Alex walked.
Not with purpose. Not toward anything. Just forward, because standing still made the quiet press in too closely, and because movement—slow, careful movement felt like the only way to keep the dream from turning inward.
The forest did not thin.
If anything, it grew more deliberate.
The trees spaced themselves just far enough apart to force him to choose where to place his feet. Roots knotted across the ground in low ridges, half-hidden beneath leaves that gave way too easily when stepped on. The light overhead remained stubbornly gray, neither brightening nor fading, as if time itself had decided to wait.
Alex told himself that dreams often reused space.
They looped. Repeated textures. Borrowed the same elements and rearranged them until they felt endless. This forest could go on forever because his mind hadn't decided where to stop yet.
That thought should have been comforting.
It wasn't.
The first statue appeared without ceremony.
He almost walked straight into it.
It stood just off the narrow path he'd been following—if the faint compression of leaves beneath his feet could be called a path at all. The stone shape rose from the ground at an awkward angle, half-buried, as if it had been placed there and then forgotten.
Alex stopped short.
The figure was human.
Or had been meant to be.
Its proportions were wrong in small, unsettling ways. The arms were too long, the hands too large, fingers curled inward as if frozen mid-plea. The face had been worn smooth by time or weather or hands he couldn't account for, but the suggestion of features remained—hollowed eyes, a mouth stretched open just enough to imply sound.
It was dressed in stone-carved fabric.
Not robes exactly. Layered cloth, belted at the waist, falling in heavy folds that spoke of wool and rough linen rather than anything fine. Medieval, Alex thought distantly. Or what his mind believed medieval looked like.
He circled it slowly.
The statue's surface was mottled with lichen, pale green and gray creeping up from the base. Cracks webbed through the torso and legs, evidence of years—no, longer spent exposed to the elements.
It didn't look decorative.
It looked placed.
Alex took a step back.
"Okay," he murmured. "Set dressing."
Dreams loved symbolism. Loved borrowing from history and folklore and smashing it together into something that felt significant without actually meaning anything.
Still.
He moved on, slower now, eyes scanning the forest floor and the spaces between trunks.
The second statue was easier to spot.
It lay toppled on its side near the base of a tree, its head separated from its body and resting several feet away. Moss had claimed the break, softening the violence of the fracture, but the angle of the neck told a clearer story.
This one had been armored.
Not plate—chainmail, rendered in stone with painstaking detail. Each link had been carved individually, worn smooth in places by time. A sword lay beside the body, snapped cleanly in two.
Alex crouched beside it.
The face was intact.
Young, he thought. Or meant to be. The eyes were wide, the mouth drawn into something between surprise and fear. The expression felt uncomfortably specific.
He straightened quickly.
This was getting too detailed.
Too intentional.
He resumed walking, weaving between trees, trying not to look too closely at anything else that might resolve into meaning if given the chance.
It didn't help.
Statues appeared with increasing frequency.
Some stood upright, arranged in loose clusters. Others knelt. A few lay face-down in the dirt, their backs rounded as if pressed there by force. The styles varied—some armored, some plainly dressed, some wrapped in cloaks with hoods pulled low over indistinct faces.
All of them were stone.
All of them were weathered.
None of them looked like monuments.
They looked like records.
Alex stopped counting after twelve.
He became aware, gradually, of another sound.
Water.
Not close. But steady.
The forest sloped downward almost imperceptibly, the ground growing softer beneath his feet. Leaves gave way to damp soil, then to mud that clung unpleasantly to his shoes. The smell deepened here, layered with something cooler, cleaner beneath the rot.
The sound grew louder.
Alex pushed through a curtain of low branches and found himself at the edge of a river.
It wasn't wide, but it moved quickly, water sliding over dark stones in constant, restless motion. The surface caught what little light filtered through the trees, breaking it into dull flashes that vanished almost as soon as they appeared.
The banks were uneven.
On one side, the ground dipped gently toward the water, reeds and grasses bending with the current. On the other, the earth rose sharply, forming a low embankment littered with debris.
Stone debris.
Alex's breath slowed as he stepped closer.
The embankment wasn't natural.
It was piled.
Statues—dozens of them—had been stacked haphazardly along the riverbank, some intact, others broken beyond recognition. Limbs jutted out at unnatural angles. Heads stared blindly from between torsos and shattered bases.
A heap.
No attempt at reverence. No symmetry. Just accumulation.
Alex stood at the edge of it, unable to look away.
The river slid past the pile without pause, water lapping against stone ankles and severed hands alike. Moss grew thickest here, feeding on constant moisture, softening edges that had once been sharp.
Some of the statues were different.
Not human.
He noticed it slowly, reluctantly. A curve that didn't match any limb he knew. A jawline that extended too far back. Teeth carved too many, too close together.
Monster, his mind supplied, unhelpfully.
Folk-monster. The kind drawn in the margins of old manuscripts. The kind warned about in stories meant to scare children into staying close to home.
They were mixed in with the others.
As if no distinction had been made.
Alex backed away from the river, heart pounding now despite his efforts to keep calm.
"This is still a dream," he told himself, firmly this time. "It's just… leaning hard on metaphor."
He turned, intending to put the river behind him.
That was when he noticed the pattern.
The statues weren't random.
They faced inward.
Not toward the river.
Toward something deeper in the forest.
Alex followed their line of sight without meaning to.
Between the trees, beyond the rise of the embankment and the tangle of roots, the forest opened slightly. Not enough to reveal what lay beyond—but enough to suggest space. Order. The faintest hint of structure where there should have been only growth.
Stone glinted there, too.
Carved stone.
Set deliberately.
Adorned.
Alex stopped himself before taking another step.
He stood at the edge of the river, surrounded by silent witnesses, the sound of water filling the space where his thoughts refused to settle.
Whatever lay ahead had been prepared.
Marked.
And he had not been meant to miss it.