Branches snapped under their feet as Avery and Roland pushed forward through the thinning trees.
The smoke creeped faster than it should, slipping through trunks and curling low along the ground like it had intent to do something.
Roland kept running, but his thoughts stayed behind. With Henry.
His chest tightened as he glanced over his shoulder again, though Henry was long out of sight now.
"You think he will be okay?" Roland asked, "That thing… whatever it is… it didn't feel normal."
Avery didn't slow. Her grip on the basket remained tight. She refused to allow panic have any space.
"He will handle it." she replied.
Roland frowned slightly. "You sound too confident."
Avery exhaled once, pushing aside a low branch as they moved forward.
"It's not confidence. It's experience."
Roland looked at her, confused.
"You don't know Henry the way I do yet. When he says run, it means the situation is already worse than what we can see."
Avery kept rushing forward.
"And when he stays behind, it means he already decided what needs to be done."
....
Henry stood alone among the gray-stained trees, revolver lowered but not relaxed.
It pressed against his ears, against his chest, making each breath feel slightly delayed.
Then he heard it.
At first, it sounded like wind trying to force its way through narrow cracks. A dry, dragging murmur that barely qualified as sound.
He stayed still, listening carefully. The murmur changed. It split into layers.
Whispers...
Dozens of them, overlapping in uneven rhythm. Crawling into existence from every direction at once. They did not form clear words, yet they resembled language closely enough to disturb the mind.
Some tones were sharp and brittle like nails scratching against stone. Others were wet and dragging, as if something thick slid across flesh while speaking through clenched teeth.
Henry's fingers tightened around the revolver grip.
The whispers grew louder. Pressing into his awareness as if they were being spoken directly inside his skull rather than through the air.
He felt the back of his neck tighten, a deep instinctive discomfort spreading across his spine like ice water poured beneath the skin.
Shapes began to form at the edge of his vision.
The ash drifting in the air seemed to twist unnaturally, spiraling against gravity for brief moments before falling again.
Something behind him.
A presence so close that the air at his back seemed colder. Something enormous leaned forward just inches away. His body reacted before logic could interfere.
He ran without looking behind
His boots slammed against the ground as he pushed forward through the gray forest, branches whipping against his shoulders. The whispers followed instantly, multiplying, stretching into long, dragging sounds that scraped across his thoughts.
Not matching any animal he had ever heard.
They struck the ground in uneven bursts, sometimes too fast, sometimes delayed, as if whatever chased him struggled to maintain form while moving.
Henry didn't look back.
He kept running. Senses sharpening with every second. The forest blurred past him, trees streaking into gray pillars as the sound of pursuit remained locked behind his spine.
The footsteps came closer.
Without warning, Henry stopped abruptly and twisted his body around in a single fluid motion.
His hand released the revolver as something brighter formed in his grasp.
His Astra appeared...The Window of the Sky.
A thin, blade blade unfolded into existence, its surface shimmered like fractured glass reflecting distant stars.
The air around it warped slightly, bending inward as if reality itself hesitated near its edge.
Henry swung turning back swiftly.
A Dimensional Cut tore outward in a clean arc, slicing through the space behind him with unnatural silence.
The air split apart like cloth, leaving behind a thin fracture that lingered for a fraction of a second before closing back into place.
The trees behind him shuddered slightly as the force passed.
There's nothing? But he had heard the footsteps and felt the presence. Henry remained frozen in position.
His eyes scanned every direction carefully, refusing to relax despite the absence of anything visible.
The whispers had stopped completely.
Slowly, he lowered the Astra. Though he did not dismiss it entirely. His thoughts began assembling pieces from memory, analyzing the situation with cold clarity.
They had come here before. Multiple times.
This forest had hosted Grandiors activity in the past. Those were documented, contained, monitored.
Nothing beyond manageable threat levels had ever remained long enough to spread corruption across such a wide area.
But this is something new.
Henry exhaled slowly,
"It is new." he muttered under his breath.
.....
Avery and Roland kept moving through the forest.
The trees ahead looked normal at first glance, yet something about the atmosphere felt heavier than before.
The smoke had not followed them fully but the silence had and that silence felt unnatural, stretched too tight across the space between each step.
Roland wiped sweat from his forehead, trying to steady his breathing.
"You really think he will catch up soon? That place didn't feel right… not even a little."
Avery pushed aside a branch, keeping her focus ahead.
"He will. Henry doesn't make promises he can't keep."
Roland nodded faintly, though uncertainty lingered in his chest. He stepped forward again and the ground beneath his foot rippled, like suddenly stepping into mud.
Roland's eyes widended. "Avery…" he whispered.
She turned halfway and the earth beneath Roland's legs collapsed inward without sound. There was no hole.
Just a smooth and unnatural sinking. Roland slipped downward into the earth. His body phased straight through the soil like it had turned into liquid glass.
"ROLAND!" Avery shouted, lunging forward, her hand stretching desperately toward him.
Her fingers grazed his sleeve then missed.
Roland fell... but where...?
Wherever he was falling, the world twisted violently around him, colors bending into sharp fragments of gray, purple and sickly blue.
The sensation of falling never stabilized. There was no sense of direction. No up or no down. Only endless descent through layers of broken reality.
His body screamed in pain like getting crushed by immense gravitational force beyond comprehension. He could feel every inch of it, every single second.
His arms existed in its place, yet, he felt like it didn't exist, bones vibrated as if invisible pressure crushed them from all sides.
His skin tingled sharply, like needles pushing beneath the surface again and again without breaking through. He could imagine himself with countless poisonous thorns wrapping him from everywhere...
Glitched.
Fragments of the forest appeared and vanished repeatedly around him glitching in unseen colours.
Trees snapped into existence for half-seconds before dissolving into ash-colored static. Sometimes he saw twisted versions of the ground, stretching infinitely like mirrors facing each other.
Then came the shapes.
Distorted silhouettes floated near him. Half-formed and twitching unnaturally. Their outlines jittered violently. Limbs stretching longer than possible before snapping back into warped proportions. Some of them had too many joints.
Some had none.
Their faces... if they were faces, flickered into visibility only briefly. Empty sockets, mouths split too wide, teeth arranged in crooked.
Roland clutched his head, gasping as sharp pressure stabbed into his skull. His vision blurred violently, thoughts scattered into fragments that refused to connect.
"Avery—!" he tried to shout.
But his voice didn't travel. It rang back into his own ears, distorted, slowed, repeated in broken fragments like corrupted audio.
"Ave… ve… very… ry…"
His muscles tightened involuntarily, fingers curling inward as if trying to grasp. something that didn't exist.
The air or whatever replaced it, felt thick, choking, pressing against his lungs until breathing became a struggle.
He felt something brush past him.
Dragging slowly across his arm like rotting fingers sliding along exposed flesh. Roland screamed, body twisting violently as panic overtook every rational thought he had left.
The falling never stopped.
He couldn't tell if he was still falling or if he had already landed somewhere far worse.