I stayed where I was.
The door Daniel disappeared through still felt warm somehow, like the house had just swallowed him and sealed its mouth shut. Light leaked through the windows. Quiet laughter drifted faintly from somewhere deep inside. Safety. Rules. Beds.
Behind me, the forest waited.
Tall. Black. Breathing.
No.
Absolutely not.
I wasn't dying in a forest. That was final.
I crossed my arms, phone dangling uselessly in my hand. "You know what lives in forests?" I muttered. "Bugs. Diseases. Stuff science hasn't even named yet."
Oh please, the other voice in my head said—too smooth, too confident. You've never heard of eighty percent of the world. Statistically, that argument is trash.
I frowned. "You don't know that."
I do. And statistically speaking, there's a non-zero chance of signal out there. That alone should override fear.
"Non-zero chance" sounded good. Scientific. Respectable.
Still. Grandma's rules echoed in my head.
Do not enter the forest.
I pictured her calm smile. The way everyone had nodded like it was common sense. Like the forest wasn't literally right there, taunting me.
"But those were rules," I said weakly. "Rules matter."
The other me gasped dramatically.
Rules are suggestions.
A framework.
Guidelines for people without ambition.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh shut up."
This is for the greater good, it continued, unfazed. If you don't get Wi-Fi, you could die.
"From what?"
Isolation. Lack of updates. Missing critical patches in your game. Do you know how many people fall behind because they miss patch notes? Society collapses that way.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
I looked at the forest.
Then the house.
Then the forest again.
Then the house.
Then the forest—longer this time.
The trees didn't move. They just stood there, tall and patient, like they'd been waiting for someone exactly like me to make a bad decision.
I sighed, long and heavy.
I glanced down at my phone. Still nothing. No bars. No miracle. Just that mocking "No Service" sitting there like a judgment.
"I've navigated worse," I told myself. "Way worse."
Which was technically true. I'd survived cursed woods, corrupted biomes, horror-mystery maps with fog, screaming things, and puzzles that made no sense on purpose.
There was no way a real forest was worse than a digital one designed to traumatize players.
I took a step toward the trees.
Then stopped.
Turned back toward the house.
"Yeah," I said quickly, nodding to myself. "This is stupid. I'll just—"
Are you scared?
I froze.
My jaw clenched.
"Of course not."
Then why are you turning back?
I exhaled sharply. "You're insufferable."
And you're hesitating.
That did it.
"Fine."
I broke into a run.
Straight into the forest.
Branches scraped my arms as if offended. Leaves crunched too loudly under my feet. Somewhere behind me, the house disappeared, swallowed by darkness and trees and my own terrible sense of direction.
Please don't regret this, I thought desperately.
And the forest, silent and vast, did not answer.
=========
I ran.
Not like in movies. Not heroic. Just forward, faster than thinking, branches slapping my arms, thorns kissing my legs like they wanted blood. I felt every cut, every sting, but my brain wouldn't shut up.
Forward is progress.
This is how you move closer to your dreams.
Protagonists don't stop.
Shut up.
I tripped, went down hard, palm scraping against something sharp. I sucked in air and hissed, stared at the blood like it was proof I was still real. Then I got up and kept going, because stopping felt worse.
Then I heard it.
Water.
The sound punched straight through my chest. A river. Real. Close. I slowed without meaning to and checked my phone, already bracing myself for disappointment.
Two bars.
I froze.
Two actual bars. My phone lit up properly, like it remembered what it was meant to do. Messages started loading. Notifications stacked. WhatsApp spun.
"No," I whispered.
But it is, the voice in my head said, smug now. Look at it.
"No way."
Brother, it laughed, we've won.
The messages finished loading.
Then the signal died.
The screen went dead.
I screamed.
The sound ripped out of me before I could stop it. I clamped my hand over my mouth immediately, heart slamming so hard I thought it might punch out through my ribs.
Nothing answered.
Relax, the voice said quickly. You're not close enough to the river yet.
I took a few more steps.
One bar.
Two.
A laugh slipped out of me, shaky and ugly. I followed the signal like it was bait, like I wasn't being led anywhere at all.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
"This feels wrong," I muttered.
Rabbits say the same thing about carrots, the voice replied, and suddenly it didn't sound like it was joking.
That's when I heard it.
A slow creak. Like trees bending where trees shouldn't. Like bone grinding against stone. Deep. Massive.
I stopped.
I turned back toward where I thought the river was—and realized it was far. Way too far. I checked the time.
11:59 PM.
My stomach dropped.
And then the forest came alive.
Crickets. Frogs. Night insects screaming all at once, sound crashing in from every direction. Loud. Deafening.
It hit me all at once.
It hadn't been making noise before.
For hours.
My phone ticked.
12:00 AM.
The air thickened. That same gelatin feeling slid over my skin, like I'd stepped into something that didn't want me breathing properly. My mouth went dry.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay, okay, okay—"
I turned.
There was a rock beside me.
Too big. Too smooth. Too close.
The voice in my head tried to joke — Run. Now would be ideal — but the thought shattered when the rock opened.
An eye unfolded where stone shouldn't split.
Wet. Massive. Reflective.
The pupil widened.
Locked onto me.
The ground trembled, not from movement, but from attention.
I laughed.
A broken, hysterical sound tore out of my throat. "Wow," I breathed. "Okay. That's… that's new."
The eye blinked.
The forest shook.
I ran.
Not toward the river. Not toward the house. Just away, crashing through branches, lungs burning, panic flooding in too fast to think.
Because one thought finally cut through everything else, sharp and absolute:
I had no idea where I was.
And whatever I'd just met?
It didn't need to chase me. But for some reason the bold idea sparked in it's head that it should
"Fuck I hate forests "