it occupied.
I took one step back.
The shadows behind me thickened.
Not moved — thickened, like something had poured more darkness into the space where the street should have been. The glow of distant lamps bent away from it, edges fraying as if reality itself refused to touch whatever waited there.
The lantern pulsed once.
Warm.Steady.Unconcerned.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing my shaking hands to still.
"Forward," I whispered. "Fine. I'm going forward."
The alley accepted that decision immediately.
The darkness behind me didn't advance. It didn't need to. It simply stayed where it was, confident.
I stepped into the alley.
The temperature dropped.
Not cold enough to frost my breath, but sharp enough to raise goosebumps along my arms. The smell changed too — less garbage, more damp stone and something faintly metallic, like old blood washed thin by rain.
My footsteps echoed once.
Then didn't echo again.
The sound vanished after a few meters, swallowed completely, leaving only the faint creak of my joints and the quiet scrape of fabric as I moved.
That was when I understood.
Sound belonged to the dark now.
I tightened my grip on the lantern. Its flame didn't grow brighter, but it steadied, casting a small, stubborn circle of light that crawled along the ground ahead of me. The cracked glass fractured the glow, scattering warped shadows that clung too long to the walls.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to stop.
I didn't.
Stopping felt worse.
Halfway down the alley, I noticed the first sign that I wasn't alone.
It wasn't movement.
It was absence.
The puddles lining the alley reflected nothing. Not the lantern. Not the walls. Not me. They were black, perfectly smooth, as if light had decided they weren't worth touching.
I stepped around them carefully.
Something shifted ahead.
A sound — not a footstep, not a scrape — but a pressure, like the air compressing briefly, then releasing. The lantern responded instantly, heat blooming in my palm.
I raised it slightly.
The flame leaned forward.
Not flickering.
Leaning.
"Don't," I murmured, though I wasn't sure who I was talking to. The lantern didn't listen. It never had.
The alley opened into a wider street — or what used to be one. Buildings loomed on either side, windows shattered or boarded up long ago. This part of the city had been abandoned before the curfews became strict, before people started pretending nothing was wrong.
No lights worked here.
The lantern became the only thing keeping the darkness from collapsing inward.
That was when I saw them.
Not clearly.
Never clearly.
Shapes moved beyond the reach of the light — low, skittering forms that hugged the walls, and taller silhouettes that slid between doorways like liquid shadows. None of them rushed me.
None of them fled either.
They watched.
I took a step forward.
One of the shapes crossed into the edge of the lantern's glow.
It was smaller than I expected. Roughly human-shaped, but wrong in every detail. Its limbs bent backward at the joints, elbows inverted, knees folding inward. Its skin — if it had skin — looked like dried tar stretched thin over bone.
No eyes.
Just a smooth indentation where a face should have been.
The lantern's light brushed against it.
The creature recoiled.
Not in fear.
In irritation.
It hissed — a wet, bubbling sound — and retreated just beyond the light's reach.
That was when I understood something else.
Monsters didn't fear the dark.
They lived in it.
The dark was theirs.
The lantern wasn't a shield.
It was a challenge.
I backed away slowly.
The creature mirrored me, staying just outside the light, its head — or where its head should have been — tilting as if listening to something I couldn't hear.
A second shape emerged behind it.
Then a third.
My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no…"
The lantern pulsed.
The creatures flinched again, retreating a fraction, but they didn't leave. They simply spread out, forming a loose arc that cut off the street behind me.
They weren't hunting.
They were herding.
I turned and ran.
The world narrowed to breath and movement. The lantern's light bobbed wildly as I sprinted, shadows snapping at my heels. Streets blurred together, turns coming too fast, too sharp. More shapes appeared — some crawling along walls, others gliding across the ground without visible limbs.
None of them attacked.
They didn't need to.
They pressed me forward, steering me away from the city's heart and deeper into places people had abandoned long ago.
My lungs burned.
My legs screamed.
Still, the dark kept pace effortlessly.
I burst through a rusted gate and stumbled into open space.
The ground changed beneath my feet — no more cracked asphalt, no concrete. Dirt. Leaves. Twisted roots breaking through the surface like grasping fingers.
The forest loomed ahead.
I skidded to a stop at the edge of it, chest heaving, sweat soaking my clothes despite the cold. The trees stood unnaturally close together, their branches intertwining overhead to block out what little ambient light remained.
No city noises reached here.
No hum of electricity.
No distant traffic.
Only silence.
The lantern dimmed slightly.
The shapes behind me stopped at the forest's edge.
They did not follow.
That terrified me more than the chase.
I turned slowly, lantern raised, heart hammering.
The creatures lingered at the boundary, their forms indistinct in the shadows. One by one, they receded, melting back into the darkness of the abandoned streets.
They had delivered me.
The forest waited.
I swallowed hard and stepped forward.
The moment I crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped sharply. Not gradually — instantly. My breath fogged thick in the air, and the smell of damp earth and rot filled my lungs.
The lantern flared, flame stretching higher, its warmth pushing back the cold just enough to keep my fingers from going numb.
The forest closed in behind me.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
The path I'd entered through vanished, swallowed by trunks and undergrowth that hadn't been there seconds ago. The trees shifted subtly, bark creaking, branches scraping together with the sound of bone on bone.
I spun in a slow circle.
Every direction looked the same.
The lantern pulsed once.
Then twice.
I moved.
Walking felt wrong here. Like the forest resented it. Every step sank too deep into the soil, roots catching at my boots, leaves whispering beneath my feet.
Something watched from above.
I didn't look up.
I didn't want to know what watched.
Minutes stretched. Or hours. Time felt… loose.
The lantern's flame flickered for the first time since I'd picked it up.
Panic surged.
"Stay lit," I whispered fiercely. "Please."
The flame steadied.
Barely.
A sound echoed through the trees.
Not close.
Not far.
A long, drawn-out exhale, like something enormous breathing out after holding its breath for centuries.
The forest answered.
Branches creaked. Leaves shuddered. Shadows shifted, stretching toward the sound.
I ran again.
This time, there was no chase.
Just pursuit.
The sound followed me, never closer, never farther, as if distance meant nothing to it. The lantern's light weakened with every step, its glow shrinking, shadows creeping closer to my feet.
I tripped.
Hit the ground hard, knocking the wind from my lungs. The lantern flew from my hand and rolled across the forest floor.
The flame guttered.
"No—!"
I scrambled after it, fingers brushing cold metal just as the light flared weakly.
The sound stopped.
The forest went still.
I curled around the lantern, clutching it to my chest, shaking violently. My vision swam. Tears burned my eyes, blurring the darkness into shifting shapes.
"I didn't ask for this," I whispered. "I didn't want it."
The lantern burned.
Steady.
Unapologetic.
The sound returned.
Closer.
I forced myself upright.
I couldn't run anymore. My legs trembled, barely holding my weight. The lantern felt heavier than ever, its warmth seeping deep into my bones, anchoring me.
I realized then that this place — this forest — wasn't meant to be escaped.
It was meant to be endured.
The trees leaned inward, branches forming a crude arch ahead of me, framing a narrow path that hadn't existed moments before.
An invitation.
Or a sentence.
I stepped forward.
The lantern's flame steadied, burning brighter than it had since I entered the forest.
Behind me, the city was gone.
Ahead, the dark waited patiently.
And somewhere in the shadows, something ancient watched me choose.