Rehan didn't answer right away.
He just stood there, head tilted up, eyes stuck on the branches like he'd forgotten how to blink. But he wasn't really looking at them. Just… gone. Somewhere deep in his own head. And under that weird grey light, he looked almost sick—like the forest had quietly sucked the colour out of his face. Like it was feeding on him without making a sound. I didn't say anything. Didn't want to snap him out of it. Maybe I was scared I'd see something in his eyes I wasn't ready for.
Ayaan stepped closer. "Rehan…" he said again, softer this time.
Rehan blinked slowly and turned toward him. "Did you hear it?"
"Hear what?"
"The trees. They're... whispering again."
Ayaan swallowed. His throat was dry. The rustle of the leaves around them wasn't wind—not entirely. It had a rhythm again. Faint and shivering. Like words forming on the breath of the trees.
Rehan moved toward one of the trunks, placing his palm gently against the bark. "It's like it knows us now. Like it's waiting for something."
Ayaan didn't know what to say. The woods felt tighter somehow, the air thicker. The trail they'd followed here—if you could call it a trail—was gone. Just more trees, more shadows. They were being folded into something, layer by layer.
"I don't think we're supposed to be here," Ayaan said, voice low like the trees might be listening.
Rehan laughed bitterly. "We passed that line the moment you crossed the border that night."
They kept moving—because stopping didn't feel safe. Birds hadn't returned. There were no animal calls, no insects. Just their footsteps crunching dead leaves and the low whisper in the wind.
Then suddenly—Rehan stopped.
"Look."
Ahead, nestled between two thick trees, was something that didn't belong.
A shoe.
Old, torn. Mud-caked. The laces stiff. Ayaan recognized it immediately.
"Sameer's," he muttered.
Rehan crouched beside it and picked it up. "Still damp. Not old."
A cold wind swept past them, making both of them turn sharply.
There was no one there.
But something was.
The silence twisted into sound again—a faint rhythm in the rustling leaves, and this time, a voice inside Ayaan's head.
"You shouldn't have come back."
He gritted his teeth and shook it off. "Did you—did you hear that?"
Rehan didn't reply. He was staring ahead, past the trees, eyes wide.
A figure.
Far off. Just standing.
Too still to be Sameer.
Too tall.
Their blood froze.
"Run," Ayaan breathed.
But Rehan didn't move. "No."
"What?"
Rehan took a step forward. "What if it's trying to lead us? What if we're not looking at a threat—but a sign?"
"Rehan, no—what if it's not here to lead but to trap?"
Rehan turned, eyes filled with something unfamiliar—like surrender or madness, Ayaan couldn't tell.
"We came for Sameer. What if we don't have much time?"
He moved forward before Ayaan could stop him.
The forest felt like it sighed around them. Or maybe it groaned.
Ayaan ran after him.
And as they pushed deeper into the trees, the air grew heavier, the light dimmer. The world behind them folded in like pages closing in a book.
A rustling started again—this time not from trees, but beneath their feet.
Like something was moving under the forest floor.
Like the ground itself remembered them.
And it didn't like what it remembered.