I don't know how long I ran after that—probably not long enough. My feet were pounding the forest floor, and I barely felt them anymore. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and decaying leaves, stinging my face as the wind whipped through the trees. But it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting away, getting as far from that clearing as I could. From the coffin, the skeleton, and... Elias, or whatever that guy's name was. It was all too much, too twisted, too wrong.

Every time my foot hit the ground, my body screamed for me to stop, but I couldn’t. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t slow down. The woods around me felt... alive, and not in a good way. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone, that something—or someone—was watching me, following me. The air felt like it was pressing in on me, getting heavier, the shadows thicker, the forest more suffocating. It was like I had stepped into some kind of nightmare, but I couldn’t wake up. I just had to survive.

Then, it happened.

At first, I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me, but as the soft padding of footsteps reached my ears, I realized it was real. Faint at first, but growing louder with every passing second. Someone—or something—was following me. I froze, every muscle in my body locking up as I whipped around, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might explode.

I searched the forest frantically, my eyes scanning the trees and the underbrush. Nothing. No glowing eyes. No skeletal figure. Just the fog. Thick, rolling in from nowhere, swallowing up the forest and blanketing everything in a cold mist.

I took a shaky breath, trying to calm myself down. It was just the forest, I told myself. I was losing it. I needed to focus. But then, the footsteps came again. Closer this time.

My stomach dropped. My breath hitched. I spun around again, my chest tight with panic. And that’s when I saw him.

A figure emerged from the fog, moving toward me with slow, deliberate steps. At first, I couldn’t make out any details, just a shadow in the mist. But as he got closer, my heart sank. It was a man—someone who looked like he’d been lost in the woods for years. His clothes were rough, weathered, like he’d been living out here for far too long. His face was lined with age and hardship, but it was his eyes that got to me. They weren’t just tired, they were knowing. And there was something in them, something that made my skin crawl.

But it was the limp that made me freeze in place.

The man’s right leg dragged behind him with every step. It wasn’t subtle—it was a full-on limp, like something was broken in his leg. My stomach churned as I watched him, and the oddest sensation washed over me. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew. I knew that one day, I would be the one walking through the woods with that exact same limp. It was like I was seeing my own future play out before me, stretched out in front of me in real time. In this very spot.

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A cold shiver ran down my spine, and I could hardly breathe. Was it me? Was I looking at myself?

I shook my head, trying to clear the thought from my mind. But it wouldn’t go away. The more I looked at this man, the more I felt like I was seeing something—someone—I already knew. The fog around us thickened, swirling in the air like it had a mind of its own, but it couldn’t hide the man’s face, nor his limp.

“Lost, are you?” The man’s voice broke through my thoughts. It was deep, gravelly, like someone who had been shouting through storms for far too long. There was something familiar in the way he said it, like it wasn’t just a question—it was a statement.

I blinked, startled by the question. I hadn’t expected him to speak, and my throat tightened. I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. His eyes gleamed with this strange awareness, like he already knew everything I was thinking, everything I couldn’t comprehend.

“I... I don’t know,” I finally managed to croak, my voice rough from running and the panic still lodged in my chest. “I don’t know where I am.”

The man smiled, a crooked, jagged grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Something about it felt wrong—unnatural, even. It was the kind of grin you’d expect from a predator.

“You’ll never escape this forest, you know,” he said. It wasn’t a warning. No, it was a certainty. Like he was stating a fact, like he knew something that I didn’t. The words hung in the air, heavy, as if they were carved into the very earth beneath my feet.

I felt my blood run cold. His words weren’t just some vague threat—they felt final. Like there was no point in running. Like the forest had already claimed me, and I was never going to get out.

I wanted to argue, to demand answers, to scream at him, but the words died in my throat. The fog was thickening now, swirling around me, cutting off any hope of seeing the path ahead. The forest wasn’t just a forest anymore. It wasn’t just trees and dirt. It was a trap. A prison.

I took a hesitant step back. But before I could do anything else, the man turned, his limp dragging behind him with every step, fading into the mist.

Just like that, he was gone. Like a shadow in the fog, swallowed whole by the forest.

The sound of his dragging leg echoed in my ears long after he had disappeared, and the words he had said to me—You’ll never escape this forest—continued to ring in my mind, a curse, an unshakable truth.

I stood frozen for what felt like forever, trying to make sense of everything. The man, the limp, the words... the way he had looked at me like he knew me. Like he knew exactly who I was, who I would become.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just encountered something beyond the ordinary, something that transcended time and space. The man hadn’t been just a stranger in the woods. He had been... me, or something close to it.

I had to move. I had to keep going.

But where? And how?

The forest was closing in on me. The mist was thick now, wrapping around me like a suffocating blanket, and every step I took felt like I was sinking deeper into its grasp. There was no way out.

And somehow, that thought terrified me more than anything else.

But I couldn’t stop. Not yet.

I had to keep moving. Even if I had no idea where I was going.

Because if I stopped, the forest would claim me too.