A fierce, visceral pull dragged me there.

  It wasn’t a conscious choice. It wasn’t curiosity for the forbidden, or that clumsy kind of bravery that mistakes danger for purpose.

  No.

  It was something deeper.

  I felt a magnetic force tugging at my feet, luring me into Ziwanda Forest, where sunlight can’t even scratch the canopy’s thick, choking green.

  For a moment, I floated outside myself. I watched my own body from above—small and stubborn—walking through endless shadow.

  I don’t know how long it lasted. But when my senses snapped back into place, I was running, one sentence glued to my mind like a curse.

  Run. You can still save yourself.

  Blood hammered in my temples. Adrenaline burned through my veins. My feet slammed the ground in a frantic search for anything familiar while branches rose like spears to break my path.

  I forced my way between the trunks as fast as I could.

  The air tore at my throat, too dry and rough to breathe. When I swallowed, my saliva tasted like rust.

  I wiped my mouth with my forearm, and kept running because behind me, lightning struck with fury, splintering ancient trees like brittle twigs. One mistake and I’d become ash.

  I felt it closer. Closer. More insistent, like an invisible predator already savoring my trail.

  My chest burned with every inhale. My legs shook, ready to give out, but my body refused to stop.

  I was running, but… from what?

  And even though I shouldn’t have, curiosity won. I looked back.

  No silhouette. No shadow. Nothing tangible that could justify the terror flooding me.

  It didn’t matter.

  That presence, indescribable, dense, inhuman clung to my skin like cold sweat sliding down my spine.

  My heart slammed against my ribs, desperate to outrun my own footsteps.

  Then I heard it, as if someone pressed their mouth to my ear.

  “Aleksa,” it whispered with an unnatural calm that was worse than any threat. “Surrender.”

  Hopelessness crashed over me.

  My body buckled under the weight of that voice. My heart made itself known in every muscle, pumping adrenaline into every corner of me.

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  I didn’t understand. I wasn’t Aleksa… I was Maki.

  So why was it hunting me?

  I looked back again, trying, desperately, to name what chased me, and when it finally deigned to appear, unreality hit me like a blow.

  For a heartbeat I wondered if it was a nightmare. I slapped my own face hard enough for the sting to settle the question.

  I focused, and in the dimness, I saw him.

  A tall figure in a white suit—top hat, and a matching mask—walking toward me with perfect calm while the forest itself seemed to part at his feet, as if nature feared being touched by him.

  His movements were graceful. Effortless. As though he were simply strolling, even while he attacking me.

  I tried to track the direction of the strikes, tried to think, but there was no time for thought. Only for run. Only to escape.

  When I turned forward again, I saw it: a thin thread of golden light in the distance, fighting its way through the dense leaves.

  Sunset.

  The edge of the forest, the way out.

  I was close… so close to being safe.

  With my last burst of strength, I shut my eyes and threw everything I had into my legs. I was getting away. I was doing it.

  Certain only a few steps separated me from freedom, I let my guard slip and a fallen trunk stole the path beneath my feet.

  The world tilted.

  Again I slipped out of myself, watching from above as I fell in slow motion.

  I couldn’t help remembering all the times I thought I’d escaped one problem, only to crash into something worse.

  Sometimes life felt unfair.

  I worked so hard to make my parents proud, only to watch the class cheater beat my grades with her tricks.

  Then there were the sports clubs.

  I was good at track. Good at volleyball. But so many girls were someone’s daughter, someone’s niece, someone important to the school, and somehow I always ended up warming the bench.

  That’s why I quit. That’s why I chose to finish my last year before college at home.

  Pain tore through my leg, stones bit into my face and the forest filled my mouth.

  I shook my head, tried to push up—ordered my body to move but it didn’t.

  After a pathetic attempt to rise, I collapsed again.

  I had no choice.

  I rolled over to face whatever was coming.

  If these were my last seconds on Earth, then at least let me meet them with courage in front.

  But the figure was more terrifying than I’d imagined. In a final act of cowardice, I squeezed my eyes shut, and my mind fled somewhere safe to wait for the inevitable.

  First came the blurred face of an old woman with gentle features.

  Then me, as a little girl, helping her in the garden.

  My great-grandmother.

  She used to hum lullabies while I worked beside her among violet flowers, her favorite color.

  In my head, memories spilled at impossible speed: laughter, jokes, secret smiles, the warmth of being loved without conditions.

  After I turned eight, I never saw her again. She was gone, and I cursed death for taking her before I was ready.

  But now I was ready. Soon I’d meet her in the other world.

  With nothing left to lose, I opened my eyes.

  He was there—only a few meters away—still as stone, as if waiting for terror to finish me before he bothered to do the rest.

  My body trembled as I saw him clearly. His suit and mask shone like moonlight. The demonic aura pouring off him was impossible to ignore, and even harder to face.

  Hands in his pockets, he closed the distance between us.

  He knelt and leaned his face hovered inches from mine.

  Even though his mask was smooth, without any openings, I felt his gaze rake straight through me. I couldn’t see his eyes but I felt them.

  Hate, vast and bottomless.

  I flashed back to taekwondo training—now nothing more than a sad scrap of knowledge that meant nothing in Ziwanda.

  Still, I tried.

  I twisted back, snapped up to my feet in one motion and ran again for my life.

  Maybe he was surprised, because I heard nothing behind me.

  I didn’t stop even when sunset light spilled fully across my face.

  I kept going until my body gave out and then the ground vanished.

  In the blink of an eye, the world turned to water.