The Wanderer

The chanting grows louder. It vibrates through the ground, through the trees, through my ribs. The hooded figures close in, their steps synchronized, their breaths hidden behind cloth stitched with spirals. Meredith stands at their center, her presence brighter than all of them, yet darker in a way I can finally see. “Don’t run,” she murmurs. “It only makes the forest hungrier.” I step back anyway. The ground cracks beneath my heel — thin fissures spreading like veins. A faint red glow pulses from below, as if something deep under the soil is breathing. “What is this place?” I ask. Meredith tilts her head, her expression soft, almost pitying. “It’s where the forest ends,” she says. “And where he begins.” The cult members kneel. Their chanting sharpens, becoming a single, rising note that scrapes against my skull. The trees around us bend inward, their branches twisting like fingers reaching for a throat. Meredith steps closer, her hand brushing my cheek. Her touch is warm — too warm — like she’s standing beside a fire I can’t see. “You were never wandering,” she whispers. “You were being guided.” “By who?” She smiles, and for the first time, it isn’t seductive. It’s reverent. “By the one who sleeps beneath the roots. The one who made this forest. The one who wants you back.” The ground splits open. A deep, guttural exhale rises from below — ancient, hungry, aware. The red glow intensifies, painting Meredith’s face in a color this world should not have. She leans in, her lips near my ear. “Don’t fight it. You were born for him.” The earth trembles. The cult rises.