They walked into the forest.
It was not the kind of forest they knew from earth - no birds, no rustling insects, no distant hum of life. The trees of arcadia rose like blackened spires, bark cracked as though burned long ago yet never consumed. Their branches twisted overhead, interlocking into a ceiling that allowed only fractured shafts of dull light to bleed through.
Knox and Yvain walked at the front.
Not because they were chosen.
But because no one else stepped forward.
Behind them, Jade moved carefully, one arm wrapped loosely around herself. Healing Marielle earlier had drained some of her energy. Yasmine followed close. Vince, Eleanor, Tom and Marielle trailed at the rear trying to adjust to the new group, while Cateline drifted between the front and rear.
No one spoke for several minutes.
The silence pressed against them like damp cloth.
Marielle finally broke it. "We need to stop before night... If this place even has night."
"It doesn't feel like it changes," Knox muttered, glancing up at the unmoving sky through the branches.
They slow their pace.
The ground dipped slightly ahead into a clearing framed by jagged roots and fallen trunks. It wasn't safe. Nothing here was.
"Well if you guys ain't tired, I am." Marielle snorted. Sitting on a nearby log of wood.
The all stopped.
"I guess we will have to make camp here and try to get a little rest." Jade said.
Without being told.
Tom and Yvain began dragging loose branches toward the center. Knox tested his strength, snapping branches. Cateline duplicated herself briefly - three copies scattering to gather lighter twigs before dissolving one by one as her focus wavered.
They set up the twigs and pile of wood. Tom light it up to start a camp fire.
The glow illuminated their face. Tired, disoriented and confused.
Yasmine exhaled slowly. "We need food."
"Yeah, we do. I'm hungry." Marielle jumped in.
Knox looked around at the dark tree line then turned to Tom. "Maybe we should go look around if we could find something."
"Go look for what exactly?" Cateline said flatly. "There's nothing alive in here. You've noticed that right? No birds. No insects. Nothing."
"Nothing that we know of, this isn't like the earth we know." Vince muttered. "But maybe she's right, I haven't heard a single sound since we entered."
That landed heavier than it should have. They all sat with it for a moment. The absence of sound. The stillness. A forest with no life?
"Maybe that's a good thing," Tom said. "It means nothing is out there hunting and we won't be running for our lives for a while."
"Or," Cateline replied, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve, "maybe everything out here already died. Which brings the question 'What killed it?'"
No one answered. Silence filled the air. The fire crackled between them, the only honest sound in the forest.
Yvain leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, studying the flames. "The portal gave us powers," he said slowly. "Or whatever that awakening was. But it didn't give us answers."
Yasmine gave him a look. "What are we supposed to do with them? Is there a way out of here or are we just... surviving until we drop?"
"Surviving is enough for now," Jade said firmly. Her voice was quiet but it carried weight. "We figure the rest out after we're rested."
Marielle was already lying back on the log, staring up at the fractured canopy overhead. "I'm not sleeping out here."
"No one asked you to sleep." Knox replied. "Just rest."
"Same thing."
"It's not."
"Don't argue with me Knox, I'll scratch your eyes out."
Vince laughed. It came out before he could stop it.
Tom followed. Then, reluctantly, they all cracked a smile.
Marielle fought to keep a straight face. Failed.
"I'm still hungry," she muttered, which set off another round of tired laughter that slowly dissolved into the quiet.
Cateline studied the others from across the fire. Her eyes drifted from face to face. Vince looking restless, like something was in his mind. Eleanor, still but not at peace. Tom watching his own palm.
"You," she said, pointing at Tom. "The fire guy. How does it feel?"
Tom blinked his eyes. "What?"
"The fire. When it's on your palm. What does it actually feel like?"
He thought about it. "It feels like hovering your hands around a fire. It feels warm. But I guess when I panic or show any form of distress..."
"You lose control," Cateline finished.
"Yeah."
She nodded slowly. "You'll get there," a beat passed between them. "Might take a while but we all have to learn to fight back to survive this."
Yasmine shifted uncomfortably at that. A flinch that nobody called out or noticed.
Vince had moved away from the group, sitting on a dead root across the firelight. He extended his hands toward a small stone on the ground.
He breathed slowly.
The stone trembled. Lifted barely a centimeter.
Then dropped.
He tried again.
It lifted by a centimeter.
"Maybe you should stop trying too hard, "Knox said, dropping down beside him.
Vince exhaled loudly.
"Maybe you shouldn't just focus on the object in front."
Vince turned his head. "What?"
Knox shrugged. "When I lifted that tree," he paused.
"I didn't think about the tree. I thought about getting it off Marielle." He paused again. "Maybe the powers work on purpose over precision."
Vince thought about it for a second. He thought about the hollow hog frozen in mid air. He hadn't been thinking about stopping anything.
He'd been terrified and he'd reached out.
"Look who's advising someone on how to use their power." He chuckled.
They both had a laugh.
He tried again, this time not focusing on the stone but seeing through it and moving it with his mind's eye.
The stone rose cleanly. Hovered at eye level. Completely still.
Knox exhaled through his nose. "There you go."
Vince slowly set it down. "You figured that out when?"
"Just now." Knox replied.
"About your own power or mine?"
Knox thought about it. "Both, I think."
They looked at each other and busted into a light round of laughter.
Jade caught Eleanor staring at her.
"You want to ask me something," Jade said.
Eleanor hesitated. "No, no, I was just lost in thoughts."
Jade was quiet for a moment. "What are you thinking about."
Eleanor looked into the fire. "Nothing really, just everything. How we got here, these powers, how to get out of here. If anyone is looking for us at home."
She paused.
Jade studied her face carefully. "We can't figure everything out at once. We'll take it one step at a time and eventually find a away out."
Eleanor didn't look reassured by that.
The fire had burned lower by the time the conversations fully died. Not out, but quieter. A warm pulse rather than a blaze.
Most of them had shifted into some version of rest. Cateline lay on her back, one arm over her face. Yasmine sat with her back against a root, eyes shut but not fully asleep. Marielle had actually drifted off, head tilted to the side.
Yvain kept watch at a tree line towards the path they had just come through. Jade beside him.
"How are you holding up?" he asked.
Jade considered it. "I keep thinking about the others. We all went through the same portal but only a hand full of us came out." She paused. "I keep wondering if they're alive."
"They probably are," Yvain said. "We probably came out at different points."
"I hope so," she whispered beneath her breath "I hope my brother is okay."
"You should get some rest." He told her.
"I will."
Tom was the first to feel it.
He sat up slowly. His palm tingled without him asking it to. Warmth rising, the way he feels when holding up flame on his palm.
"Hey," he said quietly.
No one stirred.
"Hey."
Vince's eyes opened.
Tom was standing now, turned toward the deeper dark forest. Away from their camp.
"Something is..."
The trees groaned.
A deep, bone level groan, like the forest itself bending under pressure.
Then the light came.
Something orange, glowing like their burned out campfire.
Something moving. It blend between the black trunks, flickering and shifting, too large and too deliberate to be flame alone
"Wake up!" Vince snapped. Calling the attention from the Yvain and Jade at the other end.
The camp erupted. Bodies scrambling upright. Cateline's copies flickering into existence and vanishing before she fully opened her eyes. Knox jumped to his feet instantly, scanning the forest.
"Keep the noise down." Marielle said, rolling over.
"Get up!" Jade said, kicking her legs.
"What?" Marielle responded getting up. She opened her eyes, scanning the environment. The memories came flushing in... She wasn't at home.
The orange glow widened.
Branches cracking, trees falling as something enormous stepped through.
It stood at least five meters tall. Its body, a shifting mass of compressed fire and blackened stone. Crude limbs of fused rock and ember. No face, only a smoldering hollow where a head should be. Every step scorched the ground beneath it. The black bark of the nearby trees caught and charred at its passing.
The air temperature spiked violently.
"What is that?" Marielle breathed.
It turned toward the dying campfire.
Toward them.
Tom's palm blazed.
The monster's hollow head tilted, as if it recognizing something.
Then it charged towards them.