Every fifth tree, we stop and check. Fingers brushing bark. Eyes narrowing, searching for the familiar carved grooves. The pattern becomes a rhythm: walk, check, walk, check—like we’re keeping time with the forest’s heartbeat. Twice, we have had to turn back, doubling over our own footprints because the symbol doesn’t appear when it should. But Ziek’s system works. Clean, simple, clever. A breadcrumb trail the Hollow can’t corrupt.
Still… everything looks the same now—more than before—eerily, unsettlingly the same.
Maybe it’s because the canopy above is cracked wider and with more light, the forest looks infinite. Endless columns of trunks stretching out so far that even the shadows seem tired of trying to twist into new shapes. Something about that opennessis worse than the dark; in the dark, you expect monsters. In the light, you expect safety—and the Hollow is a master at weaponising expectations.
Ryder walks close beside me but says nothing. River leads, determined.
And I keep catching myself glancing back, half-expecting to see Ziek trailing behind us with some last-second warning.
But the path stays empty.
We reach a fork in the trail so suddenly that River almost walks straight into it.
“That’s… funny,” he mutters, squinting down both directions. “Ziek never mentioned anything about this.”
A cold weight drops into my stomach.
Both paths stretch out into the trees, winding in opposite directions. The left looks almost normal—if anything in the Hollow can be called normal. But the right…
The right iswrong.
The trees there are thicker, older, their bark gnarled like clenched fists. Their branches hang low and long, stretching toward the path like arms reaching for us. Even the light seems to hesitate before stepping between them.
“I don’t like this,” I whisper, taking a half-step back.
Before any of us can suggest turning around, the forest reacts—violently.
The treesshift.
With a groan of straining wood, their trunks twist and lean toward each other. Branches hook and interlock like bony fingers lacing together. The ground beneath our feet trembles, soil rippling as if something is pushing up from underneath, rearranging the path entirely.
“Guys—!” I shout, spinning around.
Ryder was right beside me a second ago.
Now he’s gone.
Vines erupt from the ground, twisting and writhing until River and I are encased in a wall that stretches endlessly in every direction.
River is still in sight—on my side—but Ryder—
“RYDER!” My scream tears from my throat, raw and panicked. I rush forward, but the shifting roots surge up, blocking the path like a rising barricade.
River grabs my arm, steadying me. “Asha—Asha, he’s not here. He’s on the other side!”
A choked breath escapes me, my pulse hammering in my palms.
I can still hear the forest moving—creaking, groaning, sealing Ryder off behind a wall of living wood.
A trap.
A test.
Another trial.
The Hollow isn’t done with us.
“River…” I whisper, my voice trembling, “Where the hell did he go?”
