The dream didn't end when Emily woke up.
Even with the morning sun leaking through her curtains and birds chirping softly outside, the feeling lingered—a weight in the air, a tension in her bones. She could still hear it. That voice.
"One…"
It hadn't been a memory. It had been a beginning.
Again.
Emily moved through the house like a ghost herself. Her parents were downstairs, bustling around the kitchen, relieved by her return to some semblance of normal life. They didn't notice the way she stared out windows too long, or how she flinched at sudden noises.
At school, she felt eyes watching her. Not from classmates—but from the corners. The spaces between lockers. The reflections in glass.
At lunch, she whispered to Ava, "It's starting again."
Ava didn't blink. "I know."
They met that afternoon at the woods' edge. Marcus brought salt. Leah brought her drawings—new ones. Dozens of them. All of them showed the same tree.
Not the Counting Tree.
Not the one that had held Devon's memory.
Something older. Wider. Covered in faces.
And in the hollow of its trunk: a child.
Leah tapped the drawing with her finger. "She told me her name is Wren."
That night, Emily returned to the forest alone.
She knew it was reckless.
But she had to know.
She followed no path. The trees seemed to lean away from her this time, as if parting to let her through. She carried a lantern, but the forest glowed faintly on its own now—light not from stars or moon, but from memory.
After what felt like hours, Emily came to a tree she'd never seen before.
It stood at least three stories tall, its bark a deep ashen black streaked with silver veins. The branches were bare, twisting in every direction like the limbs of a spider. And in its center—just like in Leah's drawing—was a hollow.
A child sat inside.
She looked about seven. Pale, barefoot, with tangled dark hair and hollow cheeks. Her dress was gray and fluttered as if caught in a breeze Emily couldn't feel. Her eyes were open but milky, and she blinked too slowly—as if waking from a long sleep.
"You came," she said in a voice like cracking leaves.
Emily stepped closer. "You're Wren?"
The child nodded.
"Why are you here?" Emily asked.
Wren looked down at her hands. "I stayed behind. When the first round ended."
"You're a player?"
"I was the first to hide." She glanced at Emily with something like sorrow. "But I was never found."
Emily's breath caught. "The game started with you?"
"No. It started before me. But I was the first child it changed." Wren raised her eyes. "And now… it's changing again."
The tree creaked behind her, its bark flexing like it was breathing.
Emily stepped closer. "What's happening?"
Wren tilted her head. "You broke the old pattern. The forest is adapting. The game is trying to evolve."
"I ended it."
"No," Wren whispered. "You interrupted it. That's not the same."
Emily shivered. "So it's starting over?"
"Not yet. But soon." Wren leaned forward. "This time, it's not looking for players. It's looking for hosts."
"Hosts?"
"To anchor itself. To grow new roots in your world. In your homes." Wren's small hands curled. "It's learning from you."
Emily swallowed. "How do I stop it?"
"You can't stop it," Wren said sadly. "But you can slow it down. You can bind it."
"How?"
Wren reached into her chest.
Her fingers sank into her ribcage like mist.
When she pulled them out, she held a small wooden charm. It looked like a branch twisted into a spiral. Faint white runes glowed on the surface.
"Bury this in the place you fear most," she said. "That's where it will try to root."
Emily took it carefully. It was warm.
"You'll know it's working when the dreams go quiet."
The forest stirred behind them.
Wren turned her face toward the branches. "You need to go now."
"But I have more questions—"
"They'll find you if you stay too long," Wren said urgently. "The others. The ones who didn't survive the game. They've begun to wake."
Emily took a step back.
Wren's eyes glazed fully, her voice becoming less a whisper and more a wind:
"Don't count past seven."
Emily blinked.
And Wren was gone.
The hollow was empty.
The tree stood silent.
And the wind began to rise.
Emily ran.
Branches snatched at her sleeves. The earth pulsed under her shoes. Whispers slithered past her ears like phantom vines:
"She's here…"
"Still counting…"
"One…"
She tripped.
The lantern shattered beside her, sparks sputtering out. But moonlight broke through the branches above, illuminating the forest floor.
Something moved in the trees behind her.
She didn't look back.
She ran until she crashed through the last row of trees—out into the open field behind her neighborhood. Grass swayed in the wind. Lights from houses glowed like distant stars.
She stumbled home.
Her knees bled. Her breath came in gasps.
But in her pocket, she still held the spiral charm.
That night, Emily stared at her ceiling, the charm clenched in her fist.
"Bury it in the place you fear most…"
Her eyes flicked to her closet.
It had been quiet since the jar was returned.
But she remembered the footprints.
The voice behind the door.
The cold breath in the dark.
With shaking hands, she crept across her room and pulled open the closet door.
Blackness stared back at her.
She grabbed her flashlight.
Crawled in.
The space was tight and full of dust.
But beneath the loose boards in the corner, she found it.
A crack.
Small. Jagged. But deep.
And from it, faint tendrils of black bark curled like veins.
Emily took the charm.
She pressed it into the crack.
At first—nothing.
Then, a pulse.
A soft thrum.
And silence.
The breath left her lungs.
The closet felt lighter.
She crawled back out and shut the door.
When she looked at her palm—the mark had faded to ash.
The next morning, she met Ava, Marcus, and Leah at the edge of the forest.
She told them everything.
About Wren.
About the charm.
About what's coming.
"So it's not over," Ava whispered.
"No," Emily said. "But we're not powerless."
Marcus looked at the woods, hands shoved in his pockets. "We can slow it down."
Emily nodded. "We can give the next ones a chance."
Leah pulled out a new drawing and held it up.
It showed the four of them standing in a circle, holding hands. Around them, the forest loomed—but it didn't reach inside the circle.
It stayed out.
Emily smiled.
She didn't know when the forest would try again.
But she knew now:
She wouldn't be hiding.
She'd be waiting.