I don’t know how long I’d been walking by the time I started feeling the pull again. My feet were dragging through the damp underbrush, each step more exhausting than the last, and my breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. Every part of me was screaming to stop, to rest, to give in. But the forest wouldn’t let me. The trees—they weren’t just trees. They were like sentinels, stretching and twisting in ways that didn’t feel natural, like they were guiding me. No, forcing me deeper into something darker.

It’s like the forest had its own mind, its own purpose. And somehow, I was part of it now.

The worst part? It all felt familiar. Not in a comforting way, but in a way that made my skin crawl. I was certain I had been here before, but something had shifted. It wasn’t just the mist growing thicker or the path blurring ahead of me—it was something deeper. Like the air itself had become heavier, thicker. My thoughts were muddled, like the forest was trying to speak to me, but I couldn’t understand its language.

I tried to push it out of my mind, to focus on getting out of here, but no matter how much I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going in circles. The fog wrapped around me like a suffocating blanket. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape it. I’d keep walking and walking, and then, without warning, it would appear again.

The clearing.

It was exactly the same as before, like it had been waiting for me, like it knew I would come back. The giant oak in the middle of the clearing towered above me, its gnarled branches stretching out like fingers ready to grab me. And in the center of it all—just like before—was the coffin. Half-buried in the earth, its edges poking out like the forgotten remnants of something ancient. Something dead.

But it wasn’t the coffin that froze my blood in my veins.

It was the skeleton.

The same hollow-eyed figure from the first time, standing still, motionless in the clearing, like it had always been there—watching, waiting for me. My heart slammed into my chest, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. No. No, this couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening again. The way it looked at me—its hollow eyes burning with some kind of twisted recognition—I felt like it was staring straight into my soul. It was as if it knew me, knew me in a way that made my blood run cold.

I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “No. I can’t…”

But it didn’t move. It just stood there, and for the first time, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The weight of what was happening—of what I was finally starting to understand—pressed down on me like a stone, heavy and suffocating. I had been running from this, from this moment—but no matter how fast or far I ran, the forest had always been leading me here.

This wasn’t a treasure hunt. It never was.

This was my fate.

The skeleton’s hollow eyes locked onto me, and I felt it, deep in my bones. It was like it was calling me—no, not calling, but demanding that I face it. Its bony hand rose slowly, its fingers stretching toward me, sharp and long like claws. And in that moment, every part of my body screamed at me to run. To get out of there. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything.

And then, a voice.

“Not yet.”

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I spun around so fast, my heart in my throat. My breath hitched, and I stumbled back as the figure emerged from the fog. It was him. The man with the limp. The one who had appeared out of nowhere before, only to vanish just as quickly. The man I couldn’t get out of my head, whose words had haunted me.

His face was older now, more worn. But his eyes—they still held that same look. The one that made my skin crawl, like he knew something I didn’t.

“You’re not alone,” he said, his voice low and steady, and for some reason, I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me, even though everything inside me was still screaming to run. “This is where it ends.”

I didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” My voice cracked, raw and weak. “What’s going on? Why am I here?”

The man with the limp stepped closer, his limp more pronounced now, dragging his foot with each painful step. The sound of it echoed in the empty space between us, filling the air with something dark. He stopped just behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder—a surprisingly gentle touch considering the weight of the moment—and his voice dropped softer, but it held undeniable truth.

“You’re not here by chance,” he said. “You’ve been here before. I’ve been here before. And we will be again.”

I couldn’t process it. My heart was pounding in my chest, my mind racing with questions, but the only thing that kept repeating over and over was—I’ve been here before. I opened my mouth to speak, but my words wouldn’t come out. The air felt thick, like I was suffocating on them.

“What do you mean ‘again’?” I managed to croak, the words like lead in my mouth.

The man’s eyes didn’t leave the skeleton. He didn’t look at me, but I could feel the weight of his gaze on me anyway. “You’ve walked this path before. And you will walk it again.”

I didn’t understand. I couldn’t. But something deep inside me—some primal part of me—started to put the pieces together. I looked back at the skeleton, its hollow eyes still locked on me. And something inside me clicked, like a gear turning in a machine.

The limp. The way the man walked. The way he looked at me with that same knowing gaze. It was too familiar. Too close.

I felt dizzy, like the ground beneath me was shifting, like I was losing my grip on reality. I turned to look at the man—the one with the limp—and I realized, with sudden clarity, what I had been avoiding all along.

The limp wasn’t just some random detail. The way he carried himself was exactly the way I would walk in the future.

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This man, this stranger, wasn’t just a stranger. He was me. He was my future self.

“This... this is impossible,” I whispered, my voice breaking as the words spilled out of me.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he stepped closer, his hand still on my shoulder, the touch warm but full of something else—something I couldn’t define. And then, the skeleton moved. Slowly, deliberately, its bony fingers stretched toward me, inching closer. I could feel its presence in every bone of my body, and I wanted to scream, to run, but I couldn’t. Not anymore.

The man—my future self—watched the skeleton with an unreadable expression. Then, in a voice full of resignation, he spoke again.

“The loop is about to close,” he said. “You’ve been running for too long. You’ve already walked this path.”

The words hit me like a slap to the face. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. The idea that I was trapped in some kind of loop, that this moment had already happened—this moment that I was living right now—was too much to bear.

“I... I’ve been here before?” I barely managed to ask, my voice shaking.

“You have,” he said, his voice soft but filled with truth. “And you will again.”

The skeleton’s fingers brushed my cheek, its touch cold and final. The world seemed to bend around me, warping in a way that made my head spin. Time felt like it was stretching, snapping, breaking apart.

And then my future self spoke one last time, his voice steady despite the weight of what he was saying. “This is where it ends. And where it begins.”

The world blurred. The fog, the skeleton, the man with the limp—they all faded, but the truth remained.

I had always been here. And I always would be.

The loop was closing, and there was no escaping it.