Night dropped over the clearing like a heavy blanket soaked in frost. The mist rose high enough to smother the branches above, turning the treetops into drifting shadows that seemed to twist and whisper in languages no living throat should speak.
The fire burned hot, a circle of desperate light that hissed and spat every time a new branch was tossed on. Sparks burst upward, dying fast in the cold fog.
Rafi stood at the front, a makeshift torch in one hand, a branch like a club in the other. Around him, the older kids formed a loose ring — sticks, rocks, fists balled so tight their knuckles looked like bone.
Closer in, the younger ones sat wrapped in blankets, knees to chins, eyes flicking between the flames and the trees that had no edges anymore.
Behind him, the counselor half-woke again. His voice was ruined, raw as old bark peeling off a dead trunk. He whispered warnings they didn't need now: don't trust the shapes, don't listen when it calls your name in a familiar voice, don't run blind. Roots want you to scatter — easier to pick you off that way.
The braid girl pressed a hand to the counselor's mouth. Save your breath, she told him softly, though he barely heard. Then she joined Rafi at the edge. Her stick burned bright.
Then the forest moved.
Not one thing — not claws or fangs or a beast you could stab until it bled out. It was the branches themselves bending in ways wood shouldn't bend. It was something tall but boneless swaying between trunks, draped in moss that writhed like worms. It was whispers stitching themselves together into words Rafi's mother once sang when he was sick in bed.
He gripped the torch so hard his skin split against the rough wood. He forced air into his lungs — slow, steady — so his fear didn't break his spine before the thing did.
A boy behind him whimpered a name that wasn't his own, reaching out as if to hug the dark. Rafi snapped at him to stop. Too late. The boy took two steps forward, eyes glazed like a sleepwalker's, arms spread for an embrace that didn't exist.
The braid girl lunged, caught him by the collar, yanked him back into the fire's glare just as something slithered past them — a brush of cold that smelled like wet dirt and rot.
It didn't roar or howl. It just pressed closer, bending the mist, squeezing the light until the fire hissed and flickered.
Rafi yelled to scatter the embers wide — more light, more smoke, anything to push it back. The older kids did it without question, swinging burning sticks, throwing flaming branches into the trees.
Where flame touched shadow, the shape twisted away with a soft sigh like a grave cracking open. Not pain — more like annoyance. But it retreated, inch by inch.
The counselor barked a cough that turned into laughter — mad, hopeless laughter that rattled like pebbles in a dry stream bed. He said the roots feel fire but don't fear it for long. They have time. Kids don't.
So Rafi made the call. No more waiting for dawn to break the siege. He yelled for them to pack what they could carry — water, blankets, sticks still burning at the ends — and to stay together in pairs, never alone, no matter what voice whispered in the fog.
They moved fast. Desperate. Some crying, some mumbling prayers. The braid girl stayed glued to Rafi's side, hauling the counselor's arm over her shoulder so his dragging feet didn't slow them too much.
Behind them, the fire sputtered, throwing up sparks like tiny dying stars as they crossed the fence and plunged back into the trees.
Something followed — soft at first, then louder, cracking deadfall, brushing trunks so close they flinched from its icy breath.
Rafi didn't look back. He focused on the flicker of the torch ahead, the braid girl's strained breathing beside him, the fragile chorus of footfalls weaving through tangled roots.
If they could make it to the old ranger's road before the last flame died, maybe — just maybe — the dawn would find them somewhere the forest's mouth couldn't swallow them whole.
And if not?
Then the forest would learn they had teeth too — soft, breakable, but willing to bite until there was nothing left to bury.