Chapter Text
The rain had slowed to a thin mist by the time they stepped outside, but the pavement still glistened with reflections of streetlights and passing cars. Flame walked ahead of the group, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders tense. He didn’t say anything, but Parrot could tell he was listening to every footstep, every rustle of leaves, every shift in the wind. Flame had always been quiet, but this was different. This was vigilance.
Parrot followed close behind, clutching Egg’s bracelet in his pocket. He kept glancing at the ground, at the puddles, at the shadows stretching across the walkway. His brain was spiraling again- too many thoughts, too many possibilities, too many ways this could go wrong. He hated that his hair was frizzing from the humidity. He hated that his hoodie wasn’t sitting right on his shoulders. He just felt like a mess.
Wemmbu walked beside him, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His purple peekaboo hair was damp, the curls sticking to his forehead. He refused to admit he was cold, his outfit was too good today to ruin it with a jacket. He kept glancing at Parrot, then at Flame, then at the woods in the distance. His rings clicked softly every time he flexed his fingers together.
Spoke trailed behind, backpack jingling with keychains, clutching his ugly strawberry plushie like it was a weapon. He kept whispering to himself, naming every stray cat they passed, trying to keep the mood light even though his voice shook.
They reached the edge of campus.
The woods loomed in front of them like a wall of black teeth. Even from the trailhead, Flame could feel the wrongness radiating from between the trees, thick, heavy, suffocating. The police tape fluttered weakly in the wind, half-torn, barely clinging to the wooden post it was tied to.
Flame stopped.
Parrot nearly bumped into him. The other two followed pursuit.
Wemmbu looked up. “Why’d you stop?”
Flame didn’t answer at first. He stared into the trees, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Parrot followed his gaze, but saw nothing, just branches, and the faint outline of the trail.
Then Flame spoke.
“It’s watching.”
Parrot’s breath caught. “You see it?”
Flame didn’t blink. “Not directly. But it’s here.”
Wemmbu swallowed hard. “Can we… not go in yet?”
Spoke whispered, “I vote we go home and pretend none of this is happening.”
Flame turned around. “We’re not going in yet.”
Parrot exhaled shakily.
Flame continued, “We need to understand what we’re dealing with first.”
Parrot stopped in his tracks. “We can’t go in blind.”
Flame turned around. “We weren’t going in blind.”
Wemmbu’s voice was quiet. “We don’t know why he disappeared from the hospital.”
Spoke hugged his plushie closer. “We don’t know anything.”
Flame exhaled slowly. “We know enough to be careful.”
Parrot didn’t look convinced. His fingers tightened around the bracelet. “No. We need more. We need something that connects Egg to all of this.”
Wemmbu frowned. “Like what?”
Parrot hesitated. He’s clearly been thinking about this day more than the rest of them.
“The laptop.”
Wemmbu blinked. “What laptop?... wait… MY LAPTOP???”
Parrot turned to him sharply. “Your laptop. The one Egg helped you code on. The one that glitched. The one that showed runes.”
Wemmbu hesitated, then reached into his bag. “I brought it. I didn’t want to leave it alone in my dorm.”
Spoke stared at him. “You carried that cursed laptop across campus?”
Wemmbu shrugged and almost looked like he was offended in some way, “well I still use it for my assignments!”
Parrot nodded. “It reacted to the woods.”
Flame stepped closer. “We need to see it.”
Parrot nodded. “Not here. Not in the open.”
Wemmbu looked around nervously. “Where do we go?”
Parrot didn’t hesitate. “The library.”
Flame didn’t wait for more debate. He turned away from the forest and started walking back toward campus. The others followed, staying close together, glancing over their shoulders every few seconds. The campus was nearly empty, just a few students rushing between buildings, unaware of the storm gathering behind them.
They crossed the quad, passed the fountain, and climbed the steps to the library. Parrot wiped his shoes on the mat automatically, he couldn’t stand tracking mud inside, and led them to a table tucked in the corner near the archives staircase. It was quiet there. Dim. Secluded. Safe enough.
Parrot pulled a disinfectant wipe from his bag and cleaned the table until it gleamed. He couldn’t help it. Even in a supernatural crisis, he refused to put a laptop on a dirty surface.
Wemmbu placed the laptop gently on the table. His hands shook slightly, but he tried to hide it by adjusting his rings.
Spoke gasped dramatically. “Eggchan 2.0!”
Wemmbu swallowed hard. “It reacted to… whatever’s out there. Also don't call it Eggchan 2.0... That's weird.”
Spokes' smile fell, “yeah you're right…”
Flame watched the screen like it might bite.
Spoke placed his ugly strawberry plushie beside it. “Heh… it looks cute next to it.”
Parrot was gonna comment but shut his mouth.
Wemmbu carefully opened the laptop.
Nothing happened at first.
Spoke whispered, “Eggchan 2.0, please don’t kill us.”
Then-
The screen flickered.
The simulation opened on its own.
Numbers spiked.
Static crawled across the screen like veins.
Parrot whispered, “It’s happening again.”
Wemmbu tried to click out of it.
The cursor moved on its own.
Flame’s stomach twisted.
Spoke grabbed Flame’s sleeve.
The lights overhead flickered.
The laptop screen went black.
Then-
A video file appeared.
Unnamed.
Timestamped with a date that didn’t exist, an impossible moment carved out of time itself, like a wound bleeding shadows.
Wemmbu’s fingers trembled as he clicked it.
Egg appeared.
Not in the sterile hospital room.
Not in the safety of his dorm.
But deep within the woods, twisted and suffocating.
His breathing was ragged, uneven, like a beast hunted and cornered.
His eye, glassy and unfocused, seemed to flicker with a dark hunger.
His voice was warped, a low, guttural whisper that scraped against the edges of sanity.
Flame felt his chest tighten, a cold weight settling over his heart. He’d seen this before, not Egg, but his brother. The same haunted gaze. The same creeping dread. The same corruption gnawing from within.
Egg whispered something, but the words twisted and slithered like venom in the air.
Parrot leaned closer, drawn despite the chill crawling up his spine.
Wemmbu’s eyes welled with tears, the raw fear breaking through his usual composure.
Spoke covered his mouth, stifling a gasp that threatened to shatter the fragile silence.
Flame’s heart plummeted, sinking into a pit of despair.
Egg whispered.
“Not him… not yet…”
The video cut abruptly, the screen erupting into static that hissed like a swarm of angry insects.
Another clip flickered to life.
Egg stumbled deeper into the woods, swallowed by shadows that seemed to pulse and breathe.
He approached a concrete structure, ancient and crumbling, devoured by twisted roots and carved with runes that seemed to writhe beneath his touch.
Egg’s fingers trembled as he traced the symbols, whispering.
“Kill him.”
Flame’s breath hitched, caught in a choke of terror.
Parrot’s face drained of color, his skin pale as death.
Wemmbu’s voice cracked, barely audible, “Who?”
The laptop answered, the words bleeding onto the screen like a curse.
THE ONE WHO ENTERS THE WOODS NEXT.
Flame froze, every muscle locked in place.
Parrot swallowed hard, the taste of fear bitter on his tongue.
Wemmbu’s voice broke, trembling: “Flame… you were going to go first.”
Spoke whispered, trembling, “Oh my God.”
Flame didn’t move.
He didn’t breathe.
He didn’t blink.
He just stared, trapped in the cold grip of inevitability, at the screen, at the message, at the terrible truth.
Egg had been sent to kill someone.
Egg had been twisted, corrupted beyond recognition.
Egg had been controlled by something ancient and merciless.
And the target…
was Flame.
Parrot whispered, voice fierce despite the dread: “We’re not letting it happen.”
Wemmbu grabbed Flame’s arm, steady and resolute. “You’re not going in alone.”
Spoke nodded fiercely, eyes blazing. “We’re sticking together.”
Flame finally exhaled, the breath trembling but real.
He looked at all of them. Parrot, Wemmbu, Spoke, and felt a flicker of something he hadn’t felt since Mane vanished.
He wasn’t alone.
Not anymore.
The laptop flickered one last time, the screen pulsing like a heartbeat.
A final message appeared, carved in shadows:
COME FIND HIM.
They all stood up
And together-
They walked toward the woods.