I woke with dirt pressed against my cheek and the taste of soil in my mouth.
My head throbbed as consciousness returned, bringing with it a flood of confusion.
Where the hell am I?
Pushing myself up, I spat and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Trees surrounded me—massive trunks that stretched upward like ancient pillars. The canopy above filtered sunlight into scattered beams that barely illuminated the forest floor.
"Hello?" My voice sounded small, swallowed by the dense vegetation.
No answer. Just the subtle rustle of leaves and something else—a low, constant hum that seemed to vibrate through the ground beneath me.
I patted my pockets. No phone, no wallet, no keys.
Of course.
Standing made my head spin. I steadied myself against the nearest tree trunk and felt something odd—the bark wasn't rough like normal tree bark. It felt sticky. Almost... fleshy.
I yanked my hand away with a sneer.
The air hung thick and warm, carrying scents I couldn't identify—not quite floral, not quite decay, something altogether alien. I'd hiked in forests across three continents, but this place matched none of them.
The trees themselves were wrong. Their trunks twisted in impossible spirals, and what I had initially taken for moss appeared to be some kind of pulsing, bluish growth. The leaves overhead weren't just green but also deep purples and burnt oranges that absorbed rather than reflected light.
"This isn't possible."
I picked a direction and started walking, hoping to find a trail, a road, any sign of civilization. The ground beneath my feet felt spongy, giving slightly with each step. Small creatures—at least I thought they were creatures—scurried away as I approached. They moved too quickly to see clearly, leaving only impressions of too many legs and iridescent shells.
"Think, Elliot. What's the last thing you remember?"
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to concentrate. Normal memories surfaced first—clear as photographs.
The smell of fresh-baked bread at work, my hands moving mechanically as I assembled another turkey club for another hungry customer. My manager Dave's constant complaints about proper tomato slicing technique.
My sister Emma's graduation. Her blue gown too long, nearly tripping as she walked across the stage. Mom crying in the audience. Dad pretending not to.
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Professor Martinez's droning voice in Comparative Literature, the squeak of dry-erase markers on whiteboard, the weight of textbooks in my backpack.
But beneath those mundane snapshots lurked something else. Dark shapes moved at the edges of my mind, like creatures glimpsed through murky water. I pushed deeper—
beep
The sound cut through my thoughts, distant but sharp.
I pressed harder, trying to recall what happened before I woke up here. There was a sense of motion, of falling through—
beep... beep
The noise grew louder, more insistent. My head pounded in sync with each electronic pulse.
Fragments flashed faster now. A door that shouldn't exist. A choice I couldn't remember making. The sensation of plummeting through endless space—
BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Stop!" I pressed my palms against my temples. The beeping drilled into my skull, drowning out thought, reason, everything except its mechanical scream.
BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP
I dropped to my knees, fingers clawing at my scalp. "STOP!"
My own voice echoed through the twisted forest, raw and desperate. Birds—or things that might have been birds—took flight from nearby branches.
The beeping faded, leaving behind only the forest's ambient hum and my ragged breathing. I stayed there, hunched over, waiting for my pulse to slow.
The terrible sound finally subsided and once again only the only sound was the gentle rustle of forest leaves.
Where the hell am I??
A sudden movement caught my eye—something large shifting behind a cluster of those twisted trees. I froze, heart hammering against my ribs.
"Is someone there?"
I strained to hear, holding my breath as I scanned the forest. Whatever had moved was gone now, or hiding. The silence felt deliberate, like the forest itself was watching me.
"Hello?" I called again, louder this time. "I'm lost. If someone's there—"
A low, wet grinding noise cut through the air behind me. It reminded me of the sound a pestle makes crushing something brittle—bone being turned in a mortar. The hair on my arms stood on end.
I turned slowly, dread pooling in my stomach.
One of the massive trees—the one I'd touched earlier—was... changing.
Its trunk split vertically, peeling open like flesh parting around a wound. The interior wasn't wood but something dark and glistening, pulsing with a sickly rhythm.
"That's not—" My words died in my throat.
From the hollow emerged something that shouldn't exist—a tendril-like limb, thicker than my arm. It was part root, part shadow, moving with deliberate purpose. It snaked across the forest floor, leaving a trail of oily residue.
I couldn't move. My muscles locked as primal fear overrode every rational thought.
The tendril paused, hovering above the ground as if tasting the air. Then it shot forward.
Snap.
It coiled around my ankle, cold and impossibly strong. For one suspended moment, I stared down at the alien thing wrapped around my leg, my mind refusing to process what my eyes were seeing.
Then it yanked.
My feet flew out from under me. My back slammed against the ground, knocking the wind from my lungs. I clawed desperately at the earth, fingers digging furrows in the soil as I was dragged backward.
"No!" I gasped, kicking with my free leg.
The tendril tightened its grip, pulling me inexorably toward the gaping black wound in the tree. My fingernails broke as I grabbed at roots, stones, anything to halt my progress.
The forest floor scraped against my back as I was hauled deeper into the pulsing dark, away from the scattered beams of sunlight, toward whatever waited inside that hollow.
I was helpless. Caught like a rat in a trap.
The moment before the darkness swallowed me, I heard my own pathetic voice wail in my ears.
"Where the hell am I??"
