Morning sunlight streamed through the trees, golden and warm, chasing away the night's horrors like a forgotten dream. Birds chirped overhead. Leaves rustled gently in a passing breeze. The forest, once a dark and hungry entity, now seemed… ordinary.
But none of them moved.
Emily sat cross-legged on the grass, staring at the place where the pit had been. Her hand still gripped Ava's, both girls clutching each other like lifelines. Across from them, Marcus rubbed his temples, while Devon and Sarah sat in silence, gazes vacant and distant.
The quiet was almost louder than the chaos that had come before.
It was Marcus who broke it.
"What the hell just happened?"
No one answered right away. Not because they didn't want to—but because none of them knew. Or maybe they did and just couldn't say it aloud.
Emily looked to Ava. "Did we… win?"
Ava didn't speak at first. Her eyes stayed locked on the trees, scanning the forest as if it might still be hiding something just out of sight. "I don't know if there was ever a way to win," she said. "But we survived. And that might be enough."
Sarah finally looked up. Her face was pale, and her voice trembled. "I ran. I shouldn't have… but I was so scared. I felt something chasing me. It had my brother's voice."
Devon shifted, his expression strained. "It was my dad's voice for me. Calling me. Telling me to come home."
Emily's chest tightened.
The forest hadn't just threatened them with fear—it had reached inside them, used what they loved and lost. She glanced back at the clearing. No hole. No pedestal. No child with empty eyes.
But the air still felt wrong.
"It's not over," she said quietly.
Ava nodded. "No. Just sleeping."
The others looked at her, uneasy.
"What do you mean?" Marcus asked.
Ava turned to face them. "The game… the forest… it's old. Maybe older than the town. Maybe older than everything. And it doesn't stop. It just waits. For the next players."
Sarah shuddered. "That's not fair."
"It's not supposed to be," Ava replied. "It was never meant to be fair. It feeds on the innocent, on joy and connection. That's why it chooses kids. But we finished it. We didn't get lost. We didn't become part of it."
Not all of us, Emily thought. She remembered the figure on the pedestal—the seeker who never got out. The child whose turn had never ended.
Marcus stood, brushing off his jeans. "Then let's get out of here. Now."
No one objected.
The hike back to town took twice as long as it should have. The path kept shifting. Familiar turns led to unfamiliar trees. Every now and then, Emily caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye—a branch that twitched, a shadow that darted just out of reach—but when she turned, there was nothing.
By the time they stepped out of the tree line and into the edges of town, the sun was high overhead.
But town didn't feel like home.
Something was off.
There were no people in the streets. Cars sat parked and cold. A dog barked in the distance, but it sounded like an echo.
The world felt muted.
Devon waved his arms. "Hey! Hello?"
No response.
They walked through two blocks of empty road before Sarah spotted someone—an old man sweeping his porch. But he didn't look up when they passed. Didn't react when Devon called out.
It was like they were ghosts.
Emily stepped in front of the man, waving her hand inches from his face.
Nothing.
Marcus swallowed hard. "Are we… dead?"
"No," Ava said immediately. "But we've been touched. Marked."
Emily turned to her. "What does that mean?"
Ava looked down the road, her expression distant. "We stepped out of one world and into another. Then we came back. But things don't come back unchanged."
They made it to Emily's house first.
It was exactly as she remembered.
Too exactly.
The toys in the front yard were in the same positions she'd left them weeks ago. The same cereal box sat on the porch beside the trash bin. The same cracked flowerpot leaned against the steps.
Her heart pounded.
She reached for the door.
It opened before she could knock.
Her mother stood in the doorway—alive, whole—but with the same distant look as the man on the porch.
"Mom?" Emily said softly.
Her mother blinked. "Emily, where have you been?"
The question was calm. Too calm. As if she hadn't been missing at all.
"I—" Emily looked back at her friends. They stood at the edge of the yard, unwilling to step closer.
"I was in the forest."
Her mother tilted her head. "You're grounded for sneaking off."
That was it.
No tears. No panic. No frantic hugging or police or questions.
Just grounded.
Emily stepped backward.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The others found the same in their homes.
Parents who barely reacted. Days had passed—but no one seemed to care. No search parties. No flyers. No police reports. Like time had moved differently for the town. Or like the town had forgotten them entirely.
Only the five of them remembered.
And the forest.
They met that night at the edge of the woods.
None of them could sleep. The events of the game sat like gravel in their minds—heavy and grinding, impossible to ignore.
"I think it changed us," Sarah said quietly. "I can't even look at my parents. It's like they're shadows of who they used to be."
"They are," Devon muttered. "We're not in the same world anymore. Not really."
Emily picked up a stick and tossed it into the brush. It vanished into the darkness.
"Do you think it'll try to pull us back?"
Ava looked into the trees.
"Yes."
Marcus turned to her. "So what do we do? Wait until the next time it wants to play?"
"No," Ava said. "We prepare."
Emily raised an eyebrow. "Prepare how?"
"We remember," Ava said. "Every rule. Every sign. We write it all down. The places it hides. The voices it uses. The way it tricks you. Because someday… it'll start again. Maybe with other kids. Maybe with us."
Sarah looked horrified. "But we beat it. You said we finished the game."
Ava met her eyes. "Games restart."
Silence fell between them.
Then Emily spoke.
"Then we make the rules this time."
The others turned to her.
"We were players before," she continued, "but now we're survivors. We've seen what it does. If it starts again… we're not going to run. We're going to fight it."
Devon gave a small, grim smile. "Like forest hunters."
"No," Emily said. "Like guardians. The next kids who go in there? We make sure they come out."
The moon hung high overhead, casting silvery light on the five of them.
No longer children.
Not anymore.
They turned away from the forest and walked back into town—quietly, solemnly—ready to carry the burden of knowing what the world had forgotten.
Behind them, the wind whispered through the trees.
"Ready or not…"