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Deep within the Canadian Wilderness, there are ghosts. They linger, their bodies long rotted and ripped clean to the bone, but their souls roam free. Their wails echo through the empty, bare woods, warping the stillness into something otherworldly. Pain, agony seep from the gnarled roots and bleed through the bark of blackened trees. Branches twist like broken limbs, groaning in the wind with voices that remember life.
The spirits that linger are trapped eternally. Once, they braided each other’s hair and sang and laughed by the fire, hopeful and wide-eyed. Once, they were survivors and champions and girls. Until they weren’t. Until their bones and blood became the Wilderness, their sorrow interweaving with the ancient and primal spirit that had watched them in life.
2025
The sky had gone gold when they stopped to set up camp.
Sylvia sits on a damp log, picking moss off the soles of her boots as she watches her brother Ethan attempt to set up the tent. Theo, his useless yet ever-charming friend, stands nearby, eating trail mix and offering unhelpful advice.
Sylvia huffs, letting her eyes wander to the woods around them. She hadn’t even wanted to come on this stupid fucking hiking trip with her brother and his friend, but her mom had insisted. She had said that it was “ important for them to bond” before she leaves for college. As if dragging her into the middle of fucking nowhere would magically fix all the shit that had gone wrong between them.
Ethan had been distant for months. Usually, he came home every weekend from college, bragging about parties and girls and how he had aced his midterm. But ever since their dad had left, she couldn’t get through to him, not anymore. Now here they were, in the forest pretending like nothing was wrong, while Theo tagged along, making everything seem like a half-hearted adventure.
Sylvia looks up as Ethan gives the tent pole another frustrated tug. His brow is furrowed, and he mutters under his breath like the pole had personally victimized him. He catches her eye and sighs heavily.
“Are you gonna sit there all day, or help me?” he asks, voice tight with annoyance, like it physically hurt him to talk to her.
Sylvia doesn’t answer right away, just continues watching him struggle with the tent. If he wanted to be a dick, then he could do it on his own. Her eyes shift to Theo instead, as he catches pieces of trail mix in his mouth with a carefree grin.
“C’mon, it’s not rocket science,” he says, glancing at Ethan. “You just gotta assemble it. It’s gotta be easy, right?”
Ethan shoots him a look, and Sylvia can tell his patience is thinning by the second.
“Yeah, thanks, man,” he mutters, eyes rolling. “Real helpful.”
Silence falls upon the group. Sylvia bites her cheek and looks to the woods once more, a never-ending sea of green. The wind rustles her hair slightly, and the trees shift gently in the breeze. For a moment, it’s almost peaceful. Then, something shifts.
The trees still sway, the wind still hums through the leaves, but everything else is gone. No birdsong, no rustling underbrush. Just stillness.
And beneath that stillness, something else. Not quite a sound, but a presence. A pressure in the silence, low and strange, as if the woods itself is holding its breath.
Sylvia pushes herself off of the log and onto her feet. Something, a force, maybe, or the Wilderness itself, calls to her. She feels it reverberate in her bones, ancient and waiting, and she instinctively walks deeper into the forest.
“Sylvia!” she hears Ethan call. “What the hell are you doing?”
She doesn’t turn her head toward his voice, just keeps her eyes fixed on the green around her.
“Going for a walk,” she replies in a flat, monotone voice that really doesn’t sound like her at all.
Sylvia hears Ethan scoff faintly, but her feet continue to move. Something pulls from her ribs and into the woods like a string, steady and firm. It’s leading her forward, deeper into the trees and into the green that stretches endlessly before her. And she follows. Because whatever it is…it’s ancient, real, and waiting. And from deep within her marrow, something tells Sylvia it’s hungry.
She walks for what feels like hours. The woods don’t change, not really. Just more trees, more silence, more of that low thrumming beneath her ribs, guiding her like a compass spun wrong. The sun has nearly slipped beneath the canopy, casting long, dark shadows that seem to flicker, to move.
Then, she sees it.
As first, it’s just a glint behind the trees; metal, dull and weathered with time and nature. But as she steps closer, branches snapping underfoot, the shape comes into view: a massive, torn section of fuselage, half-swallowed by moss and dirt. Vines snake through shattered windows. Rust has bloomed across the metal like rot, spelling out a scene of disaster and loss. A name, barely legible, stretches across the curved surface in faded paint.
Flight 2525
Sylvia stops breathing. The air feels heavier here, charged. The silence deepens until her ears ring. Her stomach flips as she takes a shaky step forward, forest floor soft beneath her boots.
Inside the wreckage, shadows pool unnaturally. Shredded clothing hangs from branches. A melted watch lies face-down in the earth. One of the seats still stands upright, seatbelt buckled, fabric shredded in jagged lines. A cracked mirror lies against a tree, and Sylvia swears a figure moves past it, flowing dark hair stark against a white dress.
Her throat tightens. She should run. Call for Ethan. But the same force that brought her here holds her still.
A whisper curls through the trees, faint and high and mournful.
“Stay.”
Sylvia spins, heart pounding, but there’s no one there. Just the fuselage, trees, and that rising, pulsing presence. Her skin prickles. The wind seems to breathe around her now, deep and slow, like lungs contracting and expanding beneath the soil.
Then, deeper from the wreckage, she hears laughter.
Girls. Young, joyful.
She turns her head sharply. The sound cuts out.
Sylvia backs away a step, but her foot lands in something soft. She looks down.
A jacket, yellow and blue. A name is legible, embroidered into the fabric.
Jackie
She stares at it, frozen. The forest exhales.
The fire burns low, a ring of orange embers and smoke curling faintly in the dark. Crickets hum again now, slow and rhythmic, like the woods have exhaled whatever breath it had been holding.
Sylvia sits cross-legged in the tent, jacket crumpled in her lap. No one saw her return.
She doesn’t remember walking back; just the soft earth under her feet, sweat trickling down her neck, something warm clutched tightly in her hand. Now the letterman jacket rests between her hands, yellow and blue dulled with age, the embroidered ‘ Jackie’ still visible on the chest,
She runs her fingers over the name again and again, like she’s trying to wear it down. Or wake it up.
Theo is lying in the corner, limbs splayed out haphazardly. Ethan’s still awake, hunched over a map with a flashlight held tight in his hand, muttering about terrain and weather and “ wherever the hell you went earlier. ”
Sylvia hasn’t told him. She doesn’t plan to.
The jacket smells like cold and smoke and something else. Something old, like rotting flesh and dried blood. It shouldn’t be warm, but it is. Like someone had just taken it off.
She pulls it around her shoulders. The wind stirs. For a moment, she hears laughter again. But only for a moment.
The world is wrong. Everything is too quiet, too still, like time itself has forgotten how to move.
Sylvia walks through the woods again, but this time, the trees seem too close, their gnarled branches like hands as they reach toward her, pulling at her hair, her skin. The ground is soft beneath her feet, like the earth is trying to swallow her, one step at a time.
She’s wearing the jacket again. The faded fabric is pulled taut against her, warming her chilled bones. She feels it tighten around her shoulders, suffocating.
The air is thick with smoke and the smell of something burning, like a cooking meat. It makes Sylvia gag.
She sees the wreckage again. The fuselage is more decayed than before, like it’s rotting it front of her eyes. The vines move and twist as they envelope the destruction, pulsing with unnatural life. The name Flight 2525 is still visible, but it seems to shift in the shadows, fading in and out of view.
And then, she hears it. Wailing, screeching. Not distant this time, but close. It’s in the trees, behind her.
Sylvia turns sharply, but again, there’s no one there. The woods are empty, save for the trees and the shadows.
Then, a figure appears into view. A girl. Tall and thin, with dark, tangled hair spilling into her face. She’s wearing a faded white dress, stained with dark streaks of crimson. Deep gashes form holes all over her body. Blood trails from the round wounds, oozing in a sickly pattern. A sickly smile painted in blood mars her face. Her eyes are curious, searching.
Sylvia feels the pull in her chest again, like an invisible string tying her to the girl. She wants to reach out to take her hand, but she can’t move. Her body is frozen, paralyzed in place.
The girl speaks. Her voice is low and haunting, yet a certain quality about it reminds her of herself. It’s sweet and feels so young and human that it makes Sylvia’s chest ache.
“ You brought it back.”
The words echo through Sylvia’s mind like a whispered curse, bouncing off the trees, the wreckage, the earth itself.
“You shouldn’t have.”
The girl takes a step forward, blood staining the earth beneath her feet. Her presence is suffocating, like the very air around her is closing in. The wind picks up, but it’s wrong, unnatural. It howls, but it doesn’t feel like nature anymore. It feels like something else, something human.
Sylvia can’t think, can’t breathe. The pull from her chest grows stronger, like the earth itself is dragging her down. Something else stirs in her blood, humming and curious. Her body is locked in place under the girl’s gaze.
A whisper rises from the wreckage.
“ Jackie.”
The name is a chant, a prayer. It doesn’t really sound like a name anymore. More like something ancient, like the Wilderness has claimed it.
The girl steps forward, her voice mournful and full of longing as she speaks again.
“She’s still here. We all are.”
Sylvia’s eyes snap open. She gasps, lungs burning, heart pounding in her chest. Sweat clings to her skin, and her body trembles. She’s back in the tent, back in the present, but the weight of the jacket still feels heavy around her shoulders.
Outside, the wind howls. The laughter from the dream echoes in her ears, distant and unmistakable.
Her hand shakes as she reaches for the jacket, fingers clinging to the fabric in desperation. It presses against her skin like it’s alive, like it has a pulse. She swears she feels something stir beneath it, something cold and ancient, and the words linger in her mind:
“She’s still here. We all are.”
And somewhere, deep within the woods or her bones, she hears it again:
“Stay.”
The air is thick with the smell of wet earth as the trio hikes deeper into the forest, trees looming like dark sentinels, casting long shadows over the ground. The farther they go, the more the woods feel like a suffocating tunnel. Sylvia’s odd behavior hadn’t gone unnoticed by Ethan or Theo, but it’s only when they reach a clearing where the trees thin for a moment, that Flight 2525 is finally brought up.
It’s Theo who breaks the silence, trying to lighten the mood, his voice playful as he glances at Ethan.
“You ever hear about the plane that crashed around here?” he asks, his words nonchalant, but the slight tension in his tone betrays his usual bravado.
Ethan stiffens. He hadn’t thought about Flight 2525 in years, but of course, it had come up before. Small towns and their dark histories. He nods, eyeing Sylvia’s distant figure ahead of them.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Crash happened in the ’90s, a girl’s soccer team,” his voice carries a weight, like he’s speaking about a ghost story that everyone knows but no one really wants to talk about.
Theo snorts, but there’s no humor in it. “People love their stories. They say the woods are haunted because of it. The ones that died…people swear they hear things out here. Figures, whispers in the wind, that kind of shit.”
Ethan doesn’t laugh. He never did. The story always felt too real to him, like there was something deeply unsettling about the crash site, something that made people afraid to go too far into the woods. He can’t remember how many times people back home had whispered about the crash, reminiscing on the survivors and how thin and haunted and feral they had looked. They claimed the girls had formed a cult, cannibalized their friends. They claimed the spirits of those who hadn’t escaped were still here, trapped by tragedy.
But hearing it from Theo’s mouth, it felt casual, dismissive.
“Well, it’s probably the locals with too much time on their hands,” Theo continues. “I mean, it’s a plane crash. What else is there to say? Some of the wreckage is still out here, some stories, that’s all.”
The conversation hangs suspended in the air as they continue hiking. Sylvia’s distant figure keeps moving ahead, almost in a trance. Ethan’s eyes linger on her. He wants to ask if she’s alright, but the thought of disrupting her, of pulling her out of whatever trance she’s fallen into, seems wrong.
Still, the more he watches her, the more he senses that the wreckage and spirits and whispers Theo had mentioned were more than just stories. The way the trees shift, the way the air feels heavier around Sylvia.
He tries to push it from his mind. Maybe it’s all in his head.
They continue walking in silence until they stumble across something strange. The trees part briefly, leaves separating as if it’s an entryway. A shiver runs down Ethan’s spine.
“Hey, Sylvia…” he calls, but his voice is drowned out by the sound of wind rushing through the trees.
When Sylvia turns, there’s a strange light in her eyes, as if she’s been expecting this moment all along. “I know where we are,” she says quietly.
Ethan doesn’t reply at first. There’s something unsettling about the way she speaks, like she’s not even talking to him, but to the woods themselves. The feeling presses on him like a weight, the air thick with an oppressive, otherworldly energy.
“Sylvia, what are you–”
But he doesn’t finish his sentence. The sight before him stops him dead in his tracks. In the clearing ahead, he sees charred, burnt skeleton of what was once a cabin. Pieces of timber still smolder faintly, as if the fire had never real gone out, just lie in wait. Remnants of walls and a roof tell a story of before, and Ethan’s mind briefly flickers to the plane crash.
The faint, acrid smell of burning wood and old ash clings to the air, suffocating in its bitterness. It makes Ethan’s stomach twist.
He takes a small step forward, and his foot catches on something. He looks down.
A playing card, faded and charred, sits half-buried in the ground. Ethan crouches, brushing away dirt and soot to reveal the card. It was the queen of hearts, its eyes scratched out ominously, edges stained with a faded red.
“What the hell…?” Theo murmurs, voice trailing off as he surveys the once-cabin. His eyes keep flicking from the ruins to Sylvia, who stands a little too still nearby, gaze fixed on something unknown in the trees. Carved on the bark, he sees a symbol; sharp edges blur together in an odd cacophony of scratches. And Sylvia hadn’t stopped staring at it.
Ethan’s pulse quickens as realization hits him. The cabin wasn’t just some random structure. This place, it’s connected to the crash and the wreckage and Sylvia in some fucked-up web.
Something stirs deep within him. An unshakeable feeling that they’re not just walking through the woods anymore. They’re walking through something that doesn’t belong to time. Something that was and still is.
The wind shifts. Not violently, but suddenly, without warning. The silences hangs a little heavier, like a fruit ready to be picked by starving hands.
Then, from deep within the woods, they hear it.
A cry.
Shrill, shrieking, shuddering with desperation. It carries on the wind, a haunting melody of a baby’s cry, lost to memory and the Wilderness.
Theo turns toward Ethan, wide-eyed. “Did you…?”
“Yeah,” Ethan cuts in, voice low and trembling slightly. “I heard it.”
Sylvia doesn’t move. Her eyes remain fixed on the strange symbol carved into the tree. But her lips part, slightly. A whisper escapes.
“Can’t you hear him crying?”
Ethan’s stomach knots. “Sylvia…what did you just say?”
She doesn’t respond. Just turns slowly, as if following a sound, or a memory that’s not her own. Her boots crunch against scorched leaves as she steps deeper into the woods.
“Wait, wait,” Theo calls. “Where are you going? Sylvia–”
The crying comes again, louder, sharper this time. It pierces through the clearing, snaking up Ethan’s spine and taking refuge in his chest. He shudders.
“Dude,” Theo mutters, voice shaking. “What the hell?”
Ethan swallows, but his throat is dry. “Let’s follow her.”
The cry echoes in Ethan’s ears long after the silence has crept in once more.
They follow her through the first, through winding paths and trees that seem to grab at them as they pass. Sylvia leads, movements stiff and mechanical, as if not human. The thrum under her ribs pulses with life, with something not of this world. Her brain seems to be on autopilot as she navigates the woods, like an old memory rising to life.
When she finally reaches a clearing, she stops. She knows exactly what is there. The lake.
Dark water ripples in the breeze, glassy surface reflecting the clouds hanging low in the sky. A wall of green surrounds it, protecting or suffocating, Sylvia doesn’t know.
Ethan and Theo catch up to her panting and muttering under their breaths. They stop next to her, squinting at the water in front of them.
“Shit,” Theo swears. Sylvia smiles.
Ethan’s hands shake as he drives the tent stakes into the dirt, a few feet from the lake. He doesn’t speak. Neither does Theo, save for the occasional attempted joke to lighten the weight straining on their shoulders. They don’t land.
Sylvia sits at the water’s edge, knees pulled to her chest and eyes staring into the depths of the lake. The water laps gently, bubbling at the rocks onshore. With each passing moment, it seems to reach toward her, like it’s reaching out a hand. It curls and foams tauntingly when it is pulled back, only to return stronger. Sylvia rests her head on her knees and watches.
Theo throws down his pack near a patch of flat ground and crouches to light the camp stove. “This is insane,” he mumbles, half to himself. “This is so fucked up, man. Like, way beyond the stories.”
Ethan doesn’t respond. He stares across the lake, to the forest, to Sylvia, jaw tight and knuckles pale as he grips a tarp.
“She’s been…weird,” Theo continues, eyeing Ethan nervously. “Like, distant and shit.”
The fire crackles to life. The sound is too loud, too real in the oppressive stillness around them.
Sylvia speaks softly, without turning around. “They lost them here.”
The boys still.
Ethan’s voice is careful. “Who, Sylvia?”
Her eyes stay fixed on the water, as if seeing the corpses of those lost. “Laura Lee. And Javi. He drowned. They let him. She tried to save them. It didn’t want them to leave.”
The lake, once calm, seems to shift under her words. Tiny ripples appear on the glass surface, moving without wind.
Theo shivers.
Ethan doesn’t take his eyes off Sylvia.
And then she mutters, low and under her breath. It doesn’t sound like her voice. It’s higher, sweeter. She rocks in place, head bowed as if in reverence.
“The Lord is my salvation, whom shall I fear?
The Lord is my strength, whom shall I fear?”
The morning brings a heavy fog that clings to the treetops and rolls over the lake in thick, silver bands. It’s quiet, too quiet. No insects trilling, or birds singing their morning song. Just the low lap of the water and slight howl of the wind. It’s a stillness that feels deliberate.
Theo’s the first to suggest it, trying to shake the nerves from before.
“Let’s swim,” he says, peeling off his shirt like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “It’s hot as hell and my brain needs a reset.”
Ethan gives him a disapproving glance, but doesn’t stop him. “You’re seriously getting in that water?”
Theo shrugs. “It’s just a lake. Not like it can be haunted too.”
Sylvia stands a few paces away, barefoot on a mossy rock, arms crossed over her tank top. The wind whips her dark hair into her face, but she doesn’t move. She just stands there, watching, waiting.
Theo wades in first, cold water biting his legs. “Shit. Okay. Refreshing. Definitely refreshing,” he mutters through gritted teeth, then dives under in a splash.
Ethan hesitates, then follows, more for Theo than for himself. “Don’t go too deep,” he warns as he swims out.
Sylvia dips her feet into lake, closing her eyes as the cold washes over her. She slowly wades in, not bothering to shed her clothes. Once she’s waist deep, her eyes close, head tilting to the expansive sky above. Her hands raise slightly in reverence. Then, she waits.
For a while, it’s normal. Or it seems to be. The chill almost feels good, waking them up from the dreamlike haze of yesterday. They laugh a little; awkward, shaky laughter, but it’s something.
Then Theo dives under. Deeper this time.
The world shifts under the water. Sunlight barely pierces through the green murk. He swims down, eyes straining to see and lungs burning. That’s when he feels it.
Something grabs hold of his ankle, cold and urgent. Theo turns quickly, the water stilling his movements. There, he sees a boy.
His skin is pale, his lips blue with cold. Layers of clothing hang from his skinny frame, dragged down by water and time. His eyes are wide, imploring as they bore into Theo’s. At first, he seems almost alive. But behind the boy’s eyes, death is prominent, a lingering darkness seeping into his gaze.
His mouth moves, words forming on his blue lips.
“ Don’t trust her.”
Theo screams, jerks his leg from the boy’s deathly grasp. Bubbles escape from his mouth. He kicks upward, heart pounding.
Theo bursts from the water, gasping, eyes wild. “Jesus, there’s someone down there!”
Ethan swims over fast, grabbing his arm tightly. “What are you talking about?”
“There was a boy, he looked dead. His face was all blue, and he grabbed me, Ethan!”
Near the shore, Sylvia’s eyes open, fingers dancing on the water’s dark surface.
“He’s part of it now,” she says softly.
Theo stares at her, dripping and shaking. “You knew.”
Sylvia doesn’t answer. She just closes her eyes and lifts her head to the sky once more. A small smile plays on her lips.
And in the lake, all the ripples vanish at once. As if nothing had ever moved at all.
The lake glows dull silver beneath the rising moon, its surface still as glass. Even the breeze has died. The trees ring the lake like watchful guards, reflections stretching long and dark across the water.
They eat dinner in uneasy silence. The fire sputters low, in its pit, more smoke then flame. Every pop of burning wood seems to echo around the clearing, reverberating across the lake.
Theo stares into the fire, knees drawn to his chest, fingernails bitten bloody.
“I don’t care what you say,” he mumbles, voice shaking. “I know what I saw. That was a fucking boy, like a corpse or some shit. And we all heard the baby cry.”
Ethan presses his mouth into a thin line. He glances at Sylvia, shaking in her still-wet shorts and tank top. She hasn’t eaten, hasn’t sat down since Theo had seen the boy. She stands at the tree line, face lifted to the sky as if she’s listening for something.
“I think we should leave tomorrow,” Ethan says finally. “Get up early. Get out before…before this gets worse.”
Sylvia turns then, slowly. Her face is unreadable in the firelight, but her eyes seem to glow, dark and still.
“It won’t let us leave,” she says calmly.
Ethan frowns. “What?”
Sylvia walks toward them, sits cross-legged by the fire, and holds out her hands like she’s trying to warm herself, even though the night isn’t cold.
“You saw It. You heard it, too,” she whispers. “Javi, the baby.”
Theo flinches.
“Okay seriously, what the fuck are you talking about right now?” Ethan snaps. “That wasn’t real, Sylvia. You’re not okay. None of this is.”
Sylvia tilts her head. “I’m fine,” she says, too softly. “It just wants us to remember.”
“Remember what, exactly?”
She smiles faintly. “What it’s like to be fed.”
Silence falls. The fire crackles. In the distance, across the water, a howling screech echoes. High, shrill, and unmistakably human.
Theo jumps to his feet. “Nope. Nope. Fuck this. I’m not doing ghost camp in a demon forest and freaky-ass ghosts. I’m out.”
“C’mon, Theo,” Ethan says, more sharply than he meant to.
But Theo doesn’t sit. He turns toward the trees, breathing hard. “I’m gonna piss. Try not to get possessed while I’m gone.”
He disappears into the brush.
The fire dims again. Smoke curls into odd patterns, swirling around the camp, drifting toward Sylvia.
“What’s happening to you?” Ethan asks her quietly. Genuinely.
She gazes at him like she doesn’t know who he is.
“It’s waking up.”
Night presses in, thick and endless. The fire had long since gone out.
Sylvia lies in her sleeping bag, eyes open, staring at the roof of the tent. Her fingers trace the edge of the jacket, buried deep in her blankets. Ethan sleeps nearby, his breathing shallow and restless. Theo never came back.
The silence outside is absolute.
Then, she blinks, and she’s not longer in the tent. She’s standing.
The forest presses in around her, moonlight dripping from the canopy like silvery, thick blood. The trees are tall now, trunks stretching high into blackness. The earth pulses under her feet like a heartbeat, ancient and alive.
One by one, girls start to surround her, appearing from the darkness.
Jackie steps forward first, eyes hollow and skin blue with lost cold. Icicles hang from her lashes, yellow and blue jacket hanging loosely from her.
Mari follows, white dress soaked with red, holes punched clean through her chest. She smiles with cracked lips, blood staining her pale face.
Then Laura Lee–somewhat still burning, hair singed, dress scorched and glowing at the wedges. A gold cross necklace hangs from her neck. Smoke trails from her skin, but her expression is serene, peaceful.
Next is Javi and Coach Ben, one frozen and stiff, the other matted with dirt and seeping blood.
“You heard It,” they say in unison, voices layered and strange. “You felt It pulling you.”
Sylvia steps back, heart hammering. Her mouth is dry. “What is this?”
Jackie’s eyes widen. “It’s hungry again.”
The forest shudders.
Mari steps forward, head tilting. “You brought It back with you. You can free us.”
Laura Lee lifts her hands. Her palms are burned black. “The Wilderness never forgets. It only waits.”
“You woke it,” Javi says, boyish and innocent. “You fed it.”
Sylvia’s voice is a breath. “Fed it what?”
A sound behind her, a twig snapping. She spins.
At her feet, Theo lays on the forest floor, slack-jawed and empty-eyed. On his chest, the symbol stands, outlined in red and carved crudely. A knife sits beside him.
Then she blinks, and he’s gone.
Sylvia whirls back. “What do you want from me?”
Coach Ben shakes her head. “It’s not about what we want.”
Jackie’s voice is soft. “It’s about what It wants.”
“The Wilderness,” they all whisper together, overlapping in a haunting chorus. “It’s hungry.”
A gust of wind howls through the trees, and suddenly all the spirits scream, loud and piercing, and their forms begin to peel away, skin flaking like ash, hair unraveling into shadow. Only their eyes remain, glowing feral.
The Wilderness speaks then. Not in words, but in feeling. A pulse of hunger, ancient and massive and voidlike, pouring into Sylvia’s bones.
And deep inside, something answers.
She wakes with a gasp. Her hands are covered in dirt and dried blood. Outside, the sun is rising, pale and thin.
In her lap, she finds something that wasn't there before. A knife, weighty and stained with rusted blood. And a bone, small and clean.
Somewhere deep within the woods, a wail echoes.
Ethan stirs, early morning light casting dappled shadows on the tent roof. The chill of night lingers in the air, clinging to Ethan’s skin as he props himself up on his elbows. He blinks against the grogginess, mind still clouded from his restless sleep. His body aches, stiff from the uncomfortable position he’d fallen asleep in.
For a moment, everything is quiet. His senses slowly return, and as he takes in the stillness, he knows something is wrong.
He sits up, rubbing his eyes. His breath catches in his throat when he realizes Sylvia isn’t in her sleeping bag. The tent feels unnaturally empty, Sylvia’s absence pulling and twisting at his gut.
His heart starts to race. Where the fuck is she?
Ethan stumbles through the dense wood, heart choked in his throat, breathing ragged. Adrenaline courses through his veins, the need to find his sister and best friend and get the hell of here. The world around him seems to stretch, trees towering and warped, casting gnarled shadows that make him question his footing.
He calls her name again, determined to find her. His scream is cracked and hoarse. It echoes around the trees, catching on the air, taunting him. Nothing but the forest responds.
He knows she’s out here. He feels it. The pull, the terror. He can almost hear her in the wind, calling him. Or maybe it’s just the woods, the trapped spirits of those lost to time. It coaxes him deeper, pulling him in with a strange melody.
Every step feels further from reality, from the person he was. His mind is clouded with dread and confusion, but his feet continue their frantic running.
Then, something stops him. A flicker of something . An outline of a figure.
His eyes snap to the side, and there, at the base of a tree, lies Theo.
His body is splayed out unnaturally, eyes wide and open, staring at the sky, unblinking and glassy. They reflect the clouds above, as if he had become one with the expansive heavens. His face is drained of color, of life. A thin trickle of blood falls from his mouth, staining the ground beneath him.
Ethan’s heart stutters. He can feel it rot inside his body, every artery and vein popping and bursting in his chest. He steps forward, legs shaking, mind struggling to process what lies in front of him.
Theo. Dead. Just hours ago, he had been so full of life, so drunk on it, that Ethan could feel light radiating from him. Theo, who always knew how to put a smile on his face. Theo, who reflected the sun and the stars in his laugh.
As Ethan approaches, he sees it. The symbol. The symbol, carved into Theo’s chest in crude, jagged lines. Red lines streak his skin, marking him in some ritualistic pattern. Blood dries around it, still fresh, still wrong.
A cold, empty feeling washes over Ethan. His skin prickles with a primal, instinctive fear. He drops to his knees beside the body, gripping the cold, damp earth underneath him. His hands tremble as they hover over the lifeless form, unsure and clueless on how to fix this, how to bring his best friend back. Ethan always seemed to have answers. Now, he has none.
The moment his fingers brush the blood-soaked fabric of Theo’s jacket, the air shift. The woods throb, the ground humming to life, pulsing with a hunger so vast, so deep, Ethan can feel it reverberate in his marrow.
A sudden, overwhelming sensation presses on his chest. A sense of something bigger than him, too ancient and animalistic to comprehend. Something hungry. Something waiting.
He recoils instinctively, blood rushing as he looks around frantically. The trees loom larger, their gnarled branches stretching, reaching toward him. Silence and hunger is the only sound.
A gust of wind rushes through the forest, and in the distance, he hears it. A faint, unsettling sound. A laugh. Not born of humans, but of the Wilderness itself.
Ethan drags his gaze back to Theo’s body, gut pulling. Sickness spreads through him, something deep and primal twisting his organs with its cold hands. It’s as though the earth has swallowed him whole.
Something in the air shimmers faintly beyond the trees. A white figure, small and thin. Sylvia. It’s fleeting, but he knows. Her silhouette flickers in and out of focus, just out of reach, moving with purpose. Moving away from him.
His breath catches in his throat. A surge of panic fills him.
“ Sylvia!” he cries, guttural and desperate. The figure doesn’t stop. She moves with the air, darting through the trees with a certain lightness, as though she had become one with the woods. She vanishes into the woods, swallowed whole by the same ancient darkness that had taken Theo.
Ethan stays frozen, ice clawing in his veins. His hands shake as he pulls Theo’s lifeless body to his, a flowing river of tears falling unchecked from his eyes. The low hum continues from the dirt, shaking the leaves, rattling the branches.
The Wilderness is awake. And it’s hungry.
Ethan lifts his head to the sky as he hears the unmistakable beckon of Sylvia’s voice, calling his name. It’s faint and airy, far beyond the clearing. Maybe it’s not even earth at all anymore, but some dream-like world half-way between reality and heaven.
He stumbles to his feet, breath ragged as he runs toward the promise of his sister. Branches claw at his arms, brush rustling underfoot. The sun is barely risen, the light filtering into a grey veil of fog and dew. He spots her at the treeline, just beyond where the forest thickens. The deep, dark part, the part that breathes and speaks and cries.
“Sylvia!”
She doesn’t turn right away. Her dark hair moves slightly in the breeze, pure white dress clinging to her small frame. Her shoulders are slack, the weight of something vast pressing down on her very soul. When she finally turns, slowly and deliberately, her eyes are different. Older, distant.
“You found me,” she says softly, a sad smirk turning her lips.
Ethan stares at her, wide-eyed, finding dried blood caked under her nails, a knife glinting in her hands.
“Syl, what did you–” his voice cracks, Theo’s mutilated body flashing in his mind.
Her gaze falters. For a moment, there’s a deep, bone-breaking pain. Then resolve.
“I didn’t want to. But it needed something. It needs me.”
“No,” Ethan says, stepping forward with determination. “No, you don’t have to do this. There’s still time. We can still leave.”
She shakes her head slowly, eyes shimmering but dry. The fog around her seems to clear, a perfect path toward the forest opening. “Back to what, Ethan? To pretending there’s nothing out here? That they’re not still screaming in these woods for eternity?”
He hesitates, blood thickening with grief and disbelief. “We don’t even know what this thing is.”
“I do.” Her tone is quiet, reverent. “The Wilderness. It’s been starving for years, trapped under memory. They’re still here, Ethan. Mari and Jackie and Javi and Ben and Laura Lee. Confined for eternity in some place unmarred by time. And I can feel them. Their grief. Their hunger.”
She steps forward, touches his arm with a tenderness that rots his teeth out of his head.
“If I give myself to it…maybe it’ll be enough. Maybe it’ll let them go.”
His voice is a whisper. “And what about you?”
Sylvia smiles. Not joyful, but peaceful in that terrible, terrifying way.
“I think I stopped being me the moment I stepped into these woods.”
Then she turns, walks toward the hungry, waiting mouth of the forest. The trees seem to envelop her, fog wrapping her in a shroud of eternity.
As she vanishes between the trees, she calls back, soft and final.
“Tell them I didn’t. Tell them I went into the hunger willingly.”
And then she’s gone.
The trees close behind her, silencing the world she’s left behind for eternity. The air deepens. It’s thicker here, warmer. The blight bleeds amber and green, filtered through a trembling canopy.
Sylvia walks barefoot now, white dress swaying in the light breeze. The earth is soft and damp beneath her soles, moss growing over her feet, welcoming her like a returning daughter.
The spirits wait ahead.
Jackie, Mari, Laura Lee, Javi, Coach Ben, the Child.
They’re clearer now. No longer flickering spirits, but real in that awful, sacred way. Not alive, not quite dead. Trapped in that place between heaven and hell, in that empty void of limbo. Their eyes follow her.
“You came,” Mari whispers. Her voice is so young, so girlish in its disbelief that it twists Sylvia’s pulsing soul.
She kneels.
“I’m here,” she says. “I understand now.”
The woods exhale, a deep, resonant breath. The air around her bends with it.
A figure emerges from the depths of the trees, veiled and sacred. It is God, it is the Wilderness embodied. Its gnarled crown of bone sits atop its head, long, inhuman hands rising in acceptance. The Antler Queen receives the blessing of the Sacrifice.
Sylvia nods, head bowing in reverence. She draws the knife. The others watch.
“Theo was the beginning,” she murmurs in understanding. “I am the end.”
And she carves. Into skin. Into sinew. Into soft, thudding walls that once held her heart. She carves slowly, reverently. Not out of pain, but for communion. The blood flows freely, soaking her dress and the soil around her. The trees groan, their limbs reaching skyward, leaves rattling like teeth.
The forest pulses. The souls cry out, not in agony, but in freedom. It’s a cry that symbolizes the end, the end of all time. It’s the end of everything.
Their shapes blur, the wind dissolving them like ash. One by one, they vanish. And they smile at the Sacrifice, thankful. All but one.
Jackie stays behind, the first Feast, the first Queen. She watches with sad, knowing eyes. “You’ll stay with us now?”
Sylvia nods. Her mouth doesn’t move. She no longer needs to speak, for she is something greater than human now.
Her skin prickles. Roots thread through her fingers, over her veins. Dirt fills her hollow cavities, branches sprout from her marrow. She leans toward it, accepting the woods as it claims her, breath slowing, heart syncing with the rhythm of the earth.
She can feel her soul pulsing, rising into something not encapsulated in blood and flesh and bone. She’s free, her conscious lifting beyond human confines.
She becomes part of it. A limb. A hunger. A memory.
The forest accepts her.
The Wilderness is fed.