The realization hit me like a lightning strike, sudden and brutal, knocking the wind out of me. For a second, my heart stopped completely, as if it couldn’t bear the weight of what I was understanding. But then, it restarted—harder, faster, pounding in my chest like it was trying to outrun the terror that surged through me.

The injured man... it’s me.

That thought clung to me with a cold, suffocating grip, settling into my bones, making my whole body feel heavy. The limp. The weathered face. The deep resignation in his eyes. All of it—it was me. Another version of me. The older man I’d seen around the fire, the one who’d spoken cryptically about the curse, was just a future version of myself, farther along in the same damn cycle. And Elias—he was another step further, older still, more broken, more fragmented.

I’d thought the forest was just some twisted, cursed place. But now I realized the horrifying truth: Every person I’d met here had been some form of me. A reflection of a past or future self, each one a part of the endless cycle of life and death that the forest controlled. The forest wasn’t just alive; it was something far worse. It was sentient, pulling us all together, keeping us in this loop—ensuring it kept going.

The coffin in the center of the clearing wasn’t just some grim symbol anymore. No, it had become something else entirely: a monument to my fate. The skeleton standing by it—this decayed, hollow-eyed creature—it wasn’t just some undead thing. It was me, too. Another version of myself, long gone, waiting for me to step into the cycle and become what it had become.

Its hollow eyes were locked onto me, watching. Its bony fingers stretched toward me like it was inviting me in. The air felt thick around me, charged with a power I couldn’t comprehend, but there was no denying it. The forest was waiting. Waiting for me to take the next step. It was time for the cycle to continue.

I couldn’t speak. My throat was dry, and my mind was racing, trying to piece this together. But it was all coming too fast, too overwhelming. I wanted to run, to scream, to somehow get out of here. But deep down, I knew it was pointless. Running wasn’t an option anymore. I was too deep in the forest. Too wrapped up in this cycle. I could feel it pulling at me, drawing me in.

“You…” My voice cracked as I tried to form words, tried to understand. “But... why? Why is this happening?”

The injured man—my future self—took a step closer. His face was even more weathered, the lines etched into his skin deeper from the years of suffering. But in his eyes, I saw something I didn’t expect—acceptance. A peace that felt impossible to grasp, given everything I was learning.

“It’s the only way,” he said, his voice soft but filled with a strange tenderness. It almost felt like he was trying to comfort me, even though he was just as trapped in this nightmare as I was. “We are part of the forest now, Adam. We bring every version of ourselves here, over and over. We’re bound to this place. This cycle... it can’t be broken. Every time we die, we become the skeleton. We become the stranger. We bring the next Adam to the coffin, so the cycle can start again.”

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His words slammed into me, each one hitting harder than the last. My legs wobbled beneath me, and I felt a wave of nausea surge up. I wanted to scream, to throw up, to do anything to shake the crushing weight of understanding off of me. But the truth was undeniable. There was no escape. The forest had chosen me, and it would choose me again. Over and over. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I blinked them back. My heart ached with the crushing finality of it all. This is my fate. To die here. To return to the coffin. To be reborn, only to die again. To do this forever.

“But…” My voice broke, weak and raw. “How do I end it?”

The injured man—my future self—looked at me with eyes that held the weight of a thousand lifetimes. His lips pressed together in a thin line, and he took a breath before speaking again, his voice a soft whisper.

“You don’t,” he said, almost too quietly to hear. “The only way to break free is to accept that you’re already part of this. The forest chose us. And it will choose again.”

I stood frozen, staring at him, at the skeleton, at the forest itself, trying to make sense of all of it. It chose us. The words echoed in my mind, over and over, until I couldn’t focus on anything else. They weren’t victims of fate. They—we—were part of something much bigger. Something beyond our control. And no matter how hard I tried, there was no escaping it.

My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to process what was happening, what had always been happening. I’d thought I had a choice. I thought I could leave. That I could outrun this place. But now I saw it for what it really was. I’d been lost the moment I set foot in the forest. The forest had already chosen me, just like it had chosen every version of me that had ever walked through its shadows.

“Why…” I whispered, my voice trembling, my eyes still locked on the skeleton. “Why do we have to die?”

The injured man’s lips tightened, and he let out a long, weary sigh, as if the answer was something he had said a thousand times before.

“Because,” he said softly, “the cycle demands it. Death is the only way for us to be reborn. The only way for us to continue.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight back, but I couldn’t. The skeleton stepped forward, its hollow eyes glinting with a hunger that felt ancient, a desire that I couldn’t escape. Its bony hand reached out toward me, pulling me forward, like a puppet on a string.

I stumbled, my legs shaking, my knees threatening to give out, but the pull of the forest—of the cycle—was too strong. I had no choice. It wasn’t a question of life or death anymore. It was a question of acceptance.

I glanced one last time at the man who had once been me, the man who had accepted his fate long before I ever could. He smiled, a sad, knowing smile, like he understood exactly what was happening to me. Like he had long since made peace with it.

But I couldn’t. I wasn’t at peace with any of this. But I knew there was no turning back now.

My hand shook as I reached for the lid of the coffin. The wood was cold and damp under my fingers, and the moment I touched it, the forest seemed to awaken around me. Whispers rose from the shadows, the wind picked up, and the trees groaned as if in anticipation.

I opened the coffin.

The second the lid creaked open, the skeleton lunged, its bony fingers closing around my throat. Time stretched, warped, like everything was slowing down, but I couldn’t stop it. My vision blurred, and I could hear my pulse hammering in my ears.

And then, everything went dark.

I don’t know what happened next. All I know is that the cycle continues. And I’ll always be part of it.