The forest no longer whispered—it screamed.
I had walked for hours, guided only by the stench of rot and the tremble of the trees. Every step felt like an intrusion. The roots bled when I stepped on them. Real blood. Warm. Pulsing.
Somewhere beneath the surface, something alive—something colossal—breathed.
I did not speak. I barely breathed.
Then I saw it.
A man nailed to a tree, still blinking. His chest opened like a book, and veins stretched from his body into the bark, feeding the forest. His mouth twitched when he saw me.
"Don't... name it," he hissed, blood bubbling in his throat.
Behind him, the tree opened like a wound.
Inside, dozens of faces—human, monstrous, forgotten—twisted and moved beneath the bark like trapped souls. They whispered, they begged, they cursed. A hive of memories no longer owned.
This forest was not grown.
It was built. Cultivated. Fed.
By what, I did not yet understand.
I moved forward, but the soil grabbed me.
Hands—small, cold—burst from beneath the ground. Children. Dead. Or worse. They clung to my legs, smiling with mouths sewn shut. Puppets of roots. Drones of something older than language.
I swung the scythe.
Its scream echoed with theirs. A single sweep tore through a dozen. But for every one I severed, two more rose. Their flesh was made of bark and meat. Their hearts? Still beating. Still human.
This was no forest.
It was a nervous system. And I had stepped on a nerve.
A deep, wet voice rumbled from beneath:
"Another nerve awakens..."
The ground pulsed. Trees bent. The air thickened with spores.
And then it stopped.
I was alone again. Blood dripping. Heart racing. The scythe humming with hunger.
I didn't look back.
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Question for the reader:When the forest remembers more than you do, are you the hunter—or the prey?