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Fox sat cross-legged on a woven mat, surrounded by children who spoke in hushed tones and half-formed dialects. Their village was suspended in the trees—platforms lashed together with vines, huts shaped like seedpods, hammocks swaying in the filtered light. The forest canopy above was so dense it turned the twin suns into a green-gold haze.
The girl with the scar sat across from him, sharpening a bone knife with a stone.
“You’re not the first,” she said.
Fox looked up. “Not the first what?”
“To come from the hallway. But the others didn’t last.”
He studied her. “What happened to them?”
“They tried to fight it. The snake. It remembers.”
Fox’s bracelet pulsed faintly. “You said it came through a door.”
She nodded. “A long time ago. Before I was born. The door never closed. The snake came through and made the forest sick.”
Fox frowned. “What do you mean, sick?”
She pointed to the trees. “They used to sing. Now they whisper.”
He listened. The wind moved through the leaves like breath. But beneath it—something else. A low, rhythmic thrum. Like a heartbeat. Or a hiss.
Elsewhere in the forest, Nathan hacked through a curtain of vines with a sharpened stick.
“Fox!” he shouted. “Fox!”
Michael crouched beside a broken branch. “He came this way. Look—footprints.”
Andrew knelt beside him. “You sure those are his?”
Michael nodded. “Boot tread. Same pattern.”
Nathan glanced around. “This place is wrong. The trees are too symmetrical.”
Andrew looked up. “You think it’s artificial?”
Michael stood. “I think it’s a room pretending to be a forest.”
They moved deeper into the undergrowth. The light shifted. The trees seemed to lean closer.
Then they found it.
A clearing. At the center, a rusted metal pod—half-buried in moss and roots.
Nathan brushed away the vines. “What is this?”
Michael pried open the hatch. Inside: a skeleton in a torn uniform. A cracked bracelet on its wrist. A journal clutched in its hand.
Andrew took it. “Name’s Kip,” he said, flipping through the pages. “Looks like he was a traveler. Like us.”
Nathan read over his shoulder. “‘The snake is not a creature. It’s a room. A corrupted one. It eats memory.’”
Michael looked at the trees. “Then we’re not just in danger. We’re inside it.”
Back in the treetop village, Fox stood at the edge of a platform, staring into the jungle.
“You said it remembers,” he said to the girl.
She nodded. “It forgets everything else. But it remembers pain.”
Fox turned to her. “What’s your name?”
She hesitated. “We don’t use names. The snake takes them.”
Fox’s voice was quiet. “Then how do you know who you are?”
She smiled. “We don’t. That’s why we hide.”
A horn sounded in the distance—low and mournful.
The children froze.
The girl grabbed Fox’s arm. “It’s hunting.”
Fox looked out at the trees.
The forest was moving.