The trees didn't get thicker. They got older.
That was the only way I could describe it. The trunks were wider now, their bark hanging in sheets like old skin. Roots the size of my arms twisted across the path, forcing us to step over, around, sometimes through gaps that felt less like openings and more like something had decided to let us pass.
Peko walked ahead. His shoulders were tense, his ears flat against his head. He hadn't spoken since the scout.
Kaya came next, the feathered woman. She kept looking over her shoulder, checking the space behind us that was already closing. The group had spread out into a loose line—me behind Kaya, then Hana, then Yoshi, then the others. Five more. Total of nine, counting Peko and me.
Hana's hand found the back of my shirt again.
I didn't shake it off. Not that I knew how to act when a girl touches me, even if for protection.
"Your bat," she said.
Finally,someone said something.First words in an hour.
"Yeah."
"It's wood."
"Yeah."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Found it."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "You don't talk much."
"I do. It's just not the mood right now."
"My dad talked a lot." She pursed her lips.
I didn't ask what happened to him. I already knew.
I didn't want to know either.
"What about your mom?" I asked instead.
Hana's grip tightened on my shirt. "She was sick. Before we came here. She didn't make the trip."
I nodded. That was all I could do.
A branch creaked overhead. Not from wind....there was no wind, even.
Just the sound of something shifting its weight. Kaya flinched. Peko raised a hand, and we all stopped.
The forest held its breath.
Then, from somewhere ahead, the humming. Chirping.
Not loud. Just there. The same heartbeat I'd felt in the house, in the slide, in the moment before I got here.
Peko lowered his hand. We kept walking.
Not without me gripping my bat harder though.
The path widened after a while. Not because the trees retreated—because something had knocked them down.
Trunks lay on their sides, their roots still clutching clumps of gray soil. The wood was splintered, not cut—like something huge had plowed through and the forest hadn't bothered to grow back.
"Was this here before?" I asked.
Peko shook his head. "We never came this far."
That was strangely motivating.
Yoshi spoke from the back. His voice was raw, still recovering from the crying. "So we're the first?"
"Hopefully," someone muttered.
We crossed the fallen trunks one by one. Hana climbed over the biggest with my help, her cat tucked under her arm. On the other side, the ground was different. Harder. Almost smooth.
Like a floor.
I crouched down, ran my palm over it. Not stone. Not dirt. Something else. Something that had been made.
Peko crouched beside me. "What is it?"
"Not natural."
"No shit." He glanced at me. "I mean, what is it?"
"I don't know."
That was the truth. But I'd felt this texture before. In the house.
In the room where the walls kind of swallowed me.
The humming was closer now.
We followed the smooth ground as it curved between the remaining trees. The canopy opened slightly, letting in the rotten gray light. And ahead, maybe fifty paces, the trees stopped altogether.
Not a clearing. A wall.
It rose from the forest floor like a ribcage, pale and curved, made of the same smooth material as the ground. No seams. No door. Just a surface that seemed to drink the light.
The chirping was coming from behind it.
Peko stopped at the edge of the trees. The rest of us stopped behind him.
I glanced once, in every direction. My throat was dry. But I can't bring myself to be careless enough to drink right now.
"That's it," he said. "That's what the scouts found."
"No," Yoshi said quietly. "The scouts didn't come back."
"Then we're luckier than them."
Hana's hand was shaking against my back. I reached around and gently pulled her to my side. She pressed her face into my arm. I let her.
"Now what?" Kaya asked.
I looked at the wall. At the pulse I could feel in my chest, in my teeth, in the space behind my eyes.
"Now we find out if it has a door."
I walked forward. Peko followed. Then Kaya. Then, after a long moment, the others.
Hana stayed pressed against my arm.
The wall didn't move. Didn't open. Didn't do anything except stand there, pale and patient, humming with a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
I put my hand on it.
Cold. Smooth. And something else.
A strange heat.
The same way the bat had felt warm in the clearing. The same way the dragon's spark stirred when I was near something important.
This was the source.
The sound I'd heard when I first woke up in the swamp. The pulse that had been calling me since the loop.
I pressed harder.
The wall didn't open. But the pulse quickened.
And somewhere behind it, something started to move.