Gabriel lingered around the forest, not ready to return to the others just yet. He leaned against a tree, letting his back rest against its rough bark. His hands moved with practiced ease, rolling tobacco into a thin sheet of paper. A simple luxury—nothing fancy, just the kind men like him used before "cigarettes" had a name. The act alone helped him unwind, and reminded him of home.
The forest was still strange, but beautiful. In the distance, he could hear the soft, steady trickle of a fountain—hidden just beyond the undergrowth. A rare sound in the wild, yet soothing. Gabriel let it calm his mind, his shoulders slowly lowering as he took the first drag.
He stood there for several quiet minutes, watching the smoke curl into the night air. The moon was still overhead, bathing the world in a gentle, silver-blue glow.
A firefly floated in front of him, blinking softly in the dark. Gabriel exhaled smoke in the opposite direction, not wanting to disturb it.
In his homeland, old folks used to say fireflies were omens—symbols of wandering spirits. That their lights weren't just beautiful, but deceptive. That ghosts would use their glow to lure humans away, to make them lose their sense of place.
He smiled faintly, puffing out a second stream of smoke.
"Yes… that's nonsense," he muttered, chuckling under his breath.
The air had grown colder, enough for his breath to turn to mist. He could see it now, curling like the smoke from his tobacco.
Slowly, he turned around, eyes narrowing in the dark.
While the others huddled around the fire, chattering or sharpening blades or pretending to sleep, he wandered just far enough into the woods to be alone, but not too far to forget the way back. The camp's light barely kissed the edge of the trees now. That was good. It made things quiet.
Smoke curled lazily into the chill. Somewhere, beyond the brush, a narrow stream—no, a fountain—murmured softly to itself. A strange thing, in a forest like this. It sounded too deliberate. But it calmed him anyway.
He stayed like that for a few long minutes. Breathing. Letting his thoughts soften around the edges.
Then he stepped forward— admitting it is the time to go back to the campfire.
—and stopped.
Midway through the motion, something flickered.
Again voices of old villagers struck his mind,
"Fireflies lead the dead home."
Another said,
"When ghosts lose their way, they borrow fireflies' glow to trick the living."
Then—
Clack.
A hard, dry sound.
Clack.
Gabriel tensed. He held the half-burnt roll between two fingers and turned his head slightly, listening.
It wasn't close. But not far, either.
The kind of distance that made you second-guess whether you heard it at all.
The firefly was gone, one by one. The echanted forest lighted by aesthetic vibes fading.
The smoke around him drifted slower now, curling toward the ground. Even the wind had vanished, sucked into the dense pressure of whatever now was.
Gabriel could see his own breath.
"Shit," he whispered.
The sound echoed faintly through the trees. Not loud, but distinct. Sharp. Like wood hitting stone—or bone striking earth.
Clack,
Clack,
Clack,
He took another step back—but the forest didn't feel the same. Something had shifted.
The trees no longer looked familiar.
The stream—gone silent.
"arh" Gabriel grunts when his boots stuck between the vines on the ground.
He turned in a slow circle. Shadows warped between branches. The bark on some trunks looked wet, like it had been crying.
He tried to orient himself, to retrace his path back to camp. But each way looked… wrong.
He knew right this moment he messed up, because the clacking sound he heard at the back of his head, he is no longer within the zone of a human could reach, he is alone now. Between the realm of the dead and the living.
The sound echoed behind him.
His breath curled into white fog. The temperature dropped suddenly, stinging his skin like fine needles.
He turned.
Nothing.
But silence had swallowed the forest whole. Not a single owl, no rustle of leaves—only the faint hum of blood in his ears. Even the insects had stopped chirping.
Gabriel's shoulders tensed.
They called it the Hour of Ghosts.
A cursed time, whispered by those who hunted this forest but never lingered past dusk. A time when the veil between the worlds thinned—and you'd feel it before you ever saw it.
Your breath is growing visible.
Your spine chilled, as if icy fingers trailed your back.
Your vision bending, like the air itself was shifting around you.
And the sense… that something else was watching.
"Shit…" he whispered, clutching the tobacco tighter. "All this for a damn smoke?
Maybe he shouldn't have wandered off. Maybe that splash from the river had been a mistake. This river wasn't even there when he was gathering twigs earlier.
Ain't that scared actually, he could manage the spirits, but it will be almost impossible to return with his alone state.
That sound again. Bone on stone. And then suddenly then came the scream
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!''non-stop unknown wailing would certainly freak people out, especially if you cannot see where it is
"HUARGHHH!"The hair on the skin of his neck rose, he had a goose bump all over his body, it would be better if he encounter wild animals instead of this.
Gabriel threw the smoke on the ground, without stomping on it in case Tomas or Vex might see it.
A girl's voice? No—childlike, maybe. A shriek from far away. Too human to be an animal. Too hollow to be real.
It was the kind of scream that lived at the bottom of cliffs, from broken spines and twisted necks. It is impossible for someone to scream like that without stopping, aren't they?
Unless their lungs are built differently? why would a woman come here anyway? staying late at night, unless she is a mercenary
Gabriel turned his head. Couldn't stop himself.
"Shit!"
The fireflies swarmed.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Flickering, erratic. They buzzed past his ears, scraping across his face, crawling into his mouth, his nose.
He swatted. Grunted. They didn't scatter.
One shoved into his ear. Another brushed his throat. His eyes watered.
He couldn't see.
Bang.
He pulled the trigger. Didn't even think about it.
The weapon—a core-infused prototype—wasn't loaded with a normal round.
It exploded with a concussive whump, a flare of light and smoke that ignited the air. But it wasn't on fire.
It was a reaction.
The core inside bonded to the smoke from his tobacco—the same smoke he'd exhaled, drifting unseen through the trees.
A flash.
Then lightning.
Then everything around him lit up like a storm had ripped the forest open.
Particles snapped and danced in the air. The scent of burned bark and scorched earth filled his nose.
Gabriel staggered back, ears ringing.
"Crap! I'm gonna die," he rasped. "Why did I agree to this? For what—field testing? Fucking idiots!" He depended on a sword most of the time, so during that time he chose a small gun instead of a gun, a dual gun which he could hide behind his back.
His face was coated in soot. The roll in his hand was gone.
He coughed. Regained control.
But when he looked up—
He wasn't in the forest anymore.
Not really.
A door stood in front of him.
Wooden. Crooked. With its frame sunk into the soil like an old tooth.
It was a hut.
One he remembered.
Not from this forest—he is now standing in a paddy field.
Hallucinations? or am I being transported?
The kind of shelter farmers used to guard their crops from birds, rain, or thieves.
Old. Half-collapsed.
It should not be here.
Gabriel's breath came slower. Shallow.
He took a step forward. His boots sank slightly into the earth.
The world had quieted again.
But not in peace.
It was the quiet of a held breath, waiting to see what he would do.
Gabriel bit his tongue, scratched behind his ear decide to enter through this small door or not