Chapter Text
The first thought that came into her mind was why are the birds so loud?
Her senses slowly came back to her, as if her body had been shut down and was only now restarting. She realized her cheek was pressed against something terribly uncomfortable, and when she opened her eyes, a few leaves blew into her face with the wind.
Okay…
She wasn't in bed.
Her cheek was pressed to the forest floor.
Madison's eyes shot open. When she pushed herself up, the sudden movement sent a wave of vertigo through her head and for a moment she thought she was seeing double.
Tall trees stood around her, their leaves so golden and red that the light filtering through them almost blinded her when she looked up. The air felt strangely fresh. Every breath filled her lungs deeper than usual, and it burned a little.
She clutched at her chest as panic started to rise.
Her hand felt sticky. Madison slowly looked down.
And screamed.
Her entire chest was covered in blood. It wasn't fully dry yet. The dark red started at the center of her chest and ran down her torso, soaking through her shirt until the fabric was completely stained.
Madison frantically patted her chest, searching for the wound. But there wasn't one, her skin was smooth. If you ignored the layers of blood covering it.
Okay, okay. Don't panic, don't panic. Wait- my phone!
Madison's hand flew to the back pocket of her jeans, only to find it empty. Her stomach dropped. She checked the front pockets, then the pockets of her cardigan, her movements quick and clumsy, but there was nothing there.
Her phone was gone.
"No, no, no…" she muttered under her breath.
She crouched down and began searching the forest floor, pushing aside damp leaves and small twigs, her fingers trembling slightly as she dug through the ground around where she had been lying.
Nothing.
Her phone was nowhere.
Oh, that's bad. That's really bad.
Madison stood up and ran both hands through her hair, gripping it at the roots for a second before letting go. She began pacing in small circles.
Okay, Madison. Think. Where were you last night?
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force something to surface.
But nothing came.
Nothing.
Of course she remembered her name. Her address. Her parents' names. Her college. Her major. Normal things.
But what happened last night, she couldn't remember. Her mind felt like a blank wall.
All of it felt very wrong.
And it didn't help that the forest felt like it was closing in on her. The trees stood too tall, too close together, their branches stretching overhead like they were slowly caging her in.
Or maybe that was just her anxiety.
Madison swallowed and rubbed her temples. The vibrant colors of the leaves were already giving her a headache.
She needed to get out of here.
Okay.
She should just start walking. Eventually she would find a road. A gas station. A store. Something.
Then she could call her roommate. Her roommate would pick her up, take her home, and they would laugh about whatever weird situation this was.
Yeah.
That sounded like a plan.
Madison crossed her arms and started walking.
She just went straight ahead, not really knowing which direction to take. The chirping of the birds irritated her, but otherwise the forest was quiet. Which was good, she didn't really want to meet any animals out here that might decide she looked like dinner.
Or breakfast. It strangely felt like morning, though she wasn't entirely sure. The light filtering through the trees had that pale, early glow to it.
Did wolves eat humans?
Madison frowned slightly. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to that.
She kept walking, boots crunching softly over leaves and small twigs. After what felt like about an hour, she suddenly heard something. The faint, steady sound of a stream somewhere ahead.
Madison slowed down, listening carefully, then followed the sound through the trees.
And sure enough, a river came into view.
It was fairly wide, the water moving steadily over smooth stones. Madison stepped closer to the bank, peering at it for a moment. There was no way she could cross it even if she wanted to.
But what made her uneasy was something else. She was pretty sure there wasn't a river anywhere near her college.
Where the hell was she?
Madison wrapped her arms around herself for a second, staring at the water as the thought settled uncomfortably in her chest.
At least she could try to clean herself up.
She knelt down near the edge of the river, careful not to slip on the damp stones, and dipped her hands into the cold water.
The shock of it made her inhale sharply.
It was freezing.
But slowly she began rubbing the blood from her hands.
She leaned a little closer to the water.
For a moment the surface rippled too much to see anything clearly, but when it finally settled, Madison saw her reflection staring back at her.
She looked… awful.
Her dark hair was tangled and messy, strands sticking to her face. There was dirt on her cheek, and her eyeliner had smeared slightly under her eyes. She looked pale. Paler than she had ever seen herself.
And then there was the blood.
It covered the front of her shirt in dark, uneven stains, dried in some places and still faintly wet in others. It looked even worse reflected in the clear water.
Madison swallowed.
She splashed some water onto her hands and began rubbing at the blood on her skin. The cold made her fingers sting, but she kept scrubbing anyway, watching as the red swirled away in thin streams and disappeared into the current.
Her reflection wavered again as the water moved.
For a second, she almost thought she looked different.
More frightened than she felt.
Madison exhaled slowly and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It's okay," she muttered quietly to herself. "Everything is going to be okay."
Her feet burned.
She had been walking all day, eventually deciding to follow the river. It had seemed like the safest plan she could come up with.
Rivers had to lead somewhere, right?
Eventually there would be a town. A bridge. A road. Something.
Where there was water, there had to be civilization.
At least… that's what she hoped.
Madison winced as another sharp ache ran through the soles of her feet. She slowed down for a moment, flexing her toes inside her boots before continuing along the riverbank.
The light had changed without her really noticing it. The bright gold and red of the forest had slowly faded into darker shades, and now the sky above the trees was turning deep blue.
Night was coming.
The air had grown colder too, and the steady sound of the river beside her felt louder in the quiet.
Madison wrapped her arms around herself as she walked.
It didn't take long for Madison to realize that the forest at night felt completely different.
During the day it had been bright and almost overwhelming with color, the golden and red leaves glowing in the sunlight. But now everything around her had darkened into deeper shades, the trees along the riverbank standing like tall silhouettes against the fading light.
Out over the river, the sky was wide and impossibly clear.
Madison found herself glancing up more than once as she walked. The stars were beginning to appear, sharp and bright against the darkening blue, far clearer than anything she had ever seen before. There were so many of them it almost felt unreal, like someone had scattered handfuls of glitter across the sky.
The river beside her sounded louder in the darkness, the steady rushing of water carrying across the quiet woods.
Every now and then something rustled somewhere deeper in the trees, and Madison would immediately tense, her eyes snapping toward the sound before she could stop herself.
Her stomach twisted painfully.
She was starving.
She hadn't eaten anything all day, and now that the adrenaline from earlier had worn off, the hunger was starting to hit her properly. Her head felt a little light, and she pressed a hand against her stomach as she kept walking along the riverbank.
After a while she noticed a small bush growing near the edge of the trees, its branches heavy with dark berries.
Madison slowed down, crouching beside it.
They looked familiar.
For a moment she hesitated, staring at them as she tried to remember where she had seen berries like this before. Then something clicked in her memory. In middle school camping trip she had gone on years ago, where one of the instructors had spent nearly an hour explaining which berries were safe to eat and which ones would make you violently sick.
These looked like the safe ones. She was pretty sure of it.
Pretty sure.
Which, admittedly, wasn't the most comforting thought.
Still, the hunger won.
Madison carefully picked a few berries and rolled them in her palm before finally popping one into her mouth.
They were a little sour, but not terrible.
She let out a small breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and grabbed a few more, eating them slowly as she leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree. The bark was rough against her shoulders, but she didn't care. For the first time since she had woken up on the forest floor that morning, she allowed herself to sit still.
It wasn't much, but it was something.
Her stomach settled a little as she finished the last berry, and her gaze drifted upward again toward the sky above the river.
The stars were brighter now.
Madison tilted her head slightly, studying them. There were so many of them it almost felt unreal, scattered across the dark sky like tiny pieces of silver. She found herself trying to trace familiar shapes between them, squinting a little as she searched for constellations she recognized.
Orion. The Big Dipper. Anything.
But the patterns didn't quite line up the way she expected them to. The longer she stared, the more certain she became that something about the sky felt wrong, though she couldn't quite explain why. Eventually she exhaled quietly and rubbed her face with one hand, deciding that her brain was probably just tired after everything that had happened, even if the uneasy feeling in her chest refused to completely go away.
After a while the berries were gone, and the quiet of the forest settled around her again.
Madison pushed herself up from the tree and looked around the riverbank, trying to decide what to do next. Walking in the dark didn't seem like the smartest idea she'd ever had, especially when she could barely see more than a few steps ahead of her. The thought of tripping over a rock or twisting her ankle out here, with no one around for miles, made her stomach twist uncomfortably.
So for the first time all day she considered the obvious option.
She needed to sleep.
The idea felt strange. It was hard to believe that an entire day had already passed since she had woken up in the forest, confused and covered in blood. Now the sky had fully darkened, the river reflecting faint pieces of starlight as it moved quietly beside her.
Madison looked around until she found a tree with thick roots pushing up from the ground, forming a small hollow at the base of the trunk. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was sheltered enough, and at this point she wasn't in a position to be picky.
She brushed a few leaves aside with her foot and carefully lowered herself down, leaning her back against the trunk while pulling her cardigan a little tighter around herself as the night air grew colder.
For a long time she just sat there, listening.
The river moved steadily beside her, insects hummed somewhere in the grass, and every now and then the wind stirred the branches above her head.
Eventually she closed her eyes.
But sleep didn't come.
Her mind refused to quiet down, thoughts circling restlessly the moment she stopped moving. She found herself thinking about home. About her roommate, her friends, her parents. And wondering if anyone had noticed yet that she hadn't come back the night before.
The thought made her chest tighten at first. Her roommate would have realized something was wrong eventually, especially when Madison's phone probably went to voicemail all day. Someone would call her parents, or the police, and people would start asking questions.
And even though she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there, the thought that people back home were probably worried about her, probably looking for her already, settled somewhere inside her in a strangely comforting way, giving her something small but steady to hold on to as she laid there in the darkness.
She opened her eyes again. For a while Madison just leaned her head back against the tree and watched the sky above the river. The stars had only grown brighter as the night deepened, and the slow movement of the water beside her created a soft, steady rhythm that almost made it easier to breathe. Her body was exhausted from walking all day, and despite the tension still lingering in her shoulders, she could feel herself slowly starting to drift toward sleep.
She wasn't sure how long she had been laying there when a strange feeling pulled her back to full awareness.
It took her a moment to realize what had changed.
The forest had gone quiet.
Earlier there had been the constant low hum of insects somewhere in the grass and the occasional flutter of wings in the trees, sounds she hadn't even noticed until they were gone. Now the only thing she could hear was the river moving steadily over the stones beside her.
Madison lifted her head slightly, listening.
At first she told herself she was imagining things. Forests probably went quiet at night all the time, and she was just being paranoid after the day she'd had. Still, something about the silence made the hair on the back of her neck prickle in a way she couldn't quite explain.
A faint sound drifted across the river then, soft enough that she almost missed it.
It sounded like something moving through dry leaves.
Madison's gaze slowly shifted toward the opposite bank, her eyes adjusting to the darkness as she tried to focus on the shapes between the trees. The shadows there were deep, the trunks forming uneven black lines against the dim light of the sky, and for several long seconds she couldn't see anything at all.
Then, just for a moment, something caught the faint reflection of starlight.
Two small glints appeared between the trees.
Madison stiffened without meaning to. They were too far away to make out clearly, just pale flashes in the darkness, but there was something unmistakable about the way they stayed perfectly still while everything else around them shifted in the wind.
It took her a second to realize she was looking at eyes.
Her breath slowed as she stared across the river, trying to convince herself it was probably just some animal that had wandered down toward the water. A deer, maybe. Or a fox. Something harmless that had noticed her movement and stopped to watch.
But the longer she looked, the less certain she felt.
The shape behind the eyes was too dark to make out properly, blending almost completely into the trees, and when it finally moved it did so quietly enough that Madison nearly doubted she had seen it at all. The faint reflections disappeared as whatever had been standing there slipped deeper into the forest, the sound of leaves shifting briefly returning before the quiet settled over the riverbank once again.
Madison stayed where she was, her back pressed against the rough bark of the tree as she kept watching the place where the eyes had been, suddenly far more aware of the darkness around her than she had been a few minutes earlier.
Madison must have fallen asleep eventually.
It hadn't been deep or comfortable sleep, the kind where your body actually rests, but more like drifting in and out of exhaustion until the darkness slowly gave way to pale morning light.
When she opened her eyes again, her entire body ached.
Her back felt stiff from leaning against the tree all night, and her neck protested the moment she tried to move it. Madison groaned softly and pushed herself upright, stretching her arms slightly as she tried to work the soreness out of her shoulders.
Sleeping outside, she decided, was absolutely terrible.
Her stomach twisted sharply then, reminding her that the handful of berries from the night before had not been nearly enough. Hunger sat heavily in her stomach now, a dull constant ache that made her feel a little weaker than she would have liked.
Madison rubbed her face with both hands and glanced toward the river beside her.
The morning light had returned to the forest, soft and golden as it filtered through the leaves, and the steady sound of the water moving over the rocks felt oddly reassuring after the quiet tension of the night before.
At least the river was still there.
Which meant her plan was still the same.
She brushed the leaves from her clothes, adjusted the cardigan around her shoulders, and started walking again along the riverbank, hoping that sooner or later the water would lead her somewhere that actually had people.
Madison kept walking along the riverbank, the steady rush of water beside her slowly blending into the background of her thoughts. The morning had warmed slightly, sunlight filtering through the trees and catching on the moving surface of the river, and for a little while she almost managed to forget how completely lost she was.
Almost.
Her feet still ached from the day before, but walking felt better than sitting still and thinking too much.
She had been staring down at the uneven ground in front of her when something pale caught her eye through the brush near the edge of the trees.
She slowed.
At first she thought it was just another rock, but something about the shape made her stop.
That wasn't a rock.
She stepped off the narrow strip of dirt along the river and pushed aside a few thin branches to get a better look.
Stone blocks sat half-buried in the earth, their surfaces worn smooth by time. Near the ground, a small section of wall curved slightly, several large stones stacked together in a way that was far too orderly to be natural.
Madison crouched almost automatically.
Well, that's interesting.
She brushed away a patch of moss and leaned closer to examine where the stones met. Whoever had built this had shaped the blocks carefully; they fit together so tightly she could barely see the seams.
"No mortar," she murmured.
The stones were old, really old by the look of them. Moss had grown thick in the cracks, and small plants had pushed their way between the gaps, their roots slowly shifting the structure over time.
Madison tilted her head, studying the remains.
The visible section wasn't large enough to tell exactly what it had been, but the curved shape suggested some kind of foundation. A small tower maybe, or a watch post. Settlements were often built near water, so it wasn't impossible something had once stood here.
She straightened slightly and glanced around the quiet forest.
If this was a historical site, it was the worst maintained one she had ever seen. There were no markers, no fencing, no helpful sign explaining what had once been here.
Nothing.
Which was strange, because ruins like this were usually documented or protected in some way.
Madison ran her hand over the cool stone again, curiosity pushing aside the anxiety that had been sitting in her chest since the day before.
"Okay," she muttered quietly. "Either I wandered into the world's worst preserved archaeological site… or I'm way further from campus than I thought."
She wasn't even supposed to be thinking about ruins right now. Considering the fact that she had woken up covered in blood and had no idea where she was, analyzing old stonework probably shouldn't have been her priority.
But the moment she had noticed the structure, a familiar part of her brain had switched on.
That was the problem with studying archaeology.
Once you spent enough time staring at excavation photos and ruined foundations in textbooks, it became hard to see something like this and not immediately start trying to figure out what it used to be.
Madison leaned closer again, brushing away more dirt and moss from the surface of the stone.
Something caught her eye.
At first she thought it was just a scratch, but as she cleared away more moss the line curved in a way that didn't look natural.
She wiped the surface with her sleeve.
There was definitely something carved there.
The lines were shallow and worn, but too deliberate to be accidental. It wasn't a large carving, just a small mark etched into the face of the stone, the kind you might miss entirely if you weren't looking closely.
She brushed away the last bits of moss.
A star emerged from the weathered surface.
Not the neat five-pointed kind you'd draw in a notebook, but one with several narrow points spreading outward from the center. Time had softened the edges, and one point had nearly worn away, but the shape was still recognizable.
"Huh."
She traced one of the narrow points lightly with her fingertip.
The carving wasn't deep, but whoever had made it had done so carefully. The lines were steady, too precise to have been scratched there by accident.
Madison studied it for a moment.
It didn't resemble any alphabet she recognized. If it meant something, it was probably symbolic. A boundary marker maybe, or a builder's mark left behind by whoever constructed the place.
Which only made it stranger.
Usually carved symbols at least looked vaguely familiar.
She leaned back slightly, still staring at the star.
"Okay," she murmured to herself, "either I completely slept through the lecture where they explained this one…"
Her eyes drifted across the clearing.
Now that she had noticed the ruins, the entire area looked different. What she had first taken for scattered stones suddenly seemed more deliberate. Several more blocks lay half-buried nearby, some tilted at awkward angles, others almost swallowed by earth and leaves.
She stood and stepped farther into the clearing.
From this angle she could almost trace the outline of something in the placement of the stones. Not a large structure, but definitely something built intentionally.
"Yeah," she muttered under her breath, glancing around. "This is definitely a ruin."
Her professors would have loved this.
Madison crouched beside another stone and brushed away a layer of leaves, wondering briefly how old the place might actually be.
She was leaning closer to inspect the edge when a sound drifted through the trees.
Voices.
Madison went completely still.
At first she thought she might have imagined it, but then she heard them again, low voices carrying faintly through the forest somewhere beyond the riverbank.
People.
Her head lifted immediately.
For a moment relief rushed through her so quickly it almost made her dizzy. After spending an entire day alone in the woods, the idea that there were other human beings nearby felt almost unreal.
She straightened slightly, instinctively turning toward the sound.
Through the trees she could just make out movement between the trunks.
Three men appeared a moment later, walking along the edge of the forest not far from the river. They moved with an easy familiarity with the terrain, their steps quiet as they passed between the trees.
She blinked.
They were wearing cloaks.
Long, dark ones that hung almost to their boots, the fabric shifting as they walked. One of them had a bow over his shoulder, and the others carried swords at their sides.
Actual swords.
Madison felt her initial relief hesitate slightly.
The whole scene looked strangely out of place, like she had stumbled into some kind of historical reenactment group that had wandered way too far off course.
Her first instinct was to call out to them, but the words caught somewhere in her throat.
Instead, almost without thinking, she stepped back and lowered herself behind the remains of the ruined wall, crouching so the stones hid most of her from view. The moss-covered blocks were low, but between them and the trees she figured she was at least somewhat concealed.
She peeked carefully over the edge of the stone.
The men continued walking through the trees, their cloaks blending easily with the shadows of the forest.
She stayed perfectly still, watching them as they passed.
Madison suddenly became very aware of the fact that she was alone in the woods, hiding behind a pile of ancient ruins while three armed strangers walked past wearing cloaks and swords like they had stepped out of a completely different century.
For now, it seemed smarter to stay quiet and watch what they did before deciding whether revealing herself was actually a good idea.
From where she was crouched, Madison could see them clearly as they moved along the edge of the clearing. They didn't seem to be in any hurry, but there was something deliberate about the way they walked, as if they knew exactly where they were going. One of them said something quietly to the others as they passed the ruins, his voice low enough that Madison couldn't make out the words.
The tallest of the three slowed when he reached the broken wall.
She instinctively ducked lower behind the stones, pressing her shoulder against the rough surface as she waited. Through a narrow gap between two blocks she watched him pause beside the ruin. He rested a hand on top of the wall for a moment, his fingers brushing over the moss-covered stone before he moved on.
Her eyes shifted immediately to the place where his hand had been.
It was the same section of wall where she had uncovered the carved star.
The man didn't linger long. After a moment he said something over his shoulder to the others and continued forward. The three of them disappeared between the trees, the forest gradually swallowing the sound of their voices.
She stayed crouched where she was for another minute, listening carefully and watching the path they had taken to make sure they weren't coming back.
When she was finally convinced they were gone, she slowly straightened and stepped out from behind the ruined wall.
The clearing felt quiet again. The sound of the nearby river filled the space they had left behind, and for a few seconds Madison simply stood there staring at the empty path as if the men might suddenly reappear.
Then the reality of what she had just seen finally settled in.
Three men had just walked through the woods carrying swords.
Actual swords.
Madison rubbed her face with both hands, letting out a slow breath as she tried to make sense of it.
Her mind immediately started searching for explanations that sounded reasonable. Maybe there was some kind of medieval festival nearby. Or a filming location. Or one of those groups that did historical reenactments and took it very seriously.
But even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it didn't quite fit.
The men hadn't looked like they were playing dress-up. Their cloaks were worn from travel, their boots muddy, and the weapons at their sides had looked far too real to be props.
She glanced around the quiet clearing again.
The ruins. The forest. The unfamiliar river. And now three armed men moving through the trees as if that were the most normal thing in the world.
An uneasy feeling settled in her chest.
At the time staying quiet had seemed like the smart decision. Now she wasn't so sure.
Her gaze drifted again toward the direction they had gone, her fingers curling slightly at her sides as she considered the possibility of following them.
If they were heading somewhere, anywhere with people or buildings, they might be her best chance of getting out of this forest.
But the memory of the swords at their sides made her hesitate.
Running after three armed strangers she didn't recognize wasn't exactly the safest plan she could come up with.
Still…
From the edge of the clearing she could see where they had passed. Leaves were disturbed along the ground in a narrow line between the trees, and a few low branches had been pushed aside along what looked like a faint path.
Madison walked toward it slowly.
She paused at the start of the trail and looked ahead. There was no sign of the men anymore, just the quiet forest stretching forward.
Then she started walking.
She followed the path carefully, stepping where the ground looked firm and trying not to make too much noise as she slipped between the trees. The trail curved slightly away from the river, weaving deeper into the forest.
Madison kept moving, watching the spaces between the trees where the men had disappeared.
If she was careful, she might still catch up to them.
And right now, they were the only lead she had.