I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I stepped into that clearing. The air around me seemed to press in, quieting everything. The wind that had been rustling the leaves in the distance suddenly stopped. I could hear my own breath, ragged, and my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. My feet faltered, my steps slowing as I emerged from the thick woods into the eerie openness of the space. And then, I saw it. The ancient oak.

This was no ordinary tree. Its massive branches twisted into the sky like gnarled, skeletal arms—reaching for something I couldn’t see, maybe something lost in time. The bark was dark, cracked with age, and there was this heavy, almost oppressive weight in the air around it, like it was a force all on its own. It felt like the forest itself had been waiting for me to arrive, for this very moment to unfold. That oak, with its sprawling, dark roots curling out from its base, felt like the center of it all. Like it was holding onto some secret too powerful to be left alone.

I could feel the temperature drop, and the light around me grew strange. What had been a bright afternoon just moments ago now seemed muted, as though the sun had been swallowed by the dense canopy above. The air in the clearing felt thick—almost ancient—as if something beyond this world lingered here. I had never felt a place so alive with history, with presence. And yet, there was a quiet sadness to it too, like the forest was sighing in anticipation.

And then, there it was—the thing I had come to find. Or so I thought.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. I had expected treasure, right? Gold, jewels, something shiny, something that spoke of wealth and adventure. But instead, there was a coffin. Old, warped, and half-buried in the earth like it had been forgotten, waiting for someone to unearth it. The wood was faded, cracked in places, and stained dark with what I could only guess was age, rot, or something worse. The soil around it seemed to have already begun to claim it, curling over the edges, like the earth was slowly swallowing it whole.

My heart sank. This wasn’t treasure. This was something else. The deeper I looked at it, the more I felt that unmistakable pull—that sense that I shouldn’t be here, that this was a mistake. But there I was, staring at it like a fool, drawn forward by the very thing that had pulled me into the forest in the first place. This was the treasure Elias had spoken of, but now, standing here, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know what was inside.

I took a step closer, my feet sinking into the soft earth. My breath quickened, and a strange sense of dread crawled up my spine. Everything around me was so still, so quiet. The usual noises of the forest—birds chirping, animals scurrying through the brush—were completely absent. The wind had stopped. The only sound was the pounding of my own heart.

I reached out. My fingers brushed against the cold, weathered wood of the coffin, and I shuddered. It was as if I could feel the years of neglect beneath my touch. There was no lock, no clasp, nothing to hold it shut. Just that rough surface, smooth from the passage of time. My hands trembled as I pushed gently against the lid.

At first, nothing happened. And then, with a low, ominous creak, the lid began to rise. I stepped back, a cold chill sweeping through me as the coffin slowly opened, as if it had been waiting centuries for this exact moment. The sound was like a scream, stretched out across the years, a mournful protest from the past.

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I should’ve stopped. I knew I should’ve. Everything in me screamed to turn around and run back the way I came, but I couldn’t. The curiosity, the need to understand what was in that damn box, overpowered the fear that was rising in my chest.

And then the smell hit me. A rotten, musty stench that clawed its way into my nose and made my stomach turn. It was the smell of death—decay, rot, and something ancient. My head spun as I fought to keep my composure, but there was no denying what I was about to see.

The coffin was fully open now, and there, lying within it, was a body. But not just any body. It was twisted—broken, unnatural. Its limbs were bent at odd angles, and the skin was so pale, so stretched tight over the bones, it looked like it had been lying there for centuries. What I hadn’t expected, though, was the face.

The face.

It was a man’s face, but not just any man. The features were blurred, distorted, like someone had tried to draw a face but couldn’t quite finish it. It looked like something caught between the living and the dead, suspended in some grotesque limbo. But there was something else—something I couldn’t put my finger on. A strange familiarity, like I should know who this was.

I was frozen, my mind racing with questions, when a sound broke the stillness of the clearing. A rustling. A shift. Something moved inside the coffin.

And then, it rose.

My heart stopped. The body, that twisted, decayed thing, began to shift. Slowly, jerkily, like a puppet with broken strings. The hollow eyes snapped open—glowing with an eerie, unnatural light. I stumbled backward, my breath caught in my throat.

I didn’t know what to do.

The bones rattled as the thing pushed itself up from the earth with horrifying force, its movements deliberate, like it had been doing this for years. It sat up, its skull turning toward me, its empty eye sockets locking onto mine with a chilling intensity that made my blood run cold. It wasn’t just looking at me—it saw me. I could feel it, right in my bones.

And then I heard a voice.

“You’ve already met your fate, Adam.”

I whipped around, my heart in my throat. It was the man I had met earlier, the one who had warned me about the treasure. His face was pale now, his eyes wide with sorrow. It was clear he had known what was going to happen. He had known all along.

Before I could say anything, before I could even process what was happening, the creature lunged.

It moved faster than I could react, its bony hands reaching for the man’s throat. The sound of cracking bones filled the air as the skeleton gripped him with unnatural speed. The man’s eyes widened in shock and pain as the creature squeezed, its grip unrelenting. His body convulsed for a moment, and then, just like that, he went limp. The life drained out of him, and his body collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud.

The forest was silent again.

I stood there, paralyzed, as the skeleton turned its hollow gaze back to me. It was still, considering me, studying me like I was a puzzle it had yet to solve. And then, it gestured.

It was unmistakable. The creature wanted me to join the man. It wanted me to die, just like he had.

A wave of terror washed over me. This wasn’t a treasure hunt. This was a trap. My pulse hammered in my ears, and every instinct in my body screamed at me to run.

So I did.

I turned, and I ran. My legs burned, my breath came in ragged gasps, but I didn’t stop. The branches of the forest whipped at my face, the shadows swallowed me whole, but I didn’t dare look back. I couldn’t.

The clearing was behind me now, but the feeling of death, of something inevitable, wasn’t far behind. It was still with me, like a shadow that wouldn’t let go.

I had to escape. But even as I ran, I knew—I couldn’t outrun fate. Not yet.