Elena's legs ached, but she didn't stop. The sounds behind her that strange dragging shuffle, the snapping of brittle twigs were closing the distance.
She pushed past low branches, the rough bark scraping her forearms, and caught a glimpse of pale shapes moving between the trees. Her first thought was that they were people. Her second, more chilling, was that they weren't moving like people.
The forest thickened ahead, the path shrinking until it was little more than a strip of dark soil. She risked a glance back.
Empty.
Her chest heaved as she slowed, but the quiet was worse than the pursuit. It was the kind of silence that felt aware.
Then the air changed. It grew denser, warmer as if she'd walked into a breath. The trees here were older, their roots tangled so tightly they rose above the ground like twisted ropes. She stepped carefully, but each footfall made a sound that felt too loud.
She rounded a bend and froze.
The path ended at a sunken hollow, its edges lined with jagged stones taller than she was. They weren't placed randomly; there was a pattern, though she couldn't make sense of it. The symbols carved into them pulsed faintly in the dim light, not with color, but with heat.
Something tugged at her chest not physically, but with a pressure she couldn't name. She stepped closer, the hum in her bones growing louder.
Then she saw movement beyond the stones.