The tap came again—soft, distant, unmistakable.
Jake froze, every muscle tightening. For two days, the forest had given him nothing but silence, strangers, and warnings. Now, suddenly, a sound he knew better than his own heartbeat.
He turned toward it, breath held, listening.
Tap… tap… pause… tap.
The rhythm was familiar, but not perfect. The child's tapping always carried a certain lightness, a playful precision. This one felt… strained. As if someone were trying to imitate her pattern but could not quite match it.
Jake didn't care. It was the closest thing to hope he had had since everything began to unravel.
He moved quickly, weaving between trees, following the faint sound. The forest seemed to shift around him—branches leaning closer, leaves rustling in a way that felt almost directional. The ground's pulse, still faint, seemed to tug him forward.
Tap… tap… tap.
Closer now.
Jake pushed through a curtain of low branches and stumbled into a narrow clearing. The sound stopped instantly, as if cut off mid‑gesture.
He scanned the space, heart pounding.
No child.
No figure.
Just a single tree standing at the centre of the clearing—tall, thin, its bark pale and smooth. At its base lay a small object.
Jake approached slowly, each step careful. The object was a ribbon—thin, woven with threads of soft green and pale gold. A ribbon he recognised.
The child's.
His breath caught. He knelt and picked it up. It was warm, as if it had been held recently. The threads pulsed faintly against his palm, but the rhythm was uneven, flickering.
Something was wrong.
He tied the ribbon gently to his wrist, letting it rest beside the others. The moment it touched his skin, a faint vibration travelled up his arm—weak, but real. A connection. A signal.
He whispered, "Where are you?"
The forest didn't answer.
But the ribbon pulsed again—once, then twice, then a long pause. A pattern he didn't recognise. Not a gesture. Not a message. More like… a heartbeat out of sync.
Jake stood, scanning the clearing again. The air felt heavy, charged with something he couldn't name. The sky above flickered with faint lines, but they twisted strangely, bending in directions he had never seen before.
He took a step toward the tree—and the ground shifted beneath him.
Not dramatically. Not enough to knock him down. Just a subtle, unsettling shift, like the earth adjusting its weight.
Jake crouched and pressed his palm to the soil.
A pulse.
Weak. Faint. But present.
He closed his eyes, focusing. The pulse was not steady. It stuttered, hesitated, then surged. It felt like the land itself was struggling to find its rhythm.
He whispered, "What happened to you?"
The ground didn't answer, but the ribbon on his wrist pulsed again—this time stronger, as if responding to his voice.
Jake stood and looked around. The clearing felt wrong. Too quiet. Too still. As if something had passed through recently and left the world holding its breath.
He took a slow step backward.
A twig snapped behind him.
Jake spun around.
A figure stood at the edge of the clearing—half‑hidden by shadows. Not the child. Not the cloaked figure. Not the silent stranger.
This one was smaller, hunched slightly, its ribbons tangled and frayed. Their eyes were wide, darting, unfocused. They looked at Jake with a mixture of fear and recognition.
Jake lifted his hand slowly, offering a gentle greeting gesture.
The figure flinched.
Jake froze, lowering his hand. "It's okay," he said softly. "I'm not here to hurt you."
The figure shook their head violently, ribbons trembling. They tapped their wrist rapidly—too fast, too chaotic to be a gesture. More like panic.
Jake took a cautious step forward. "Do you know where she is? The child?"
The figure's breathing quickened. They tapped their wrist again, then pointed at the tree behind Jake. Their hand shook so badly the gesture was barely recognisable.
Jake turned toward the tree.
The cracks weren't clean; they looked like weeping sores on the wood, oozing a pale, jaundiced light that didn't illuminate the dark so much as stain it.
The glow pulsed irregularly, matching the broken rhythm he had felt in the ground.
Jake stepped closer, heart pounding. He pressed his palm to the bark.
A shock of cold shot through him.
Not painful. Not harmful. Just… wrong. Like touching something that should be warm but isn't.
He pulled his hand back, breath trembling.
The figure behind him made a soft, broken sound—half whimper, half warning.
Jake turned. "What happened here?"
The figure shook its head again, backing away. They tapped their chest, then the ground, then the sky—three gestures in rapid succession. Jake recognised none of them.
The figure whispered a sound that was less like a word and more like the snapping of a dry twig. They didn't just disappear; they scrambled into the brush, their frayed ribbons tangling in the thorns, leaving behind the sound of panicked, uneven breathing that lingered long after they were gone.
Jake stood alone in the clearing, the child's ribbon pulsing weakly on his wrist, the tree glowing with a broken rhythm, the forest holding its breath.
He whispered into the stillness, "I'm coming for you. I promise."
The ribbon pulsed once—faint, but steady.
A response.
A plea.
A direction.
Jake tightened the bundle on his back and stepped toward the path the figure had fled down.
The forest didn't stop him.
But it didn't guide him either.
It simply watched.
And waited.