“Rande's alive.” The world formed a vague painting, still and colourless, before Seren’s vacant eyes. Some wooden chairs were seated around the table. A soft grey light fell upon the room. Eleanor, head in hands, heaved her chest upwards with each new sob.

“That thing wasn’t him.”

“You saw his face just as well as I did.”

“Rande wouldn’t maul a little girl."

“The Rande we knew wouldn’t... but he was clearly changed when we saw him. Something unnatural was at play.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just rambling. But tell me, is there any possibility he could have survived the explosion?”

“No.” Her words were sober, chilling as an icy gust. “There wasn't a pulse that night. I checked.”

They sat motionless for a long time, like taxidermies. Breath slipped from their open mouths without any conscious effort. If instinct were not present to drive the puffing of their lungs, it is certain they would have passed away quietly without resistance.

Seren slowly emerged from the fog in his mind. “I need to know the truth of this, and there's only one way to uncover it for certain. We need to return to the clearing, find his body."

A staccato tap, tap, tap rapped on the ground below Eleanor’s foot. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“You’re right. I do know why.” He sighed.

“That creep I saw killed Rande. Forgive me if I don’t want to risk encountering it again.”

“Fair enough. I’d probably make the same decision in your shoes. I’ll go by myself.”

“That’s suicide!”

“Not in the slightest. All I’m going to do is check the clearing. If I do find his body, then we’ll know that whoever was at the fair yesterday wasn’t him. If we don’t find his body... Well, I don’t know. I hope for our sakes that it wasn’t him.”

It was colder than Seren would have liked as he made his way down the forest track. His breath misted in the morning air. Tall trunks erupted from the ground to his sides, like giant fenceposts of a gate that stretched on down the path. The dirt compacted under each of his steps, as though he were walking on a soft bed of sand. He would have preferred solid ground.

Seren’s thoughts turned to Rande. If Eleanor was right, his childhood friend was dead. But that was better than the alternative, right? If his friend was alive, then he was changed for the worse. Seren knew that even if he didn’t find a corpse beside that stone circle, his friend was gone. The Rande he'd known wasn’t demented. He wasn’t a murderer.

Stolen story; please report.

Seren grew pale as an insidious thought crawled into his skull. He studied the world around him, as though searching for the tiniest flaw, the one little crack that would tear open his whole false reality. He grazed a leaf with his hand. It was oblong and green, and rough like sandpaper. Dark shapes danced on the ground as wind ruffled the leaves casting shadows from above. No, he told himself, he wasn’t insane. And yet the doubt would gnaw at him for the rest of his life.

That forest clearing now loomed before him. Seren’s heart began to smack his ribcage. He almost retched from the sickening anticipation. A pungent, mouldy smell assaulted his nostrils, making him cough as he stepped into the clearing. Rande’s corpse was gone. He felt the contents of his stomach surging.

There he had it. Irrefutable evidence that Rande was alive. No, there had to be a better explanation. Corpses didn’t resurrect and eat people.

The lamp greeted him, unlit and redundant, beneath the sun at its zenith. The bench beside it was unchanged, its rusted frame showning no memory of the explosion that had taken place a week before. The stone circle in front of it had not been so fortunate. A gaping black hole pierced its centre. Seren looked inside. Sunlight fell upon a grand staircase carved out of the earth. The steps ran deep underground, where they vanished beyond the reach of sunlight.

He turned his eyes towards a patch of dried blood on the grass beside the circle. Small violet mushrooms were sprouting amongst the red, defiling the remnant of Rande’s trauma. Seren brushed his hands across the stain, as if to confirm that the tactile agreed with the visual. The soft mushroom caps tickled his hand.

A shriek sounded somewhere on the path. Seren turned his head. Eleanor was in the distance bolting towards him. She was screaming as she ran. Behind her, the missing corpse sprinted in pursuit.

Seren’s legs began to collapse as though his bones had suddenly liquified. He dropped to his knees and scanned the ground for a weapon, but there was nothing of use. Eleanor drew closer. So did Rande. And he was closing the gap between them.

Seren drew his sight towards the stone. There was no outrunning their pursuer in the forest, but perhaps the staircase offered a better hope of retreat. He slipped his body through the gap in the rock.

“Stop this Rande!” His once-friend took no notice.

Eleanor wasn’t going to make it. She was within seconds of reaching Seren when Rande leapt forward and seized her heel, sending her tumbling to the dirt. Her shriek rent the eardrums of every creature within ten leagues. Rande, unphased, dropped his head to rip into her neck.

But his skull burst open. Moist droplets shot from his face, warming Seren where they landed on his skin. Blood splattered Eleanor’s face.

An arrow protruded from Rande’s left temple. Seren turned to face the marksman. A giant, cloaked figure stood on the edge of the clearing. It held a bow by its side.

Seren tugged Eleanor’s shoulder. “We need to go.”

The glimpses of skin amidst thered on her face were sickly white. She fixed her gaze on the sky above. Her hands shook violently.

“Eleanor,” he whispered, “please, it’s not safe here.”

She gave no response. Just that empty stare. The figure began to walk towards them. Seren felt the hairs on his neck jolt upwards. He gave up trying to shake Eleanor from her stupor and began dragging her towards the stairs. Her body tumbled awkwardly through the hole in the stone. He stood her up.

“I need you to walk, Eleanor. Can you do that for me?”

She mumbled something indistinctly. Seren drew her arm around his shoulder and guided her down the steps. He looked behind himself periodically, waiting for a figure to drop onto the staircase, but it never did. Their passage slowed when they passed beyond the grasp of light.

When Seren was certain they weren’t being followed anymore, he paused and turned to Eleanor.

“Why did you come after me?”

“Wanted... to help you.”

She fell unresponsive to any further questions as he led her through the black depths of the tunnel.