Asto's breath caught, shallow and ragged. Then darkness swallowed him whole.
His chest tightened, gripped by invisible red threads that twisted and coiled like serpents deep beneath his skin, squeezing his heart with merciless cruelty. Fire and ice burned inside him, a pain so sharp it felt like claws raking his ribs. He staggered backward, hands clawing at his chest, knees buckling as the earth beneath seemed to pulse with a hungry, unseen life.
"What… what is this?!" His voice broke, raw and desperate.
He looked down. No wound, no blood—only a glowing, sinister sigil etched in burning crimson, pulsing like a heartbeat on his skin. It shimmered with malevolent intent, twisting cold and cruel as frostbite laced with searing flame. His teeth ground together, his face a twisted mask of disbelief and fury.
"Why?! Why me?!"
The forest around him grew still. The usual chorus of rustling leaves, chirping birds, and snapping twigs fell silent—as if the trees themselves held their breath.
A cold mist rose from the ground, coiling like smoke around gnarled roots and fallen leaves. The air thickened with the scent of decay—rotting wood, damp earth, and something far fouler, like the faint metallic tang of blood mixed with ash.
Two hollow eyes appeared before him—void-black, lifeless pits that seemed to swallow light and hope alike. His body froze. A creeping chill slid down his spine, freezing his marrow.
A voice slithered into his mind—low, venomous, like a serpent whispering from the shadows.
I used her—Laura's mother.
"No… not you," Asto gasped, chest heaving with terror.
The echo's voice curled with cruel satisfaction. She gave me power once—strength, wholeness. But pawns are expendable.
He saw her in his mind's eye—wild-eyed, desperate, struggling against an invisible noose tightening its grip. Her skin bled pale, breath caught in her throat, voice strangled in a silent scream. Her eyes met his, overflowing with regret and terror, a mute plea for forgiveness.
Then the echo crushed her will like brittle bone breaking beneath winter's unforgiving grip. Her body shattered—not into glass, but brittle shards scattering like ash caught on a cold wind, drifting down to settle at Asto's feet.
He dropped to his knees, fists pounding the rotten earth, heart fracturing alongside hers.
"You used her. You betrayed her. You betrayed us all!" he howled, tears carving molten trails down his hollow cheeks.
A hollow laughter echoed—dry and rasping like dead leaves scraping across stone.
"She was a threat. Threats must be broken."
It leaned close, venom dripping from its whispered words: "You're next."
Then came the curse's bitter truth, etched deep beneath his skin, binding him as surely as the red strings.
The red strings bind the host and their fate. Anyone who falls for the bearer—loves, trusts, draws too close—dies within a week. Their souls are chained, lost forever. The host bears this alone. Find the next… or be consumed. Fail, and the curse claims you.
The threads pulsed tighter, burning brighter like dying embers, dragging him down into endless shadow.
A cold breath ghosted across his neck—a whispered threat, icy and cruel.
Now, it's your turn.
He spun around, heart pounding.
Only empty blackness stared back.
Then, from the shadows, a faint laugh—ancient, hollow, and cracked like brittle ice.
"Father…"
A year passed, but time warped and twisted like the creeping vines strangling the ancient trees. The seasons churned with cruel mockery.
Spring's promise drowned in choking mists.
Summer's warmth soured to oppressive heat that clung like a suffocating shroud.
Autumn bled crimson and gold leaves that fell like the corpses of forgotten memories.
Winter's cold seeped into bone and soul, frost cracking brittle branches under a leaden sky.
Through it all, Asto remained—a shadow among shadows, a ghost beneath the twisted limbs of the forest. His skin was ash-gray, cheeks sunken and hollow, lips cracked and dry like dead bark. His hair tangled like vines, masking the man he once was.
His clothes hung stiff with dried blood and mud, the ragged shroud of a wandering corpse.
No food touched his lips. No warmth reached his heart.
The curse would not let him die.
Every cut, every slash—silver threads slithered through wounds, stitching flesh whole like a puppet bound to a cruel master.
Even as his body trembled with silent fury, even as acid tears burned down bloodshot eyes, the curse held him fast.
Then she came.
First, a flicker of shadow among the ancient trunks, unnatural and fleeting.
He ignored her, too broken to care.
But she returned, stepping fully into the moonlight.
Not of this world.
Her skin shimmered with the pale glow of frost, cool and deadly as a winter's dawn.
Long black hair flowed like ink, crowned with a circlet of silver runes that pulsed faintly in the dark.
Her eyes—one deep ocean blue, the other faintly glowing red—held centuries of grief and something darker still.
Her gown fell like liquid night, threaded with silver stars that seemed to twinkle with their own eerie light.
Around her waist, a belt of woven bark and tiny white flowers pulsed faintly alive, a soft heartbeat in the silence.
Her bare feet barely touched the moss-clad earth, and where she stepped, the forest seemed to breathe—moss stirring awake, leaves whispering secrets long forgotten.
Asto lifted his head slowly, eyes narrowed behind tangled hair.
His voice cracked, dry and hollow.
"If you want to play… you chose the wrong corpse."
His fists clenched, trembling with a fading spark of defiance.
She did not flinch.
Raising one slender hand, she pointed behind her.
The forest groaned in reply.
The ancient tree emerged from the gloom—older than memory, darker than shadow.
Its twisted roots writhed like serpents, some sunk deep in soil, others creeping through the air like grasping claws.
Its bark was carved with glowing red symbols pulsing like a heartbeat, casting eerie light over the clearing.
Its canopy blotted out the sky, turning the world beneath into a twilight of shifting green shadows.
From its limbs hung threads—red and silver—swaying as if touched by unseen fingers.
The woman's voice drifted like shattered glass on the wind.
"Please… don't keep the strings to yourself."
Her touch brushed his shoulder—light as a whisper, yet sharp enough to burn through bone.
"Find him. He's the only one who can change this."
Asto stared, vacant and broken, like a corpse learning to see again.
"There's nothing to change," he muttered. "I came here to die."
Her lips quivered with sorrow.
"The trees have seen it. He once rejected the red strings—your son."
His body stiffened, a cold tremor running through him.
"Only his will… his strength… can shift both our worlds. I can't say more. They're watching. They know you're here."
Her hand dropped.
"Come back tomorrow. At seven. He always returns to this forest. He looks for you."
Suddenly, the trees convulsed violently.
Faces emerged from the bark—hollow eyes and mouths sewn shut with thorns.
They moved—not like trees, but predators stalking prey.
"They're coming! No time!" she cried. "Go—now!"
The forest exploded in a blinding flash.
Asto was thrown backward, landing where he always was—alone.
The woman was gone.
But the trees kept moving.
And worse—they whispered his name.
He hit the dirt hard.
Alone again.
In the cold prison of his despair.
The wind howled low and mournful.
Too quiet.
Even the voices had ceased.
His heart thundered in his chest.
His fingers twitched in restless agony.
He once rejected the red strings—your son.
But something was wrong.
A bitter frost crept through his heart where love once burned.
That wasn't his son.
He didn't know how he knew.
He just did.
No warmth.
No echo.
Only hollow emptiness.
His hands clawed into the earth, breath ragged.
And for the first time in weeks, his face shifted—not grief, not anger—
Terror.
Not of death.
But of truth.
And in the silence, beneath the mournful wind,
something whispered—
He is not who you think he is.
Meanwhile acar engine sputtered in the distance.
Then came the slam of doors. Laughter. Footsteps crunching against fallen leaves. Shrill voices echoing through the forest's lungs.
Asto froze where he stood. His breath hitched.
They were here.
His spine tensed like a drawn wire. Muscles locked. Threads beneath his skin stirred in warning.
"No…"
The first crackle of dry branches snapped louder than thunder in the silence.
Boots hit the dirt path—casual, cocky. Four figures emerged beyond the trees. Teenagers.
They weren't from here. He could tell by the way they walked—loose, careless, invincible.
One boy with a backward cap strutted ahead, filming with a phone. "Yo! Ghost woods challenge—let's go!"
Another with black lipstick and glitter eyeshadow giggled. "If something kills me, I swear I'm haunting your mom."
A girl in torn fishnets blasted music through her earbuds, hips swaying, completely detached from the looming silence.
Asto stepped forward from the trees, cloak rustling like dead leaves.
"Don't," he called out, voice low, raw. "Turn back. Now."
The tall one stopped. "Whoa, who invited the cult cosplay?"
The others snorted.
"What, you gonna put a hex on us, forest Gandalf?" one laughed, her blue hair glowing in the dusk.
Asto's jaw tightened. "This place isn't for you. Go."
"Relax, grandpa. We're just filming. You don't own the trees."
The first boy unsheathed a small blade and held it up. "I got protection."
The forest answered.
The music cut out with a sharp pop. The air changed.
Colder. Heavier.
The red threads awoke.
They slithered down from the trees like veins bleeding from the canopy. Silent. Hungry.
Asto stepped back, breath ragged. "Please—just run."
Too late.
A thread curled around the boy's ankle.
He looked down, confusion flashing across his face.
Then pain.
He screamed—loud, sharp—as the thread plunged beneath his skin and surged upward. He dropped his phone. It hit the ground still recording, blinking red.
Panic exploded.
The others screamed and scattered.
The girl with the earbuds turned—only to have a thread slice through her throat mid-spin. Blood fanned the air like ink in water. She dropped, limbs twitching, mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled from sea.
The goth boy tripped over a root. He tried to crawl, gasping. A thread punched through his back. His face contorted in silent agony. Eyes bulged. Fingers clawed into dirt.
The last girl—the one who mocked Asto—stared at him.
Their eyes met.
A second. A flicker.
Recognition?
Then the thread caught her ankle and lifted her screaming into the trees. Her body writhed, convulsed, then snapped backward with a sickening crunch.
You were warned not to enter... but now the forest knows your name—and has your souls.
Her phone landed beside Asto's feet. The screen showed static.
Asto didn't move.
His eyes didn't blink.
He had seen too many.
And the forest… was quiet now. Content. Sated.
The threads dripped red as they retreated.
He turned away.
Not even sorrow left in his face—just exhaustion. Bones like rusted metal. Heart hollowed.
The sun bled out.
Branches twisted overhead, threading the last of the light through black limbs.
She came again.
The woman in white.
Barefoot. Her face pale, smudged with ash. One eye icy blue, the other green like rotting moss. A red thread curled around her wrist like a leash.
"You let them die," she said softly, stepping into the corpse-still clearing.
"I warned them." Asto's voice cracked. "They didn't listen."
"You've warned others too."
"They never listen."
She didn't argue.
Instead, she tilted her head, hair drifting in the wind like smoke.
"Your threads moved before they stepped into the forest. Something inside you remembered them. One of them."
"I don't know them."
"You don't have to. The curse does."
Asto looked down at the cracked phone beside him. Blood on the lens. A girl's frozen face caught mid-scream.
Familiar.
His jaw clenched. "Was she…?"
The woman nodded slowly. "An echo. That's how it begins."
The trees parted.
She walked ahead.
He followed.
Through frost that formed midair. Through autumn leaves that rotted as they fell. Seasons bent out of order—life and death looping.
Then, the tree.
It pulsed with veins of glowing red. Threads dangled like tendons from its branches.
They pointed downward.
A path.
A memory trail.
"Go," she whispered. "To the heart of it. To the lie."
He walked.
The Spiral opened.
Reality bent—hallways forming from nothing.
St. Solace. Again.
A child's laugh echoed. Then warped.
The walls flickered between hospital tile and moss-covered bark.
Then—
He saw him.
Echo.
Twelve, maybe thirteen. His eyes dull. His body draped in a hospital gown, pale arms trailing red thread like marionette strings.
"You left me."
Asto stopped. "I searched. I never stopped—"
"You lived. I didn't."
"You're not my son," Asto said, tears boiling in his eyes. "You're something else."
Echo's face twisted. Bones cracked.
The skin ripped away.
And the Hollow Kind stepped forward—hulking, mouth gaping from its chest, threads writhing.
"I am what you birthed with guilt," it hissed. "You named me when you stopped believing."
The scream that came next was not Asto's—it was his thread crying out, searing across his chest.
He stumbled—then grabbed a thread.
And pulled.
The Spiral tore.
Light ruptured.
Reality screamed.
When he opened his eyes, the woman hovered over him. Her skin burned. Her lips trembled.
"You touched it," she said. "You found the fracture."
Asto sat up, shaking, blood dripping from his nose. "It wears his face. But he's not… that thing."
"No," she said, voice breaking. "Your son lives."
The wind shrieked. The trees roared.
"He's still there. But slipping. Each time you believe the lie… you lose him more."
"Then take me to him!"
"I can't," she whispered. "I'm only memory."
She faded—hand reaching for his.
It passed through him.
"But you, Asto…" her voice echoed, vanishing like breath in snow.
"You are the knife."
The forest moved.
Roots retracted. Trees split open to reveal deeper paths. The Spiral had awakened.
Asto stood—face pale, jaw set.
He wasn't just haunted.
He was hunting.
And now… he knew the truth.
His son was alive.
The threads lied.
And he would tear this cursed forest apart, one root at a time, to bring him back.
The roots split open.
A slow creak echoed through the clearing as the ground peeled itself apart, bark groaning like it remembered pain. Beneath the forest floor, a tunnel gaped — slick with pulsing red veins, the walls breathing in and out like lungs under skin. Every inch glowed with a sick, unnatural light.
It wasn't a path.
It was a throat.
Waiting to devour him.
Asto stood at the edge, eyes wide. His breath curled in the cold air. Above him, the trees twisted together in impossible shapes — their branches forming teeth against a sky that bled orange and black, as if dusk were rotting from the inside out. Ash fell like snow. Distant whispers rippled through the leaves.
"Your son lives..." the woman had said, "but not for long."
His hands trembled.
Then—
A sound.
Soft. Familiar.
"Dad...?"
Asto's head snapped to the side.
A boy stood just beyond the tunnel's rim — where light met shadow.
Echo.
Thin. Pale. Barefoot on the moss. His hospital gown torn at the hem. His eyes were wide, but glassy. Unblinking.
"Dad," he said again, but this time—his voice wasn't alone.
Something echoed beneath it. Low. Wet. Twisting like a scream caught underwater.
The boy's lips peeled into a smile.
Too wide.
His jaw popped.
Then unhinged.
And from his mouth, red threads slithered out—slow, like they enjoyed the air. They twisted toward Asto like blood-soaked fingers.
Above, the trees shrieked. Leaves turned black mid-fall.
The forest began to move.
Branches bent toward him.
The tunnel pulsed.
And Echo's eyes—those lifeless, aching eyes—met Asto's one last time.
"Come find me."
The ground cracked.
A thread wrapped around Asto's ankle.
And the forest swallowed him whole.