The darkness pressed against my skin like a living thing, each step a battle against unseen forces. My legs burned from hours of walking, but stopping wasn't an option. The forest had swallowed all traces of my path, leaving me no choice but to push forward.
A break in the trees caught my attention. The canopy opened up, revealing a patch of sky darker than pitch. No stars pierced that void, no moon cast its glow. The clearing stretched before me, a perfect circle carved from the forest's heart.
My breath caught. In the center loomed a tree unlike any other. Its trunk twisted upward like a tortured soul frozen in agony, wider than ten men standing shoulder to shoulder. Branches spiraled toward the sky in impossible patterns, their tips lost in the darkness above.
The rope stopped me cold. It coiled around the trunk in massive loops, thick as my body, its surface smooth and unmarked by time. No natural fiber could achieve such size. The rope disappeared into the ground on one end and vanished into the canopy on the other.
"What kind of tree needs binding?" My whisper echoed in the unnatural silence.
I approached with cautious steps. The ground beneath my feet changed from packed earth to something that felt like stone, though I couldn't make out its color in the gloom. Patterns were carved into its surface - symbols in a language I'd never seen.
The massive rope radiated cold. When I reached out to touch it, my fingers hesitated inches away. Something about it felt wrong, like it wasn't meant for human hands. Up close, I could see subtle movements in its surface, as if something flowed beneath it.
The tree's bark was black as coal, but it held no reflection. Light seemed to sink into it and vanish. Deep grooves were carved where the rope pressed into its surface, as if the binding had been there for centuries.
My chest constricted as I took another step toward the bound tree. The air grew thick, like breathing through wet cloth. Each movement forward felt like wading through invisible mud, my muscles straining against nothing.
"What's happening?" My voice came out as a rasp.
The pressure built behind my eyes. The twisted trunk before me split into two, then three wavering images. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. The symbols carved into the stone floor began to pulse with a faint red glow.
"I need to-" The words died in my throat. My lungs refused to expand, as if gripped by an iron fist.
The massive rope blurred and shifted, its surface rippling like water. Dark spots danced at the edges of my sight. My legs trembled, no longer able to support my weight.
I crashed to my knees. The impact sent shockwaves of pain through my body, but I barely felt it through the crushing weight bearing down on me. The stone beneath my palms burned cold, the glowing symbols searing into my flesh.
"Help," I mouthed the word, but no sound emerged.
The pressure increased until I thought my skull would crack. My arms gave out and I slumped forward, forehead pressed against the freezing stone. The world spun violently, reality fracturing around me.
Through my fading vision, I watched the symbols' glow intensify, casting bloody shadows across the clearing. The rope's movement became more pronounced, its surface churning like a stormy sea.
My consciousness slipped away piece by piece, darkness creeping in from all sides. The last thing I saw was the base of that massive tree, its bark seeming to pulse in time with my failing heartbeat.
My head snapped up at the sound, muscles screaming in protest. The pressure lifted from my chest, allowing me to draw in desperate gulps of air.
"Who-" I coughed, throat raw. "Where are you?"
The voice held no direction, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It filled the clearing like thunder, yet carried the soft hiss of wind through dead leaves.
"Stand up, child. Let me look at you."
My body moved without conscious thought. The burning symbols beneath my feet cooled, their crimson glow fading to a dull pulse. I rose on shaking legs, hands pressed against my thighs to keep from falling.
"I didn't-" My voice cracked. "I got lost in the forest."
Laughter rolled through the clearing, deep and terrible. The massive rope around the tree rippled faster, its surface churning like a pot about to boil over.
"Lost? No one gets lost here. This forest exists beyond your mortal paths. You were drawn here, like a moth to flame."
I squared my shoulders, fighting against the tremors that ran through my body. "I don't understand. What is this place?"
"Such spirit, even in the face of the unknown." The voice grew closer, more focused. "Most humans would have fled by now. Or died from the pressure of my presence."
The rope's movement caught my eye. Sections of it began to unwind, sliding against each other with a sound like scales on stone.
"You're... you're in the rope?"
"The rope?" Another laugh, shorter this time. "This is no rope, child. What binds this tree is far older than your comprehension. I am both prisoner and prison, sealed away by powers long forgotten."
My legs gave out again and I dropped to my knees. The voice held weight, each word pressing against my mind like physical blows.
"Look at me when I speak to you."
I forced my head up. The rope had changed. Portions of it had separated from the tree, hovering in the air like serpents ready to strike. In the gaps between its coils, I caught glimpses of something darker than the void above - a presence that made my soul recoil.
"How long has it been since I've tasted such potential?" The voice purred. "Such raw anger, such delicious pain. Tell me, child, what brings you to my forest?"
My throat constricted as I tried to form words, each syllable a battle against primal terror. The presence pressed closer, an invisible weight that made the air thick as syrup.
"I asked you a question, child." The voice slithered through my mind, sharp as broken glass.
"I... I was cast out." The words tumbled from my lips. "The city guards, they-"
"Not what happened. Why you're here. In my forest." The hovering coils tightened their circle around me. "What drives you forward when others would turn back?"
My hands clenched into fists against the cold stone. Sweat trickled down my spine despite the chill. "I had nowhere else to go."
"Lies." The word cracked like a whip. "I taste the fury in your blood, the hatred that burns beneath your skin. Tell me the truth."
The pressure behind my eyes built until spots danced across my vision. I swayed, struggling to stay upright as the world tilted sideways.
"They treated me like nothing." The words burst from me, hot and bitter as bile. "Like I was less than human. I want-" I choked on the admission.
"Say it."
"I want them to suffer." My voice cracked. "I want them to know what it feels like to be powerless, to be afraid."
The coils shifted, their surface rippling with patterns that hurt to look at. "Now we come to truth. Your pain calls to me, little one. It sings such a sweet song."
I spun in place, trying to track the voice as it moved around me. The symbols beneath my feet pulsed faster, their light casting twisted shadows across my skin.
"Where are you?" My words echoed in the unnatural silence. "Show yourself!"
"Brave words from one so small." Amusement colored the terrible voice. "But perhaps... yes. Perhaps you've earned that much."
The coils parted before me, revealing the massive tree's trunk. Something moved within the bark, something that shouldn't exist in any sane world. A darkness deeper than night spread across its surface like spilled ink.
Two points of crimson light bloomed in that darkness, fixed on me with predatory intensity. They weren't eyes, not really, but my mind couldn't process them as anything else.
I tried to scramble backward, but my body wouldn't respond. Those points of light held me transfixed, burning into my soul with ancient, terrible knowledge.
"Do you see me now, little one?" The voice came from the darkness itself, each word sending tremors through the ground. "Do you understand what you've found?"
My heart hammered against my ribs, trying to burst free of my chest. The edge of my vision darkened as those burning points drew closer, closer...