Morning was just a suggestion here. The forest hoarded the light so fiercely that when Rafi cracked open his eyes, he thought it was still night. Only the hush told him otherwise — its whisper had shifted pitch, a restless scraping under the bark, as if it felt the day pressing down from above.
The braid girl was already crouched at the hollow's mouth, pushing at the wall of living wood that had sealed them in. It gave way under her hand like old flesh, splitting along scars that wept sap as clear as tears. The forest breathed in — a deep, damp exhale that tasted of wet moss and wormy soil.
They stepped out together.
Outside, the hush had changed its shape again. What had been simple underwood now knotted itself into a maze of roots — giant veins snaking above ground, splitting into gnarled fingers that clutched at air. Some pulsed, as if alive, as if dragging water and secrets back to the thing buried far below.
Rafi tested each root before he put his weight on it. They squelched under his boots, slick and fibrous. Once, he thought he felt one flex back, tugging gently at his ankle like a mother's hand pulling him home.
The braid girl walked ahead, fearless as always, weaving her slight body between the tangled tunnels of bark and living soil. Her braid swung behind her, dark and sodden at the ends, dripping a trail even the hush couldn't swallow fast enough.
Once, she paused at a low arch of roots. Beneath it, something watched them: two pinpricks of yellow, flicking sideways when Rafi met its gaze. He caught a glimpse of fur like a ragged curtain, teeth long as a man's fingers. Then it slipped between the roots without a sound, and the hush swallowed the gap behind it.
Predator or ghost — it didn't matter. Everything here was a little of both.
They pressed deeper. The air thickened around them, a stew of rot and old breath. At their feet, bones appeared half-buried in the root beds: a child's ribcage. A fox's spine. Teeth by the dozens, scattered like seeds. Rafi nudged one with his toe — it rolled, showing a cavity dark as a well.
They did not speak. Every word would feed the hush. So they saved their voices for the place ahead — wherever this tunnel of roots and teeth meant to deliver them.
After what felt like hours, the braid girl stopped. Before her rose a wall of interlocked roots, packed so tight no light or wind slipped through. It pulsed faintly, a heartbeat trapped in wood. At its base, a narrow crawlspace yawned, slick and dark and lined with nodules like blunt teeth.
Rafi's stomach turned. He knew without question: It wants us inside.
The braid girl did not look back for permission. She dropped to her belly and wriggled forward, vanishing into the throat of the root wall. Her braid snagged, then slipped free like a serpent's tail.
Rafi wiped his palms on his shirt. The hush chuckled low in the back of his skull, promising warmth if he only followed.
So he did.
On hands and knees, he squeezed into the crawlspace, the root walls tightening around his ribs, the teeth pressing gentle warnings into his skin. Ahead, her feet scraped against something damp — and the hush drew him onward, deeper into the belly of itself, where light and reason no longer mattered.
In the kingdom of roots and teeth, they were nothing but prey with just enough will left to fight becoming food.