They went back to the forest that night.
Not together—Mira slipped out first, sketchpad tucked under her arm like a lifeline. Luka followed ten minutes later, headphones off, ears tuned to the hush between heartbeats.
The town was asleep, wrapped in fog and the distant hum of thunder. No one saw them go.
No one except Eli.
He stood at the window long after they left, fists clenched at his sides, knowing he couldn't stop them. Not really. Not when silence had already become their language—and something inside it was calling them home.
The forest greeted them with its usual stillness.
But tonight, the air felt different.
Thicker.
As if the trees were listening.
Luka paused just past the tree line, brow furrowed. "You feel that?"
Mira nodded and flipped open her sketchpad. She drew quickly—a ripple in the air, invisible but present. Like soundwaves frozen mid-motion.
He exhaled. "It's getting louder."
She tapped the edge of the page twice—confirmation.
Then she pointed ahead.
They moved deeper into the woods, careful not to disturb the moss-covered ground beneath their feet. The path twisted strangely now, as though shifting underfoot. Mira kept drawing as they walked, capturing things before they happened: a broken branch falling seconds before it did, a flicker of movement between the trees that vanished when they looked.
They were being watched.
By what, neither could say.
They found the door beneath the birch tree exactly where Mira had drawn it.
Half-buried in roots, marked by the spiral carving.
Luka reached out instinctively, fingers hovering over the wood.
Mira stopped him with a touch to his wrist.
He looked at her.
She shook her head once.
Not yet , she signed.
He swallowed hard. "You don't think we're ready."
She hesitated—then drew again.
This time, it was a boy standing alone, hands outstretched toward nothing. His mouth was open in a silent scream. Behind him, the forest curled inward like smoke caught in wind.
Luka stared at it. "Is that me?"
She didn't answer right away.
Then she touched his chest, just above his heart.
And whispered something without words.
Something he felt .
A name.
Not hers. Not his.
Someone else's.
Back in town, the first disappearance happened before sunrise.
Mrs. Kael—the janitor's wife—woke to find her son gone. His bed untouched, window open, no signs of struggle.
Just silence.
Eli heard about it from Mr. Kael himself, who showed up at the hardware store with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands.
"They say he wandered off," Mr. Kael muttered. "But he wouldn't do that. He doesn't even like the woods."
Eli stiffened.
His stomach dropped.
Because Mira's sketchpad was full of drawings of a boy running through those same woods.
A boy with wide eyes and bare feet.
A boy screaming silently into the dark.
That afternoon, Mira sat in the schoolyard, staring at her latest page.
She hadn't drawn this one.
Someone else had.
A child's handwriting scrawled across the bottom:
Don't open the door. It's not ours.
Luka read it over her shoulder. "Where did you get this?"
She didn't answer. Just pointed to the edge of the paper—where a small footprint had been stamped in smudged charcoal.
Like someone had stepped on it from the other side.
He shivered.
"Mira," he said quietly, "this isn't just memory anymore."
She met his gaze.
Then she signed:
We're not the only ones listening now.