Chapter sixteen
The Forest that Eats the Dead
Kenji
Fast, we entered my bamboo forest of torture, searching for the five psychotic traitors.
Rows and rows of bamboo stretched up to the vaulted glass ceiling—lush, thick, almost hypnotic in their sway.
Only three feet of space separated each stalk.
Moonlight shimmered on their leaves.
Over sixty bodies were sprawled between the stalks.
Some dead.
Others dying.
Traitors, enemies, spies.
Flies buzzed where wounds gaped.
The bamboo fed on rot and betrayal.
Some stalks had grown jagged at the ends, sharpened like they wanted to taste flesh.
Guns pointed, I stepped over corpses with their legs splayed, jaws frozen mid-scream, eyes still open and wet. Every body told a story I didn’t have time to hear.
One arm twitched as I passed, but I didn’t flinch.
If he weren’t already dead, he’d be soon.
Groans echoed. Bones cracked underfoot. Blood puddled between the stones and moss.
A man lay with his back arched in pain, one bamboo stalk pierced straight through his torso. It had grown through him, roots fed by the blood now pooling around him. The stalk was vibrant green, leaves rustling above his twitching body. Nourished by his agony.
On our right, a body hung upside down from one of the thicker stalks. A bamboo vine had twisted tight around his ankle, wound so cruelly it had cut through the skin, exposing bone. The man’s arms dangled, fingers slack and twitchless.
Blood trailed down his chest, soaking the tatters of his shirt.
And then. . .I felt it.
That shift.
That prickle behind the ears like the air was bending just slightly wrong. A stillness that wasn’t ours. A presence that didn’t belong to me, the Claws, or Hiro.
It scraped down my spine.
A warning curled in my gut.
I didn’t look up right away.
Instead, I let the feeling thrum. Let it wrap around the base of my neck like smoke, tightening, coiling.
Someone is watching us.
That sensation was from a stranger’s eyes, flesh, and breath, hidden within the sway of the bamboo leaves. Eyes. Flesh and breath. Hidden in the sway.
