The forest wasn’t just a place anymore.

It was a pulse a heartbeat I could feel in the dirt. As Emily and I ran, the trees bent unnaturally, branches twitching in our path, guiding us deeper, not out. We weren’t free. We were being redirected.

“I saw you,” Emily whispered, her voice hoarse. “In pieces. I couldn’t… hold on.”

Her eyes were glassy, but there was clarity behind them. Recognition. Pain.

“We’re almost there,” I lied.

We weren’t. I didn’t know where we were. Only that the forest was folding around us like a closing fist.

The ground split ahead an ancient fissure opening between roots, gaping like a wound. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled Emily with me, and we descended.

It wasn’t a cave. It was a crypt.

Below the earth, time stopped. Walls of blackened stone wrapped in roots. Carvings like Elara’s symbols crawled across every surface. The only light came from faint veins glowing red beneath the bark.

We found a room a chamber older than the town itself. At its center: a circle. Stone and ash and bone. Symbols burned into the ground pulsed like embers. It smelled of earth, and memory, and rot.

Emily froze. “This is where they... fed.”

I didn’t ask how she knew.

Then the voices came.

Not words. Moments.

I saw Elara, clutching her journal, whispering into the dark. I saw faces from town people I knew, others I didn’t all flickering like candlelight before vanishing into the floor.

The Whispering Man stepped into view.

He was different here. Larger. Rooted. His voice wasn’t a whisper anymore it was a hum in my bones.

You burned her story. But you cannot erase the echo.

Emily stepped forward.

“I didn’t mean to stay,” she said, her voice steadier now. “But you made me forget who I was.”

I reached for her, but she kept walking. Into the circle.

“No!” I lunged, but the symbols flared red, holding me back.

Emily knelt. Her eyes met mine.

“They don’t get to keep my name.”

And then, her hand struck the ground.

The forest screamed.

Roots burst from the earth above us, flailing like severed nerves. The Whispering Man roared not with rage, but fear. The chamber shook. The glow in the walls pulsed white-hot.

Emily staggered, reaching for me.

I grabbed her.

We ran.

The ground collapsed behind us and then light not moonlight, not firelight.

Sunrise.

We broke through the edge of the woods as the first rays spilled across the trees. The sky, for the first time in what felt like years, was open.

Emily collapsed beside me. Breathing. Real.

I pulled her close. We didn’t speak.

We didn’t have to.

The forest was quiet.

But silence never meant safety in Hollow Creek.

Not for long.