Griff stepped forward.
The snow swallowed his boots with each slow, labored stride. The ground groaned beneath him, not from weight, but from something deeper—something unnatural. The frost here wasn't just cold; it was ancient, predatory. It clung to him like it knew he didn't belong.
His hands were a shattered mosaic of torn skin, bone, and dried blood. His arms twisted at angles that defied reason, trembling as though unsure how to move anymore. His shoulders hunched forward, as if the weight of the world—or something worse—pressed down on them. And yet, beneath the ruin, his eyes burned. Not with warmth or hope, but with something far more stubborn: refusal. A will that should've long since broken, but hadn't.
The two girls froze when they saw him. They didn't scream. Screaming would've made it real. Instead, they stared, wide-eyed, breath hitching, as if trying to process the thing crawling toward them. He looked like death impersonating life—a ghoul that hadn't finished dying, dragged from a grave by spite and unfinished business.
Then came the spears—crude, splintered things, more branch than weapon, their tips sharpened with flint and fear. Two boys emerged from the shadows, faces half-hidden beneath hoods and dirt. The spears hovered an inch from Griff's throat, trembling—not from his movement, but from theirs.
Say one wrong word, and they'd skewer him.
Griff blinked slowly. A cracked smile tugged at his face, stretching scars that had barely begun to scab. "I'm Griff," he said, voice low and ragged. "Mind sparing some food?"
The forest didn't breathe, but the spears did. They dipped slightly, like they'd lost their nerve. The boys holding them just stood there, stunned—not by what Griff was, but by what they felt. He radiated something that terrified them, something that shouldn't be human.
This forest wasn't made for people. It was made to trap them, twist them, and then leave whatever was left behind. That Griff was standing at all was a violation of its rules.
Then he swayed. His knees buckled. His body, once a shivering monument to pain, faltered.
One of the boys caught him just before he collapsed fully into the snow.
Griff tried to speak. "I… can't die yet. I still… I still need to—"
His words melted into silence as his head slumped forward and his body went still.
Time lost its meaning.
Minutes passed. Then hours. Then something longer, stranger. The forest watched. The snow fell. And Griff—he lay there, unmoving, forgotten by time.
Until—
"No. It is not your time."
The voice rang out not in sound, but in existence. A ripple in reality, soft and melodic, like a choir echoing from inside the bones of the world. It came from nowhere, yet Griff felt it inside his chest, deep in the dark part of his soul he had tried so hard to bury.
His eyes opened.
Pain lanced through his nerves in jagged flashes. His chest rose with a violent gasp. The cold air bit deep, but the fire inside him had returned. The forest—still, watchful—seemed to lean in closer now, like it had been waiting for him to awaken.
Above, the trees loomed like broken fingers clawing at the infinite horizon of stars which lit the sky. Their limbs stretched impossibly high, gnarled and leafless, soaked in shadow. Griff had been here before. Not in memory, but in dreams. Or nightmares. Or maybe both.
He sat up slowly, arms shaking. A spear lay beside him in the snow. He grabbed it like a drowning man clutches driftwood—more comfort than weapon, the only anchor keeping him from falling back into whatever abyss he'd just crawled out of.
A soft gasp drew his attention. One of the girls stumbled back, pale and wide-eyed. The other hovered behind her, uncertain whether to run or kneel.
Griff blinked, then gave them a weak smirk.
"What?" he rasped, voice like sandpaper. "Do I look dead?"
Silence.
Then, after a long pause, one girl whispered, "Yes…very."
He looked down. His arms were grotesque: raw wounds, gashes, purple bruises... but no bleeding. His hands twitched with something primal, something wrong. He clenched them, half-expecting them to fall apart.
'Why no blood? Am I still… me?'
"I could use… some bandages," he muttered, voice barely a thread.
The boy who had caught him stirred, nodding silently. With a sharp motion, he tore a long strip from his shirt. Beneath the cloth, his frame was shockingly thin—frail, almost sickly. Pale skin stretched over narrow bones. But his hair was long, clean, almost regal. It glimmered like something stolen from a world untouched by rot.
He knelt beside Griff and began wrapping his arms with practiced hands—tender, precise. The makeshift bandages clung to his ruined limbs like silk on stone.
Griff watched him in silence. This boy—this strange, hollow boy—looked fragile. But his hands... his hands moved like someone who had seen far too much suffering. Maybe they all had.
The trees creaked above, as if groaning under the weight of the stars they'd never reach.
Griff lay back against the snow, eyes fluttering shut.
Somewhere inside him, something stirred again.
A memory. A voice. A promise.
And it whispered, "don't die."