Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 234: Ch232. Cornered

Chapter 234: Ch232. Cornered

They had not seen it, but it had seen them.

The forest of Tir’Serene grew even stranger still. Where once there were clearings and sky-glimpses, now the canopy twisted into a ceiling of gnarled roots, and branches fused into one another like ribs over a corpse.

Light filtered through in fractured shafts, pale as old bone.

The path, if it had ever been a path, was gone. They moved now by instinct, guided by Miles’ slow-growing sense of rhythm, an internal pull that throbbed like a distant drumbeat through his veins, whispering always down, always north, toward something low and hidden.

Sarissa had stopped speaking unless necessary. She moved with quiet precision, the limp in her leg now only a slight drag that only reminded her that it was still there.

She scanned trees, listened for wind that never came, and checked their supplies with increasing urgency.

Because something was wrong.

Not wrong like danger, but like being watched by something that smiled without a face.

The signs began subtly.

Small things, like their campfire ashes scattered in the morning, despite them never lighting it, their dried meat chewed, spat out, then left behind in a pattern that mirrored their footprints...

A night when Sarissa swore she heard Miles whisper her name, except he had already been asleep. The next night, Miles heard Sarissa call his, but she had been keeping watch, silent, frozen, staring into the black between trees.

They began to dream less of their past and more of eyes.

Eyes that blinked once and never again.

Slitted shapes that left no reflection in water.

Voices like theirs, but thinner.

Hungrier.

And always, behind the dreams, a dry, rasping sound, like something breathing through bark.

The thing wasn’t stalking them.

It was toying with them.

Cheshire appeared again on the fifth morning.

He was crouched on a boulder, balanced perfectly on one toe, paw raised to his lips in mock secrecy. The way his tail twitched betrayed the tension in his frame.

His grin was still wide, but it no longer reached his eyes.

"Ah, yes. It..." He said, without any meaning behind his words. "A remnant, or perhaps... A warning."

Miles didn’t reply, and neither did Sarissa. They only looked at him, exhausted, on edge, as Dee sniffed the perimeter of the glade and growled low.

"You want a name?" Cheshire stretched, then somersaulted midair and landed upright, suddenly beside them, leaning in close. "Don’t. Names stick. Names shape, and that one... Would hear it."

"What is it, then?" Sarissa asked softly. "It’s not a monster."

"What is a monster? Is it born, or is it made? No, not a monster. Not anymore." Cheshire’s grin tightened.

"Then what?"

"A story that never got told." Cheshire stared up into the trees, his pupils dilated thin as thread. "Something that tried to survive the same way you are now. That drank from the forest’s deep veins and drowned. It’s not hunting you."

He turned back to them.

"It’s remembering you. As if you’ve already died, and it’s just watching the rerun."

Dee hissed, a quiet, broken sound. Cheshire vanished, without drama this time.

***

The next day, Miles nearly lost his balance. But it wasn’t from fatigue or an attack.

It was the pulse.

It struck like a heartbeat, but deeper. Like something echoing through the bones of the world.

His knees buckled, and he leaned against a tree, palm pressed flat against its surface.

The bark was warm, breathing.

"Here..." He murmured.

"What?" Sarissa turned toward him.

"There’s a rhythm underneath us. It’s growing louder." He closed his eyes and breathed, matching it.

Thump.

Thump.

Pause.

Thump-thump.

"There, downhill. There’s a basin ahead." He pointed.

"How do you-?" Sarissa frowned.

"I don’t." He looked at her, eyes sharp with something between fear and certainty. "But I feel it."

They descended, and the forest descended with them.

The roots began to change. Where once they rose like tangled towers, now they spread sideways, immense and flat, forming a kind of forest floor above the forest floor.

They walked atop them, miles-wide tendrils as thick as rivers, and beneath their feet, Miles felt that pulse again.

It felt like it was welcoming him. Not as a friend, but as something known.

Something acknowledged.

It began to rain. Not drops, but mist. A fine shimmer of dew that did not fall from the sky, but seemed to rise from the soil itself.

Sarissa knelt beside a fallen log and touched it. Her fingers came away with ash.

It was burnt, and yet, there was no fire anywhere near them.

"It’s marking where it’s been." She whispered. "Like breadcrumbs."

"No." Miles retorted. "Like warnings."

Cheshire appeared again at twilight. He walked alongside them, upside-down, his paws making no sound as he strolled along a thick bough overhead.

For a long time, he said nothing. But then...

"Do you know why shadows grow loud?" He asked cheerfully. "Because they don’t have to sneak when you’re already afraid."

"You said it can’t make its own story. That it steals." Miles looked up.

"Oh yes!" Cheshire purred. "It’s a magpie of tragedy. A parasite of myth, not strong enough to be, but clever enough to echo. What better prey than a pair of walking legends-in-progress?"

"We’re not legends!" Sarissa snapped.

"No, you’re not." Cheshire rebuked. "But you will be, and it knows that. It smells the possibility on you like perfume."

He paused on a single claw, then spun and landed behind them.

"You’ve both been living within the System’s story. Power granted, levels gained, stats decided. Very tidy, very linear. But this place? This place remembers before all that. Before the System wrapped its little leash around the worlds."

"What does that have to do with it?" Miles asked.

"It means this place remembers things in your language. The one you’ve forgotten. The one you’re just now relearning." Cheshire’s grin softened.

"And the creature?"

"It remembers too, but wrongly. So, it claws at you. Tries to wear your faces, step where you step, sleep in your skin." Cheshire tilted his head.

He began fading, even as he finished speaking.

"You’ll meet it soon." He whispered. "Where the roots drown. Where endings go to sleep."

And then, he was gone.

***

They reached the edge of the basin the next day, but it was not a clearing, like they had imagined.

It was a wound.

A vast hollow in the forest where no trees grew. Only roots, massive, tangled, overlapping like ancient scars. Some so wide they could stand on, others writhed slowly in place, as if remembering motion.

The sky, if it existed above, was gone.

The light here was dim and green, filtered through layers of canopy too thick to penetrate. Mist clung low to the ground, pooling in strange, fluid patterns, like breath.

And below it all, Miles felt the pulse. It was louder now. Almost... Anxious.

Dee stood at the edge of the basin and refused to enter.

Sarissa looked at him.

"This is it." She said. "This is where it’s been leading us."

"No." Miles said quietly. "This is where it has been waiting."

They did not descend that night. They chose to make camp above the basin, their backs to a tree that didn’t look entirely dead, but didn’t look living either. Dee slept fitfully, curled into Sarissa’s lap, twitching in its sleep.

Miles did not sleep, though.

Because the forest was too loud in presence.

The roots murmured underfoot, the leaves trembled even without wind. Miles closed his eyes and saw symbols not written, but felt. The same glyphs from the pool, from the blackened stump, from Sarissa’s dream.

They weren’t messages. They were invitations.

A memory, waiting to be accepted.

He reached out, and the night shattered. No noise, just motion, like a flicker at the edge of vision.

Dee sprang to its feet and shrieked.

Miles rolled as something struck their camp, too fast to see, too heavy to be flesh. A ripple of pressure slammed through the air, and the fire went out instantly.

Sarissa had her spear in hand almost immediately, her eyes wild.

But they saw nothing.

Only mist, only shadow, and then...

A shape moved, but not toward them.

Around them.

It circled once, then vanished. The sound it made was not a growl, it was more like a whisper.

In Sarissa’s voice.

Then again, in Miles’.

Then one more time, in neither.

Sarissa cursed under her breath and struck the ground with her spear, but the shadow was gone.

"Get up." Miles’ voice was low. "It’s not going to let us sleep this time."

"I wasn’t planning to." She grunted, helping Dee back onto her shoulder.

Together, the three of them stood at the basin’s edge, the pulse now beating in time with Miles’ heart.

It wanted him to enter.

It needed them both.

And whatever it was that hunted them...

Was finally ready to strike.