"Who..?" My voice barely existed.
"What do you mean?"
It was...
Before she could finish the forest started changing again.
Colors bled out of the mist- dull greens sinking into dusted red, shadows turning into darker shapes.
It felt as if everything we had seen until now had only been the surface.
"Whatever we faced till now was just a level." Mira said.
The ground started feeling colder as if the place didn't want us here.
Suddenly, Mira slowed down.
Not because she was tired.
Because she had seen something.
I followed her gaze and my lungs forgot how to work again.
Someone was sitting around an old, blackened tree.
Arms wrapped around his knees.
Head bowed.
It was still. Too still.
At first, my heart tried to lie to me.
It begged me not to recognise him.
But my mind -
My mind knew loss the way skin knows fire.
"Raghav?" I whispered.
The name echoed through the air like shattered glass.
It lifted its head and my world shattered.
It was really his face.
Not perfect but scared.
His eyes were there... but drained.
He tried to speak but nothing came out.
I took a step forward.
Mira's hand suddenly closed around my arm like she was warning me.
"He can't hear you." she said.
I already knew it.
Because the thing wearing my friend's face wasn't listening.
It was waiting.
Its body was wrapped in shadow like damp cloth...
Faint black lines crawled up its neck like it was made of smoke.
I felt like looking at someone I might become.
"No." I breathed.
This couldn't be me.
This couldn't be him.
This was too cruel to be a coincidence.
"I know you didn't..." my voice shattered.
"You didn't leave like that."
It took a step toward me, then another.
Limping.
As if dragging the weight of something invisible.
I suddenly smelled iron.
Cold and wet.
Mira stepped between us.
"Don't let it touch you." she said.
"Not like this. "
"Like what?" I snapped.
Her voice lowered.
"Like he wants to be held."
You would end up having all of its guilt. It's a curse.
"He gave up I think. I whispered.
"They always do." she said softly.
And then I understood. He didn't die. He gave up and decided to stay here.
"It doesn't kill them," Mira whispered. "It keeps them."
I felt my knees weaken.
"This place... " I choked. "This place takes people?"
"No." she shook her head.
"It catches them."
"Only those who can't carry their emotions anymore."
Raghav lifted his hands stained with something dark and breathing.
Like grief.
"I should've helped you." I murmured.
"I should 've listened more."
"I should've been there."
Mira covered my mouth, suddenly breathing.
"It's okay." She whispered.
"I know you're grieving the loss but you can't lose to it."
Raghav made a sound.
It wasn't a word.
It was a breath made of regret.
And suddenly-
I wasn't just in the forest anymore.
I was in every moment he needed me.
Every moment where I hurt him.
Every joke that hid a wound.
Every night he may have begged in the dark for someone to notice.
My hands trembled.
"Can he come back?" I asked.
Mira didn't answer. The silence was enough.
"What actually happens to them?" I whispered.
"They forget who they were." she said.
Slowly, he started to sink.
Not out of regret or sadness but fulfillment.
Like being seen had been enough.
The darkness started to climb up his legs.
He started to disappear and before his face vanished -
His eyes met mine and for a second I saw him.
There was Raghav.
Not broken. Not twisted.
Just tired.
And then he was gone.
The ground healed.
The tree stood straight.
The forest was breathing as if nothing had ever been wrong.
It felt like the place, the tree held by him got salvation.
I stood wrecked in the middle of a place that pretended as if it never hurt anyone.
Mira turned slightly towards me.
"They don't die here," she said.
"They dissolve."
"And something else uses their names, carries their memories."
I stared at the place where he had vanished.
The forest stared back.
And somewhere deep inside me, something creaked again.
"I can hear the pulse." I whispered