I didn't know how long we'd been walking.
The forest here felt like a dream stitched together with shadows and moonlight. Time meant nothing. The air pulsed with strange whispers that tickled my ears but vanished when I tried to listen.
Gray—the wolf, my companion—was ahead, brushing through the undergrowth with quiet, determined steps. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, though I still didn't understand why he was helping me. I hadn't dared to ask.
My mind was still tangled in the illusions from earlier.
Mama. Papa. My friends. So real.
I touched my own arms just to remind myself I was still here. Still me. Still fighting.
But then… something shifted again.
A breeze passed through me—not across me—through me, like silk made of sound. The air tasted like copper and ash.
Gray stopped.
His ears perked.
He growled.
Then… he was gone.
"Gray?" I called, spinning. "Where did you go?"
The trees stretched taller around me, branches curling like skeletal fingers. The path vanished beneath my feet, swallowed in thick, glowing mist. I turned in every direction—nothing but fog and trees.
I was alone.
And then, I wasn't.
Out of the mist stepped a figure, Tall, Barefooted. Dressed in dark robes woven with silver vines that shimmered with every movement. Their face was veiled by long, white hair, and their eyes glowed with a strange opal light.
I froze.
A spirit? A guardian?
Or something older?
They raised one hand, and the mist parted to reveal...
Him.
A man.
Standing where Gray had vanished.
He was shirtless, his body tall and lean, muscled and marked with glowing lines that ran across his arms and chest like cracks filled with starlight. Silver scars. Tattoos maybe. His hair was a deep, wild gray, tumbling to his shoulders.
But it was his eyes. Golden.
The same golden eyes as the wolf.
My breath caught.
"What…?"
He stepped forward slowly, watching me—not like a predator, but like someone aching to be seen.
"You," I whispered. "You're…"
But he didn't speak. His lips parted like he might, but no words came. Only sadness. A deep, endless sorrow that made my heart squeeze.
I turned to the figure in the robe.
"Who is he?" I asked. "What is this?"
The figure finally spoke. Their voice was neither male nor female. It was… wind and stone.
"He is the cursed truth that follows you, child of ash and bloom. You know his eyes… and he knows your blood."
"What does that mean?" I demanded, stepping forward. "Who are you?"
"A whisper. A keeper of roots and bones. I guide those the forest deems worthy. And you… Sophie of Windhollow… are not here by accident."
My name on their lips felt like thunder in my bones.
"You seek the Miracle Leaf," the being continued. "But the path to it is not paved with courage… it is drenched in memory and sin."
My heart pounded.
"I don't care," I said, voice shaking. "I'll walk it. Whatever it takes. I have to save my grandmother."
The man standing —Gray—still watched me, but the edges of his form shimmered like he was made of memory, not flesh. My instincts screamed it's him. But it made no sense.
"Why are you showing him to me like this?"
The being tilted their head. For the first time, I heard something like amusement in their voice.
"Because fate plays no fair game. And because you must understand the blade you carry—and the blood it may spill."
I looked down.
In my hand… was a blade I hadn't held before. Not my apothecary dagger. This was different. Old. Etched with the same strange markings glowing on Gray's chest.
"Why would I hurt him?" I whispered, my hand trembling.
"Because love does not come without pain. And healing never comes without sacrifice."
A gust of wind roared around us, and the mist began to rise again.
"Wait!" I cried. "Where do I find the Miracle Leaf?"
The robed being turned, their voice fading as they walked into the trees.
"Follow the red-eyed crow. It sees what is hidden. And beware the voice that sounds like your own… for the forest listens, and it remembers…"
And then—gone.
The man with golden eyes gave me one final look. The kind that shattered breath and rewrote gravity.
Then he vanished too, like smoke in a storm.
The mist thinned. Gray the wolf padded silently back to me, golden eyes locked to mine.
I stared at him, heart pounding.
"I saw you," I whispered. "I… know you."
He just stared, but something flickered behind his gaze—recognition. Guilt. Maybe… longing?
I didn't know what the forest had shown me, or what it meant.
But I knew one thing now without doubt:
Gray wasn't just a wolf.
And my journey to the Miracle Leaf was far more than a quest to save my grandmother.
It was the beginning of something which i don't know or understand, everything happening now feel surreal to me, my body feels like something is crawling on my skin.