Even the light filtering through the canopy had changed.
No longer warm or golden, it had curdled into a pale, sickly dilution — a memory of sunlight dragged through something diseased, casting long, distorted shadows that moved a fraction of a second too late.
Ahead, the land rose in a slow, deliberate incline, the earth folding upward into a hill that felt less grown than carved out of the forest's flesh. Trees along its slope bent subtly away from the summit, trunks twisted as if in revulsion, as though every living thing understood that whatever waited at the top did not belong among them.
And there—
stood the cottage.
Small.
Still.
Utterly untouched.
It did not decay like the scarredforest surrounding it. It did not blend. It existed in quiet, obscene defiance of time and rot — walls straight, roof unbroken, every line preserved with unnatural perfection.
No wind touched it. No leaf dared settle on its shingles. No vine dared crawl across its stones.
