I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere in the middle of all this, the world started feeling distant—almost unreal. It was like I was no longer fully here, not in the sense that I was physically detached, but more like I was slipping out of my own mind. My vision was blurry, and everything around me— the trees, the air, even the ground beneath my feet—felt like it was fading into the darkness. My hands were trembling, but it was weird. They didn’t feel like my hands anymore. It was like they belonged to someone else.

My heart was pounding like crazy, racing in my chest, but my mind? It was strangely calm. Almost too calm. It was like I had accepted the inevitable. I wasn’t sure how or when it happened, but I could feel it now. The moment of reckoning was here. There was no running anymore. No point in fighting.

This was it. This was how it ends.

I took a step forward, my legs shaky but my resolve firm. The clearing ahead felt familiar, painfully so. The same coffin sat there, right in the middle, like it had always been. The same ancient oak tree loomed above, its twisted branches reaching up toward the sky, like they were trying to grab me, hold me here forever. The forest hummed softly around me, just a quiet vibration, almost like it was aware that this moment was approaching, that this was the moment I had been brought here for.

And then, I saw it. The skeleton. It was standing before me, just like before. Its hollow eyes fixed on me—intense, unwavering, like it knew me in a way I couldn’t even begin to understand. The bones of its body were brittle, crumbling, but still, it stood strong, unyielding, like it had been waiting for me all this time. Like it had always been a part of me.

The weight of inevitability crushed down on me, making me feel small, insignificant. I knew it now. I knew that the skeleton wasn’t just some monster. It wasn’t a random undead creature. No. It was me. It had always been me. I had been this. I was it. The forest, the loop, the death, the rebirth—every single part of it had always been me. And it always would be.

The skeleton’s bony fingers twitched, and I could almost hear the creaking of its skull, as if it were preparing for what was coming next. It raised its arm slowly, its long, skeletal fingers reaching out toward me. There was no malice in its gaze. No anger. Just... understanding. It wasn’t trying to hurt me. It was simply waiting for me to join it, like I was the next step in this unending chain. It wasn’t about life or death. There was no choice. There was no freedom. It was just the way things were meant to be.

I didn’t have time to react. The moment its cold, bony hand touched my throat, the world exploded into pain. It was sharp—searing. Like a vice closing around my neck, squeezing the air from my lungs. It was familiar in a way that terrified me. I’d been here before. I’d felt this before. The pressure, the suffocating grip—it was like my body remembered it. My breath hitched, struggling to fill my lungs, but it was useless. My vision was already starting to fade, the edges of it growing dim.

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I wanted to fight. I wanted to claw at the bony hand, to scream, to get away. But my body wouldn’t respond. It felt like I was watching someone else, someone trapped inside their own skin, struggling in vain. Every part of me screamed to escape, but deep down, I knew it was pointless.

It was like I’d always known this moment would come.

Then, it happened. A flash. A vision. Something I didn’t expect, something I wasn’t ready for, but it was there, pushing through the fog of pain and fear. The firelight flickered in my mind. I saw it again—that fire, the one where another version of me had sat not long ago. The younger me. Dirty. Grimy. His eyes were cold, but knowing. He’d looked at me, like he had already seen this end before. I could hear his voice in my mind now, faint but clear. He had warned me. He had said it all. “You’ll never escape this forest. There’s no leaving. Not until the end.”

The fire. The forest. The faces I had seen. They weren’t random people. They were parts of me. Fragments of myself scattered across time. The injured man with the limp, the younger version of myself by the fire, the stranger who had been waiting to guide me—they were all me. All pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t seen until now. They had all been waiting for me to understand. To realize that this... this was my fate.

My breath came in shallow gasps, but the air was too thin. It wasn’t enough. My lungs burned, my vision darkening. The pressure around my throat tightened, each passing second dragging me closer to the edge. I could hear my heartbeat, slow at first, but then faster, frantic, like it was trying to hold on just a little longer. But I knew better. I knew this was it.

The cycle. The loop. It all clicked into place. The faces. The voices. The events. They weren’t coincidences. Every time I died, I came back as something else. Another version of myself. Another stranger, the one who would lead the next Adam into the forest. It was always me.

It has always been me. It will always be me.

My vision narrowed. The world around me became a blur, like everything was slipping away. The ancient oak tree, the ground beneath me, the forest itself—they were all fading into nothingness. I was no longer a part of it. I was becoming it. I was becoming the next piece in the cycle.

The skeleton’s grip tightened. I tried, desperately, to pull its hand off my neck, but my fingers didn’t feel like mine. They were weak, sluggish. I was slipping.

And then—everything went black.

For a moment, there was nothing. Just darkness. Absolute silence. But then, something shifted. It was subtle, like a feeling—an awakening. Not from the outside, but from within. The cycle was beginning again. I knew it before I even opened my eyes.

When my eyes fluttered open, I was back in the forest. The trees, the mist, the shadows—they were all familiar. The smell of damp earth filled my nose, and the wind rustled the leaves in the trees. It felt almost... right.

I reached for the letter, the same one that had brought me here. My fingers brushed the wax seal, and a strange, resigned smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I stood up, steady this time. More confident. Not Adam anymore—not fully.

I was the stranger now.

The cycle must continue.

I turned and started walking. The path ahead of me was clear, the forest welcoming me back. The journey was about to begin again. And as I walked deeper into the trees, I knew this was just the beginning of another endless loop.