The dawn air tasted like copper and dew. Levi stood at the edge of town, his mace hanging from his belt, his backpack lighter than usual; he'd left most of his supplies behind, such as the canned foods and bottles of alcohol that would be used for Molotovs. Whatever they found at the faraway tree, he had a feeling weight would matter less than speed.
Ariana stood beside him, her own small pack slung over one shoulder. She'd argued with her parents and him for an hour last night, their hushed voices carrying through the thin walls of the hiding spot. In the end, Miguel had pressed a knife into her hands, small, sharp, practical, not that it would help much, and Elena had held her so tight Levi thought she might never let go.
"You didn't have to come," Levi said quietly, watching the tree line for movement. While it might have been safe with the smiling creatures going back to their hiding spot, wherever it was, Levi didn't let his guard down.
"Yes, I did." Ariana's voice was steady, but her hands betrayed her, fingers worrying at the strap of her pack. "What if you needed help or Victor had gotten himself hurt?" She asked, patting her back to distract herself.
Levi didn't know what to say to that.
"Victor's late," he said instead, checking the sky. The sun was starting to paint the horizon in shades of orange and pink, too beautiful for a place like this.
"Maybe he changed his mind," Ariana offered.
"Maybe," Levi said. There was a big chance that might have been the case. Victor, while a man, was stuck 50 years here. Based on a rough estimation, he has been here from the age of about 10 till now.
The amount of trauma that he must've experienced had to have shattered his mind. Heck, Levi's own mind was about to be shattered in one night from fear. So, imagining a child's fragility in this place, it must have been a nightmare.
Furthermore, living in this place, only knowing this place, he must be thinking of this place as home, no matter how horrifying and nightmarish it might be. That leaves the question, if, no, when they find a way out, would Victor leave this place behind?
Or would he stay?
"What are you thinking?" Ariana's voice snapped him out, and he shook his head. "Just realizing how strong he is."
"Victor?" She asked, and Levi nodded. The two remained silent for a few moments.
A sound made them both turn. Victor emerged from the shadows near the root cellar, moving with that careful quietness that came from a lifetime of not being seen. He stopped when he saw Ariana, his expression flickering between surprise and something that might have been resignation.
"She's coming," Levi said, not a question.
Victor's jaw worked. "This isn't a field trip."
"I know what it is." Ariana stepped forward, meeting his eyes without flinching. "I can see them too. The children. The boy in white. Whatever's in this town that shouldn't be- I see it. So maybe I need to be here."
Victor studied her for a long moment, then looked at Levi. "Fine." He said, resigned.
He turned and started walking toward the forest without waiting for a response.
Levi and Ariana exchanged a glance, hers nervous, his trying to be reassuring, then followed.
The forest swallowed them within minutes.
It wasn't a gradual thing, not a slow transition from town to wilderness. One moment, they were walking past the last house, and the next, they were surrounded by trees so thick the morning light barely penetrated. The temperature dropped ten degrees. Sound changed, became muffled, distant, wrong.
The only thing present was the leaves dancing in the breeze and their footsteps on the dirt.
Victor led them with the confidence of someone who'd mapped every inch of this nightmare over decades. He didn't follow any path Levi could see, just moved between trees like water finding channels, always heading deeper.
"How far?" Levi asked after what felt like an hour, but was probably only twenty minutes.
"Far enough." Victor didn't slow.
Ariana stumbled over a root, and Levi caught her elbow. She smiled at him, grateful, and he tried not to think about how easy it would be to lose her in this nightmare. That same idea was spinning in his head to make her distance herself from him.
That maybe if he pushed too hard, too fast, she'd back away. Maybe if he crossed a line so absurd she'd have to refuse, it would create the distance he needed to keep her safe. The thought was cowardly, manipulative even, but if it kept her alive…
"Knock knock."
Her voice sliced clean through the thicket of Levi's spiraling thoughts. He blinked, dragged back into the cold, dim present. "What?"
"Knock knock," Ariana repeated, a tiny smile pulling at her mouth. It looked wildly out of place against the backdrop of dead leaves and crawling shadows, and maybe that was the point.
He sighed. "Who's there?"
The smile widened. "Juan."
Levi frowned. "Juan who?"
"Juan, two, three!" She turned, her voice chipper, eyes wide as she waited for a reaction. Nothing but imagery crickets.
Ariana did her little "one, two, three" bit again, tone bright in a way that didn't match the darkness creeping between the trees.
Levi stared at her. No reaction. Not even a twitch. His face might as well have been carved from river stone. Victor stopped and glared at her for a moment, both men blinking at her owlishly.
"What! I was trying to lift the mood." She shot back, and they waited for another second before turning around, resuming their walk.
But the punchline, ridiculous and bright and so painfully Ariana, didn't leave Levi's head.
Juan, two, three.
It bounced around once.
Then again.
Then again, like an echo hitting the walls of his skull.
He kept walking, eyes forward, expression flat. At least he thought it was flat. A tightness tugged at the corner of his mouth. He clenched his jaw to stop it. That only made it worse.
A faint smile slipped out before he could kill it.
Levi exhaled sharply, what should've been a breath turning into the softest, most undignified snort. He looked down at the ground, trying to hide it, which of course only made the laugh push at his throat harder. A small, unwilling huff escaped. Then another.
Behind him, Ariana gasped quietly, triumphant. "Ha! I knew it. I knew it. Don't lie, I heard that."
Victor glanced back with the irritated confusion of a man who'd spent fifty years expecting nothing from the world and now had to deal with spontaneous humor in the murder-forest. "Are you two finished?"
"No," Ariana said at the exact same moment Levi muttered, "Yes."
She jabbed him lightly in the arm with her knuckles, grinning despite the terror wrapped around them like fog. "See? Mood uplifted!"
He shook his head, still fighting a ghost of a smile. "It wasn't funny."
"It absolutely was," she said, smug and relieved in equal measure.
Victor turned forward again with a muttered sound that might've been a groan. Though he himself could help at the smile that was tugging at his lips. It had been forever since he had ever heard a laugh, ever since Christopher, that anyone really tried their hands at humor.
For Ariana, ever since Levi had hidden on a branch and fallen, he hadn't attempted a joke. He had been too busy trying to push away the headaches that were forming that he must've forgotten the real reason why she fell for him in this horrible place.
He had made things feel normal for a bit, and now that he seemed to lose that ability, Ariana thought, why not? Why not try herself to bring him back from whatever humorless path he was marching to?
It was, to Ariana, a bit ironic that once upon a time, she had attempted to distance herself from that man, only to crave his return now, of all times.
They walked in silence for a while longer. The forest grew stranger the deeper they went, yet it wasn't physical strangeness. It was a feeling.
And everywhere, that feeling of being watched.
"Victor," Levi called out. "The boy in white. Does he ever follow you?"
Victor's steps faltered almost imperceptibly. "Used to. When I was younger. He used to help me hide." He glanced back, his pale eyes unreadable. "Why?"
"He's here," Ariana whispered before Levi could answer. "I can feel him."
Victor stopped entirely then, his hand tightening on his lunchbox. "Where?"
"Everywhere." Ariana turned slowly, scanning the trees, searching for it. So was Levi, a frown on his face as the feeling was intensified, but the boy himself was nowhere present. That's when he saw it: a child dashed from behind a tree and deeper into the forest. As if afraid of something.
When Levi turned around, there, behind Victor, was the boy in white. "Hey." Levi greeted Ariana, and Victor turned to him and then to where he was staring. But they saw nothing.
"You should turn back. It's not time yet." The mysterious boy told him, and Levi frowned. "What do you mean?" He asked, taking a step forward, and the boy's expression changed into a frown. "You have to wait for them to come." He spoke.
Levi's frown deepened. Ariana, seeing Levi's face, was about to speak, but Victor brought a hand towards her, shushing her as his eyes stayed glued to Levi.
"Give me a hint or something. What happens if we go to the tree?" Levi questioned, and he stood silent as the boy in white seemed to think deeply for a moment. In the corner of his eyes, Levi saw another child, one of those creepy ones that he keeps saying, running away from behind another tree.
"The people of the town will die." It spoke confidently, draining all colors from Levi's face. Before he knew it, Ariana's hand snaked into his, and he found some strange. But the way the boy said it, Levi's gaze hardened.
The entire mood seemed to be plunged into dark water, as Levi seemed entirely lost. New theories and ideas that shaped into puzzle pieces started painting a new picture. "Is that a threat?"
Levi didn't get any answer as, in a blink, the boy was gone, and so were the children hiding behind trees.
Instantly, all eyes on them seemed to disappear, and Ariana sighed. "What'd he say?" Victor came to him, eyes wide and ready to lung at him to hear his answer.
Levi's mouth opened, but the words tangled. The boy in white's voice clung to him like cold hands. The people of the town will die. The phrasing. The certainty. The way the children had run, not toward danger, but away from it. Away from them.
He could tell Ariana was waiting too. Her hand was still in his, warm, steady, grounding him in a place that felt anything but.
"I…" Levi tried, then shut his mouth. His thoughts were moving like water finding cracks, fast, wild, reshaping everything he thought he knew. There was no way to explain the whole of it. Not here. Not now. Not in this forest that seemed to press in, hungry to swallow whatever truth he spoke aloud.
He exhaled.
"It's not time," he said finally. "That's what he said. Now isn't the time to go all the way to the faraway tree."
Victor blinked, confusion and suspicion tightening his features. "Not the time? What does that mean? Did he say something else?"
Levi hesitated, then shook his head. "That's the part I'm sure of. He was… warning us. That's what I think, anyway."
Ariana was watching him closely. She wasn't fooled, not entirely, but she didn't press. Her thumb brushed his knuckle in a soft, almost absent motion. Stay here, the gesture said. Don't disappear into your head again.
Victor, though, he was folding inward. His shoulders dropped, breath shaking out of him, the way someone breathes after barely avoiding a cliff's edge.
"Then we go back," Victor said. "We turn around. I'm not messing with warnings. Not from him."
Levi swallowed hard. "Wait. Not all the way back."
Victor stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "What?"
"Just… point us," Levi said. "Show us where. Not to go there. Not yet. But so we know when the time comes. I need to see the direction, at least."
"You're asking me to anger them by showing you the path," Victor said sharply. "That's still going toward it."
"Not the path," Levi corrected. "Just the direction. A bearing."
Victor's jaw worked, tight, clenched. The forest groaned softly in their ears. Ariana stepped closer. "If Levi says wait, we wait. But if we're going there eventually… we need to know where 'eventually' is."
Victor dragged a hand down his face, muttering something under his breath. But he turned. He pointed, slowly, as though the act alone might summon something out of the shadows.
"That way," he said. "Walk straight. The tree sits on the third rise."
Levi nodded. "Thank you."
Victor didn't say anything else. He hesitated—like he wanted to stay, like he wanted to run, like every instinct in him had been pulled in two directions for fifty long years. Then he turned and walked back the way they came, vanishing into the trees with the practiced silence of someone who knew every bad thing that listened.
Now, alone, the forest felt louder.
Levi and Ariana exchanged a look, then followed the direction Victor had given.
The terrain slanted upward. The air grew still, too still. They heard it before they saw it.
A tree stood in the clearing, large and crooked, its limbs twisted like they'd grown trying to escape something. Hanging from nearly every branch were glass bottles, dozens of them, swaying gently despite the breathless air. Sunlight caught on their surfaces, throwing flecks of color across the ground. Inside each bottle, there was something.
Ariana stepped closer, eyes wide. "What is this…?"
Levi didn't answer. He was staring at the trunk.
There, at chest height, was a hollow, dark, deep, wide enough for a person to climb into if they curled up.
He approached it slowly. "If someone got stuck out here," he murmured, "this could be… a hiding spot. Kind of. From the creatures."
Ariana didn't look convinced. "Or a trap."
"Maybe both," Levi admitted.
The bottles clinked faintly overhead. Not a wind sound. More like something inside them testing the glass.
Unseen by either of them, far beyond the clearing, deep in the treeline, a figure in yellow crouched behind a fallen trunk.
He watched the two of them examine the tree as if they were tourists admiring a monument instead of staring at something that should never have been touched.
He scoffed, a low, disdainful sound that got swallowed by the forest.
"Idiots," the man in yellow whispered to himself. His grin bent too wide. "Curious little idiots."
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AN:
Another big chapter, about 3k words. I don't know why I keep doing this. I could divide this into two chapters and stock up. But whenever I get into a mood to write, it just keeps going on. I can't divide the chapter because it'll ruin the vibe that I am building. On top of that, I have to write a cliffhanger just for the next chapter in stock. too much hassle.
I've remembered that I did say I'd like to end this story by chapter 50 at minimum and 100 at best. But what I really need is feedback. I'm trying my best to connect my theories, Levi's findings, and other important characters' roles.
If its too slow, please, please, let me know. I've realized that my pacing isn't consistent because I want to push into action and adventure. But I'm held back by the mysteries and theories that have to be answered first.
PS: I might write a maze runner fanfic in the future.