The forest did not breathe. It waited.
Ancient trees, twisted by the scars of the Great Calamity, clawed at the sky like petrified spirits. A pale mist coiled low over the cracked earth, hiding bones and broken blades of those who had come before - and never left. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. Even the wind, when it dared to blow, whispered warnings through dead branches.
Nnamdi and Ifeanyi stood at its edge, cloaked in silence, weapons at the ready.
"This is where it began," Ifeanyi said, his voice low.
Nnamdi nodded. "And maybe where it ends."
They entered.
For days they walked without seeing sun or stars. The deeper they went, the heavier the air grew, like they were wading through old sorrow. Shadows moved where light should have fallen, and strange shapes lingered at the edge of their vision - watching, waiting.
One night, as they rested beneath the husk of a hollowed-out baobab, a scream ripped through the forest. Not human. Not beast. Something in between. Nnamdi tensed. Ifeanyi stood.
"They've found us," Ifeanyi murmured.
From the mist, they emerged - the Children of Shadow.
They didn't rush. They encircled. Cloaked in darkness, eyeless, skin like smoke over bone. Silent but for the crackling sound of leaves under footless movement.
Nnamdi rose. Blades drawn. Ifeanyi gripped his Machete.
"Back to back," Nnamdi said.
Ifeanyi smirked. "Just like the old days."
The first shadow lunged. Ifeanyi moved like fire - quick, sharp, merciless. His Machete tore through the creature, turning it to ash. Another attacked. Nnamdi spun, slicing its head clean with his twin blades.
But they kept coming.
From every direction.
Ten. Then twenty. Then more.
The forest howled with ancient hunger, and the warriors bled - not just from wounds, but from memory. The forest fed on fear, on grief, on regret. Visions haunted them: mothers lost, brothers burned, homes swallowed by flame.
Nnamdi faltered, just once. A shadow wrapped around his leg. Another slashed across his back. He screamed.
Ifeanyi turned, rage blazing in his eyes. "No!" he roared, driving his Machete into the earth.
Thunder cracked. Not from the sky - from the ground. The iron-blood of the land answered. Fire erupted in a circle around them, forcing the shadows to retreat, hissing.
They had survived. But barely.
As the flames dimmed and the forest quieted once more, Ifeanyi knelt beside Nnamdi.
"You still breathing, brother?"
"Unfortunately" Nnamdi coughed, grinning through the pain.
Ifeanyi laughed - a sound that dared to exist in the place where laughter died long ago.
And so, wounded but unbroken, they continued.
Because beyond the forest, beyond the pain, lay the heart of the darkness.
And only men like Nnamdi and Ifeanyi - forged by flame, bound by battle - could face what slept there.
They didn't fight for glory.
They fought because no one else could.
I had just barely survived the battle and as I looked at my wounds and at Ifeanyi, I smiled and looked into the shadows cause when the shadows return - as they always do - we will stand again, side by side, as we did in the beginning.
Because in a broken world, you don't choose the battle.
You choose who you bleed with.
And I chose Ifeanyi.