The rest of the night passed without incident, but no one slept. One of the guards, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and desperation, kept calling out into the oppressive darkness.
"John, come out, man! The game's not funny!" he cried, his tone cracking like brittle wood. "Jonny, come on, brother. It's time to be serious."
Each plea hung in the air, fragile and raw, before being swallowed by the heavy silence of the forest. None of the other guards stopped him. They didn't scold him, didn't tell him to quiet down or pull himself together. They just let him keep calling.
I really wished they hadn't.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the first sliver of light broke through the oppressive darkness. The pale dawn barely touched the forest floor, but it was enough to illuminate the figures lurking just beyond the firelight. There were so many more than before.
They weren't just shadows anymore. They had form—vague, but unmistakable. Some seemed almost humanoid. And then there were the smiles. Teeth, jagged and too many to count, grinned widely from the depths of their black forms.
The guards worked quickly, packing up everything with tense, hurried movements. The torch poles were pulled from the ground, the fires stamped out, and supplies loaded back into the cart. The contractors stopped their chanting all at once. Their silence spoke volumes—the night had worn on them too. Without a word, they climbed onto the cart, their postures rigid.
No one really spoke. The air was thick with exhaustion and unease. Lord Thorne allowed some of the guards to climb into the cart to take shifts sleeping while we moved. They slumped down, armor still on, weapons clutched tightly in their hands even as their heads nodded forward.
And just like that, the second day in the Dire Forest began, the cart creaking forward into the dim, twisted expanse. The oppressive weight of the forest hadn't lifted. If anything, it felt thicker. The figures remained at the edges of my vision, fading into the shadows yet always there.
As we moved, I noticed a signpost along the road, its weathered lettering barely visible through the gloom: Fourteen Mille to Maruseti. Lord Thorne caught sight of it and sighed, his shoulders slumping ever so slightly.
"Should be there before next nightfall," he muttered under his breath.
The day wore on, and I noticed that the plant growth was starting to thin ever so slightly. Not by much, but just enough to hint that we might be approaching the edge of this cursed forest. The guards had been rotating shifts, each taking turns to rest, and they seemed in better spirits as they emerged from their brief slumber. All except for the one who had been calling out for the missing guard.
He looked terrible. Dark rings clung to his eyes, which were bloodshot and unfocused. His movements were sluggish, as though he were barely holding himself together.
Suddenly, the cart lurched to a halt, throwing me off the seat I had been perched on. I hit the wooden floor hard, the jarring impact rattling through me. Above, I heard a dull thud followed by a string of curses—the contractors must have been thrown from the roof.
"What in the name of—" a guard's voice shouted from outside, but it was cut short.
Lord Thorne stormed out of the cart, his footsteps heavy with anger. "You incompetent fool, why did you stop the cart? I should ha—"
His voice cut off abruptly. A moment later, he reappeared inside the cart, his face pale and drawn.
"Edric, come on. We'll be moving by foot."
I blinked, confused and still reeling from the sudden stop. But I scrambled to my feet and followed him outside. As I stepped down, my eyes were immediately drawn to the cart. The wheels were in ruins, eroded and splintered as though they'd been left to rot for years. Yet I knew they hadn't looked like that before.
"Grab everything we'll need for another night, and let's move!" the captain barked, his tone sharp with frustration.
We set off through the forest, staying on the road. I noticed the horses were gone, their absence gnawing at my thoughts. Where had they gone? What had happened to them? But now wasn't the time to ask.
The guards moved in tight formation, surrounding Lord Thorne and me in a protective box. The captain led at the front, while each corner was anchored by one of the contractors. As we walked, the oppressive silence of the forest was broken by faint sounds—laughter, hollow and chilling, echoing through the trees. Then came the voices.
"Not going to make it~~"
"The dark is coming~"
"Your friend says Hello and he misses you."
That last one hit the guards the hardest. Their shoulders tensed, hands gripping their weapons tightly. A few exchanged uneasy glances, but no one spoke, their silence heavier than the oppressive air around us.
Then the voices shifted, honing in on me.
"Your mom is waiting for you."
"They're lying to you, never going to be free."
"Little bird, little bird, can't fly, can't fly."
The words slid over me, poking at wounds I thought had long since scarred over. But they didn't cut as deep as the voices seemed to want them to. I was used to verbal lashings, used to being stripped bare by cruel words. This was nothing new.
What struck me as odd, though, was how the voices ignored Lord Thorne and the contractors entirely. They seemed uninterested in them, as though I and the guards were the only ones worth their time. The guards wore their unease openly, their eyes flicking nervously toward the trees, grips heavy on their weapons.
The forest felt alive with malice, worse than the day before—more suffocating, more relentless. It was as if the longer we stayed, the more attention we drew from the spirits that called this cursed place home.
After what felt like an eternity, the thinning of the tree line became visible. Relief flickered through the group like a weak flame. Maybe another hour or two of walking, and we would be free of this cursed place. But the fleeting hope was smothered as night began to fall once more, descending with an oppressive weight even greater than before.
The captain barked an order, his voice cutting through the quiet. "Set up camp! Use the remaining wood and poles."
The guards scrambled to obey, moving with the urgency of men who had experienced too much too quickly. The contractors took their places, the chant they would soon resume was their armor against the unseen.
Without meaning to, I let my thoughts slip into words. "Why are we stopping, my lords? We're almost free of this place."
The captain's response was swift, his tone sharp but measured. "Failure is most common at the end, boy. Learn to pace yourself."
His words lingered in the air, heavy with meaning. As the camp began to take shape, I couldn't help but wonder if he was right.