When the sneeze echoed through the trees, everything stopped.
Feet that had been disturbed into motion came to an immediate halt. The candle flames bobbed as breaths caught. For a moment there was only the whisper of leaves and the faint, unnatural hum from the watches. Eyes scanned the darkness, searching for the source. People glanced at one another, shaking their heads or shrugging, each gesture a small denial: not me, not me.
The denial did nothing to ease the dread.
Nasrul crouched lower, felt the dirt under his palms, and spoke in a voice no louder than the scrape of a matchbox. "Run. Forward. Don't look back."
His command was barely more than a breath, but it stung everyone into movement. They ran—not full sprint, because the uneven forest floor would betray them, and because the candles would gutter if they recklessed; instead they ran with controlled pace, quick, efficient steps. Zakiran led, his candle held high enough to show the path—an island of steady light cutting through a boiling sea of shadow.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound of rapid footsteps followed them—lighter, quicker than their own. It wasn't the indistinct chorus of many people running; it carried a singular, distinct rhythm: Tim. The sound threaded through the trees and underbrush, a mechanical metronome that matched the panic in their chests.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Each repetition drew closer. Nasrul's stomach dropped with it. He had expected the sound to mingle with all the other noises—branches, boots, the ragged breathing of thirty terrified people—but the step pattern remained isolated, unmistakable. It had the cadence of the boy from the game: quick, childlike, and yet utterly wrong in its clarity.
They kept moving. Zakiran, Ani, Kalai, Nasrul, and Kamra fell into a single-file line, the candlelight ghosts only a half-body apart, each person a small, trembling planet orbiting that fragile flame. Zakiran stayed at the front, a focus point; Ani walked behind him with her candle steady; Kalai followed; Nasrul kept a half-step behind, checking the rear with a cracked calm that felt like leadership by accident; Kamra guarded the tail, small and nervous, her breath coming thin and fast.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound accelerated as if to cushion the group's fear. It grew until Nasrul felt it inside his teeth. The noise closed the distance between them and Tim in a way that made the seconds stretch and the air feel viscous.
He told himself it had only been ten seconds. Ten seconds couldn't be that long. But fear has a way of lengthening time until it feels like a minute, an hour. Every heartbeat echoed. Every clump of leaf debris underfoot became thunder.
From the corner of his left eye Nasrul stole a glance. The figure was there—blurred, a pale child darting through the trees, small limbs moving with jerky speed. Tim's shape matched the mask and the lanky limbs he'd seen in streams and forums, but the aura around him was different. Where the game Tim seemed sudden, almost scripted, this one moved with a deliberate cruelty: not simply pursuing, but evolving its pursuit.
As Tim neared the last person in line, Kamra, Nasrul's pulse spiked. The boy's hand reached—long, too long—its fingers opening like a paper-scissors sign before twisting into a claw. Tim's motion was almost performative, a childish game turning into a weapon.
Without thinking, Nasrul lunged. He grabbed the front of Kamra's shirt with both hands and yanked. The movement was clumsy but effective—Kamra stumbled forward, gaining precious inches. Nasrul felt the rush of adrenaline lift her speed for a heartbeat.
The price of the save was his own momentum. When he pulled and Kamra surged, the someone behind him's forward motion found him a step slower. He felt fear bloom deep and hot, the kind that makes a person's limbs syrup-thick. Reflexively he swiveled his head to check the distance between himself and the chasing sound.
What he saw made his throat close.
Tim had stopped.
Not sprinting, not pausing to breathe—he simply halted at the point where he'd sketched his attack, then began to fade. The boy didn't continue the pursuit; instead he stood there, as though the scene had been performed and now the player walked offstage. The edges of his body blurred like candle smoke and then thinned into nothing.
"Stop running," Nasrul said, voice shaking. "He's gone."
They slowed, breath huffing and ragged. When the line broke, they circled like a pack that had just sprinted and then found themselves still alive. The forest seemed to hold its breath with them.
Kamra collapsed to her knees, hands on her thighs, chest rising and falling. "Sorry," she panted at Nasrul. "I—I ran. I'm so— I'm sorry I left you."
Kalai rolled his eyes even as he sucked in a giant gulp of air. "Don't pretend you're the only one who ran. We all bolted head-first. You getting scared doesn't make you a bad person."
Kamra's apology dissolved into a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. I just— I got scared."
"It's fine," Nasrul managed, voice hoarse. He wanted to say he hadn't done it for her alone, that he had been testing himself, seeing if he could act when it counted—but those things felt small in the face of the breathy silence the forest returned. "It's fine. We all want to live."
They grouped closer, candles forming a tighter ring. The reactions that followed the close call were an odd mix of chest-deep fear and brittle humor; someone tried to make light of the situation, and a cough of suppressed laughter ran through the group like an ugly defense.
"That was terrifying," Zakiran admitted. "I thought I'd— I almost peed myself."
"Please don't narrate what your body almost did," Kalai shot back, half grinning despite it all. "We're trying not to faint, not to hear details."
Kamra sniffed, wiping at her eyes with the back of a hand. "Why did he stop? He reached for me and then just… disappeared. In the game he chases for a second or two, then vanishes. This felt much longer."
"He chased longer than usual," Ani said, rubbing her forearms. "In the game, Tim usually appears and runs for maybe two or three seconds. This—this went on longer. The attack was more deliberate. He actually tried to hit."
Nasrul let himself examine the memory of the boy's movement. "It was different. The pattern was the same—the running noise, the mask—but the action was extended. It's like someone added a new sequence to his behavior. Maybe the mission adapts."
Zakiran frowned. "Does that mean he'll always keep chasing until he lands a hit now?"
"That would be the new rule if my read is right," Nasrul said. "He chases until he attacks. After the attack—whether it connects or not—he vanishes. So if you try to run and you have low stamina, you'll be forced into a dodge. If you fail the dodge, you get hit."
Kamra's face went pale. "And if he hits you—what happens then?"
Nasrul swallowed. The memory of horror from the forums crept up: when the boy got someone, they— "It's bad. If he hits you, it can end badly. We can't assume resurrection or mercy here."
Silence settled again. Everyone felt the weight of an unspoken truth: this wasn't a simple playground prank. The game's parameters were shifting, and in those shifts lay death.
Ani pushed herself up. "Okay. Enough hypothesizing. Let's keep going. The well should be just ahead. The clue is usually there."
Zakiran's jaw loosened into a smile that didn't meet his eyes. "That's the perk of the trauma: optimism under pressure." He led the way, pushing through underbrush with cautious strength.
They came upon the well quicker than any of them expected, as if the landscape itself had been arranged to funnel them there. The well sat in a shallow depression, its rim ringed by stone slick with moss. The hollow of it seemed to drink the candlelight, making the immediate area feel larger and darker than the surrounding trees.
"How close was it?" Kamra breathed. "I didn't even see it coming."
"We ran in the same general direction," Nasrul said. "If you cut across the forest with your head down, you hit the same landmarks." He glanced around. "We need to sweep this area. Look for anything plush—teddy bears, dolls—game clues. Move in pairs but stay in eyesight."
They arranged themselves with methodical haste. Zakiran stationed himself at the well's rim, just in case, watching the ring as if it might cough up a danger at any moment. Kalai and Ani took the left side, moving cautiously among brambles and low shrubs. Nasrul and Kamra took the right; their candlelight wove along the roots and stones, painting brief pictures on the forest floor.
Kamra tried to regain her composure by talking, softer than before but steadier. "Nasrul… thank you again for pulling me. I don't know what I'd have done—"
"You'd have done what you had to," Nasrul said. He kept his voice practical because sentiment felt dangerous; sentiment made them slow and sentimental made them careless. Still, when Kamra smiled, awkward and grateful in the glow, something thin and warm uncoiled in him. "It was reflex."
"You're so humble," she teased, attempting lightness. "You don't give yourself enough credit."
His reflexive face said otherwise—part embarrassment, part amusement. He could've told her the truth: that he'd pulled her to see if he could, to prove something to himself. He didn't. The admission felt petty under a sky that could swallow them whole.
They swept the undergrowth. Kamra's candle revealed a broken porcelain lamb, then a threadbare shoe, then nothing. Nasrul crouched, inspecting a patch of trampled moss, his fingers searching for seams in the forest's skin. He found a small bundle and, with Kamra's help, pried it open. A faded teddy bear's head rolled into the light, two button eyes staring like small dark wells.
"Found something," Nasrul whispered, and the small band gathered. He touched the bear and the fabric warmed under his fingers like a pulse. For a second he thought he heard a faint sound—the kind of small, recorded lullaby you'd hear when a string was pulled—before the toy grew opaque and then winked out of existence, as if it had never been there.
Kamra's fingers flew to her mouth. "It disappeared."
"It's a clue," Ani said, breathlessly. "It was right—if it vanishes, it's the right object. Keep moving. There might be more."
They divided their search radius into small, watchful arcs, glancing back often so no one slipped beyond sight. The forest around the well seemed to lean in, listening. Each snapped twig turned heads. Each gust of wind sent a chorus of nervous laughter that sounded absurdly loud.
Then, without warning, a scream cut through the trees—long, pierced, the kind that tore its way out of a throat. It was high and raw, a keening human sound.
"KYA—!"
For an instant Nasrul didn't know whose voice it was. Then the syllables hit him like ice: Ani's pitch, a note of someone who had seen something and wanted the world to undo it.
They didn't hesitate. The candles bobbed as they moved, feet smashing through ferns, hearts hammering. The forest swallowed their light as they ran toward the scream, and something in the dark answered with a movement that tasted like malice.
They were racing toward danger again.