Chapter Text
The storm had been chasing them for miles.
Rain slammed against the windshield of the van like a warning, and every flash of lightning illuminated the endless sprawl of dead pines. The radio crackled uselessly, all static and half-snarled voices — sightings, anomalies, disappearances.
“Remind me again,” Herta said, voice flat as she flipped through the field reports on her lap, “why are we wasting our time chasing fairytales instead of actual data?”
Asta, hunched over the map with a flashlight, sighed. “Because the locals said the lights came from the forest and because the IPC doesn’t pay us to ignore anomalies, no matter how ‘folkloric’ they sound.”
From the driver’s seat, Screwllum’s mechanical eyes glowed faintly in the rearview mirror. “And because you, Herta, are the one who wanted to disprove said anomalies by reading a hundred pages of superstition aloud to us.”
Herta didn’t even look up. “I stand by that.”
Her retort was swallowed by thunder. The van rattled violently as wind howled against it, the wipers struggling to keep up with the flood of rain.
Then a blinding flash of white split the sky. The thunder followed almost instantly, loud enough to shake the mirrors.
Screwllum cursed under his breath and yanked the steering wheel. “Brace—!”
The lightning struck a pine tree not ten meters ahead. The world turned white, then black again.
The tires screamed.
The van swerved hard — too hard — fishtailing across the narrow mountain road. Mud splattered across the windshield; the headlights cut briefly across the drop-off to their right, where the forest plunged into darkness.
“Hold on!” Screwllum barked, slamming his foot against the pedal. The sound of grinding metal was deafening.
The headlights swung wildly across the trees, then the guardrail. The barrier gave a long, tortured groan before it snapped, the van tilting at a sickening angle.
“Wait, wait — shit—!” Asta’s voice broke into a shriek as the world tilted forward.
And then they were falling.
The forest rushed up to meet them in a blur of rain and spinning light. Branches shattered against the hood. The roof caved in with a denting clang. Something flew past Herta’s head — a flashlight? a folder? — before slamming into the window and bursting into glass.
“Brake!” Herta shouted instinctively, though the word was meaningless now.
“I am!” Screwllum’s voice was sharp, clipped, almost offended as his metal fingers crushed into the steering wheel. Sparks flew from the dashboard.
The seatbelt bit into Herta’s ribs as the van bounced hard, skidding down the slope like a sled made of steel and bad decisions. Mud and pine needles sprayed in every direction, the wipers thrashing uselessly.
From the back came a strangled yelp. “I’m going to die! I’m actually going to die—”
“That’s not helpful, Asta!” Herta snapped, clutching the dashboard as the van spun sideways.
“Well neither is sarcasm!”
Another tree loomed out of the dark. Screwllum twisted the wheel at the last second, the van missing it by inches. The impact tore off the side mirror with a shriek of metal.
“Do something, you overclocked toaster!” Herta screamed.
“I am doing something!” Screwllum gritted out, his voice mechanical but strained. “I’m trying to ensure we don’t become modern art!”
“Less talking, more steering!”
The van lurched again — violently this time — and Herta’s head slammed against the window. Stars burst behind her eyelids.
Asta screamed again, the sound part terror, part hysteria. “I don’t wanna die in a van with you two arguing!”
“You should’ve thought of that before dragging us to Pennsylvania!” Herta shouted back, knuckles white on the seat in front of her as the van skidded.
“I didn’t drag you!” Asta yelled, voice cracking. “I just said the IPC reports looked promising!”
“And you call that not dragging?!”
“If you two are done assigning blame, I’d like to focus on the more immediate issue of us plummeting to our deaths.” Screwllum’s voice cut through the chaos, as the tires caught momentary traction on a patch of mud.
The reprieve lasted half a second before they hit a fallen branch the size of a limb. The van jolted violently — Herta’s teeth clacked together — and the back wheels left the ground entirely for a breathless instant before slamming back down.
Asta was thrown sideways, hitting the wall with a painful thud. “Ow—! Screwllum, if we survive, I’m deleting your driving protocols—”
The van spun again, half-sideways now, scraping bark as it grazed another tree.
“Fuck!” Herta screamed as the trunk loomed straight ahead. Screwllum yanked the wheel. The headlights caught the rain like shards of glass.
They missed the trunk — barely — before plowing nose-first into a thicket of mud and roots. The sound that followed was monstrous: metal groaning, water splashing, and the windshield spiderwebbing in an instant.
Steam hissed from the engine. For a long, ringing moment, there was nothing but the roar of rain and the ticking of the cooling metal.
Herta sat still for a heartbeat, her ears ringing. The smell of wet earth and burnt rubber filled the air.
Then a voice, muffled and indignant, came from the back seat. “…Are we dead?”
Herta blinked hard, rain leaking through a crack in the windshield. “No,” she muttered, unclipping her seatbelt with trembling hands. “Unfortunately.”
Screwllum let out a mechanical hiss that sounded suspiciously like a sigh. “We appear to have reached the bottom intact. A statistically improbable outcome.”
“Can you not say that like you’re disappointed?” Herta snapped, voice unsteady.
Ignoring her, Screwllum shoved at the deformed door until the hinges screamed and gave way. The storm’s breath hit them immediately — wet, cold, and loud enough to drown out thought. He stepped out, boots sinking into mud, and raised the hood to inspect the smoking remains of what used to be an engine.
Herta twisted around in her seat, peering into the back. The van was chaos — bags thrown open, cables tangled like seaweed, their laptops shattered across the floor. One of the field cameras was flickering weakly, showing static before dying completely.
Asta was slumped among the wreckage, groaning, trying to sit up.
“Oh for— Asta,” Herta breathed, unclipping her seatbelt completely. She crawled through the wreckage toward the back, ducking under the half-collapsed roof. The metal was bent inward just enough that they couldn’t stand, and the rain that poured through the shattered windows turned everything slick.
“Don’t move,” Herta muttered, grabbing the flashlight off the dashboard and clicking it on. The beam cut through the gloom, shaky but bright. She crouched beside Asta and started checking for injuries, pushing aside stray shards of glass.
Asta winced when Herta brushed her arm. “Ow— careful!”
“Stop squirming,” Herta said, voice flat but gentler now. “You’ve taken enough hits for one night.” She tilted Asta’s chin slightly toward the light. “Any dizziness? Blurry vision? Broken bones?”
“No… just… ow,” Asta mumbled, touching her forehead and grimacing when her fingers came back red. “Scraped, not cracked. I think.”
Herta sighed in relief, inspecting the rest. “Superficial cuts. Bruises. Nothing too deep. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” Asta wheezed out a laugh. “We fell off a mountain cliff, Herta. I’m not calling that lucky.”
Herta didn’t answer immediately. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a small antiseptic patch, and started cleaning the cuts on Asta’s arm. The smell of alcohol stung the air.
“Then call it… statistically improbable,” Herta muttered after a pause, mimicking Screwllum’s earlier tone.
Asta snorted weakly. “Ugh. You’re both terrible.”
From outside came the faint, rhythmic clang of metal — Screwllum at work, probably prying the engine casing loose. Each hit echoed through the rain-soaked van, followed by a burst of static from the short-circuited console.
Herta pulled out her phone. No signal. She tried the radio next. It hissed and crackled, dead. No signal, no network — nothing but the relentless drumming of rain on the roof.
“Comms are fried,” she said flatly, tossing the receiver aside. “Power grid too. What about your phone?”
Asta exhaled shakily and fished hers from her pocket. The screen was cracked in half, flickering briefly before going black. “Broken,” she muttered, voice trembling. “Completely.”
Herta pressed her palms against her face and sighed. “Brilliant. We’re fucked. But Screwllum’s checking the damage. If the engine’s not completely drowned, we might still—”
A sharp crack outside cut her off, followed by a burst of mechanical swearing muffled by the rain.
“—or maybe not,” she finished dryly.
Screwllum reappeared at the door, drenched and spattered with mud. Steam curled from his joints where the rain met overheated metal. “Status update,” he said crisply. “Engine block’s fractured. Transmission’s ruined. The van is — how do you put it — utterly finished.”
Asta groaned. “You’re kidding.”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
Herta leaned back against the dented wall, closing her eyes for a second. “Of course not. Why would the universe ever give us a break?” She glanced up again. “Do you have a signal?”
“Negative.”
“Perfect,” Herta muttered, her tone flat with exhaustion. “So, to recap: we’re stranded in a forest, it’s nearly midnight, our comms are dead, and it’s storming hard enough to drown an ark. I can practically hear fate laughing.”
Screwllum’s optical sensors flickered faintly blue in the dark. “You’re forgetting one minor advantage.”
Herta looked at him dully. “Which is?”
“We survived.”
Both Herta and Asta rolled their eyes in perfect synchrony.
Ignoring them, Screwllum turned toward the shattered windshield, scanning the rain-smeared treeline. “We’ll need to relocate before the slope floods. I’ll scan the perimeter.”
“Go ahead,” Herta murmured, watching the rain cascade down the glass in rivulets. The flashlight beam trembled in her hand, casting fractured light across the forest outside.
For a heartbeat, something moved beyond the trees — a shape too tall, too fluid to be a trick of wind and rain. She froze, her pulse hitching.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.
“Let’s pack what we can,” she said quietly, her voice edged with unease. “Before this gets worse. We’ll wait for Screwllum’s scan, then look for somewhere dry enough to sleep.”
Hours passed. Screwllum still hadn’t returned.
The storm hadn’t eased — if anything, it had grown worse. Rain hammered the van’s roof like relentless fists, and thunder rolled through the valley, shaking the ground beneath them. Both women were soaked to the skin, shivering as the cold bit through every layer of damp fabric. Even their spare clothes, sealed in bags, were ruined — soaked through by the leaking roof.
“What’s taking him so long?” Herta muttered, resting her forehead in her palm. Her voice was hoarse, somewhere between irritation and worry.
“Maybe he’s still searching?” Asta offered weakly, pulling her knees to her chest.
“It’s been two hours already, Asta,” Herta said, voice rough with exhaustion. She exhaled sharply, rubbing her temple. “All this just to prove to the IPC that those creatures are real.”
Asta let out a small, miserable sigh. “In their defense… the villagers weren’t lying. You saw their reports.”
Herta gave a low, humourless chuckle. “Yeah, well. I’d rather be reading those reports from my flat.”
“I just want to go home,” Asta murmured, her voice fading as she rested her head on her knees. The last word barely left her lips before sleep claimed her, soft and sudden, like a candle guttering out.
Herta didn’t answer. Her jaw tightened. The adrenaline from the crash had long since faded, replaced by a dull ache in her ribs. She pressed her hand against her side and winced, trying to breathe past the pain.
That’s when she smelled it — faint at first, but unmistakable.
Smoke.
Her head snapped up. “Wait—” she muttered, sniffing the air again. The smell grew stronger, acrid, metallic — like burning oil.
A flash of lightning ripped across the sky, flooding the van’s interior with light for a split second. And in that instant, Herta saw it — thin trails of smoke coiling from beneath the crumpled hood.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she breathed.
Then the engine hissed, sparks jumping.
“Asta, wake up!” Herta hissed, shaking her shoulder. Asta stirred sluggishly, barely registering what was happening.
“Wha—?”
“Up! Now!” Herta grabbed the flashlight and kicked the back door. It didn’t budge. She kicked again — nothing. Panic clawed at her throat. “Shit—”
“Herta—”
“Move!” she snapped, pinching the wound on Asta’s arm just hard enough to jolt her into motion. Asta hissed in pain, glaring, but the urgency in Herta’s eyes said everything.
“Help me crack this door open, the van’s gonna burst into flames!”
Asta scrambled beside her, both of them bracing against the metal. Herta kicked until her boots slipped against the mud, the hinges shrieking in protest — then finally, the latch gave. The door burst open with a wet clang.
“Go, go, go!” Herta shoved Asta out first, stumbling after her into the torrential rain. The mud sucked at their boots as they stumbled down the slope, rain pelting their faces. Behind them, the van began to glow from within — metal popping under heat.
“Run!” Herta yelled over the storm, pulling Asta up by the wrist. “Move before the tank blows!”
They sprinted — or tried to — slipping through mud and roots as firelight flickered between the trees. The forest swallowed them whole, before a blinding flash tore across the sky, followed by a deafening boom as the van finally exploded behind them. The shockwave knocked Herta to her knees. She covered her head, shielding Asta as flaming debris rained down.
Herta coughed, ears ringing, vision swimming. “Asta — Asta!”
“I’m here—” came the faint, trembling reply.
“Stay close!” Herta shouted, pulling her to her feet again. But the forest ahead had become a blur of motion and rain, trees twisting like dark sentinels. The smoke, the wind, and the thunder all merged into one chaotic roar.
Asta stumbled, clutching her side. “Herta— I—”
“I’ve got you,” Herta said through gritted teeth, looping an arm around her. “Just keep moving.”
But the terrain turned against them. The ground sloped downward, slick and uneven, branches whipping their faces. In the chaos — thunder, wind, and the roar of the burning wreck — Herta lost her footing.
Asta’s hand slipped from hers. Then, she turned for just a moment and Asta was gone.
“Asta?!” Herta yelled, spinning in place, flashlight beam cutting through sheets of rain. “ASTA!”
No answer. Only the storm, swallowing her voice whole.
She ran in the direction she thought Asta had gone, slipping on mud and dead leaves. Branches whipped her face. Every turn looked the same — black trunks, glistening under the rain, twisting into an endless maze.
“Asta!” she screamed again, breath ragged. Her flashlight flickered, threatening to die.
For someone who always pretended not to care, the panic in her chest was unbearable.
Don’t you dare disappear on me now, she thought. Not after everything.
She stopped, breath catching as she listened — but there was nothing. Just the low rumble of thunder and the whisper of the rain.
And somewhere deeper in the woods, something else moved.
Slow. Heavy. Watching.
Herta tightened her grip on the dying flashlight. “...Screwllum, you better be out there too,” she muttered, voice shaking. “Because this is officially the worst night of my life.”
The light flickered again. Then went out completely.
And Herta was left alone in the dark.