The trees began to thin.
They gave way not to a clearing, but a hollow—like the bottom of a breath. A shallow depression in the land where even the trees seemed afraid to root. Their gnarled trunks stopped at the ridge above, leaving only skeletal underbrush clinging to stones.
Arthur moved slowly, the slope crunching beneath his boots. Dust puffed up with every step. The air was still. So still, in fact, that it felt wrong—too quiet, too dead.
Then he saw it.
A river.
Or something that had once been one.
It wound its way through the valley like a silver scar—thin and nearly motionless, as though it had forgotten how to flow. It gleamed in the dying light, perfectly smooth, unnaturally still.
He crouched at the bank.
The water was so clear it looked like glass. No debris floated in it. No fish darted beneath. There was no movement at all.
Just… depth.
And cold. As soon as he dipped his fingers in, pain bloomed. A biting, unnatural cold that sank deep into the bones of his hand.
He jerked back.
The chill lingered. He rubbed his fingers against his shirt, trying to feel the heat again.
Then the voice came.
"You found me."
Arthur's breath caught in his throat.
He whipped his head around. No one. Nothing. Only the windless stillness and the mirror-like water.
"You hear me now, don't you?"
The voice didn't echo. It didn't touch the air. It was in his head, as if whispered directly into the center of his thoughts.
He stood, spine rigid. "Who's there?"
The water didn't move.
"No one," the voice said calmly. "And everyone."
"Where are you?"
"I am here. Beneath. Above. Within. Around." A pause. "You know me already."
Arthur shook his head, stepping back. "No. I don't know anything here."
"You've walked through my shadows," it said, "breathed my cold. You've looked into my circles. The bone spirals? That was me. Watching."
Arthur stopped.
The river shimmered faintly, then stilled again.
"You don't belong to the forest," the voice said. "Not yet. But you're getting closer."
"Why are you talking to me now?"
"Because now you're listening."
He felt his heartbeat rise. The wind still hadn't returned. Even the air felt too dense—like breathing through fabric soaked in water.
"I don't want anything from you."
"Everyone wants something," the voice said. "Even silence is a desire."
Arthur clenched his jaw. "What do you want from me?"
There was a pause.
Then: "To see what you become."
The water's surface twisted slightly—like something shifting beneath it.
Then it settled.
"You're changing, Arthur," the voice said. "Every scream. Every refusal. Every step through the dark. You've fed me."
Arthur's skin crawled. "I've done nothing for you."
"Pain is a gift. Survival is a prayer. You've offered both."
He turned and started walking back up the slope.
"You will return," the voice called. "They always do."
But he didn't look back.
Not yet.
The river haunted him.
Even as the forest grew dense again, he kept hearing the voice—sometimes in dreams, sometimes when he blinked too long, or stared too deep into the pattern of bark.
It never shouted.
Just whispered. Just waited.
And soon, strange things began to appear in the path ahead.
Echoes of the river.
Patches of wet stone where no water flowed. Bone charms woven with reeds and draped over trees. Stones arranged in spirals, filled with glistening black liquid that vanished when touched.
He began to see the spiral mark more often—not just in symbols, but in the trees themselves. A knot of bark twisted into the shape. A fallen branch curled unnaturally. Once, even a mushroom cap bore the shape, pale and perfect.
Arthur avoided them at first.
But then he saw the people.
Or what was left of them.
They stood in the distance—half-faded silhouettes, unmoving, always by water. Some stood knee-deep in pools. Others loomed beside streams. One stood in a dry creek bed, staring upward with no face.
All bore the mark. Carved into their chests. Glowing faintly when the wind shifted.
One reached for him once.
Arthur didn't sleep that night.
He just sat, knife in hand, watching the darkness press inward like water around a sinking ship.
Eventually, the voice returned.
This time, it didn't wait for the river.
Arthur was crouched over a half-dead fire when it spoke again:
"You will return."
He looked up. "You again."
"You were always going to return."
"I haven't left."
"No," it said, "but parts of you have."
Arthur felt that. The slow chipping away of something in him. Like whatever had made him normal was being whittled into something leaner, harder. Hungrier.
"What are you?" he asked.
"I am what waits. I am what tests. I am the thing beneath the roots. The mouth beneath the water. The echo that never dies."
Arthur looked at his hands. Dirt-stained. Scraped. Blood at the edges of his nails. He didn't recognize them anymore.
"I don't want your mark."
"You already wear it."
He froze.
"I never took it."
"No. But you walked in the spiral. You bled on the symbols. You screamed into the void. That is how it begins."
Arthur felt something itch on his chest.
He tore open his shirt.
There, over his heart, the spiral had been drawn. Faint. In blood. His blood. He hadn't done it. He would've remembered.
He looked around frantically.
"No. No, no, no—"
"Some marks are chosen," the voice whispered. "Others are earned."
He ran.
Through thorns and roots, across stone and shadow. He didn't know where he was going. Just away.
But no matter how far he ran, the trees didn't change. The ground didn't rise. The sky didn't lighten.
And the river?
It was always ahead.
As if it had circled him. As if it had followed.
He crashed down the slope again—back to the dry bed.
The river had returned.
But it didn't shimmer anymore.
It was black now. Oily. Churning without sound.
And there were shapes in it.
Hands.
Fingers.
Faces.
Just under the surface, pressed against it, like it was glass.
Watching.
Waiting.
Arthur screamed.
But no echo came.
Only silence.
And then—whispers.
Hundreds.
All at once.
"You were not the first."
"You will not be the last."
"Mark. Spiral. Voice. Blood."
"Drink."
He fell to his knees.
Covered his ears.
But the voice was inside him now. A part of him. Etched into his bones.
He felt the spiral move beneath his skin.
It was alive.
He didn't sleep for days after that.
Only wandered.
Only watched the forest twist itself around him like a question with no answer.
But he didn't cry.
He didn't scream.
He didn't beg.
He simply whispered back to the trees, to the river, to the thing beneath it all:
"I will outlast you."
And in reply—barely audible, almost kind:
"We'll see."