Chapter 24: The woods should never be silent

The jokes lasted until we hit the mountains. 4 days. Now though, no one says a word.

They were a relatively uneventful 4 days, mostly filled with hiking through forests and traversing comparatively safe terrain.

We’ve had to fight or chase off some more of the ratwolves 3 separate times, had to go around where the forest begins to sink into marshland which we just didn’t want to deal with. One night we woke to find Demarcus half-dead from a vampiric tick hidden beneath his armor. Now we check for ticks every night and every morning.

Foraged a few interesting things, mostly foodstuffs but also a few interesting alchemy ingredients. Nothing too strange and outwardly magical; it seems this floor is mostly things harkening to concepts from earth. The forests, the fields, and the book describes the mountain range we’re heading towards as “Like the Appalachians in the worst way.” Which, I still don’t get. Then there’s the Backrooms style office area we’re supposedly going to find, which I’m not sure if creepy, infinite, liminal spaces made out of mundane places is a universal concept but, the office style has to be earth-based just basing off the 3 ring binder and sticky notes.

Mato has surprisingly leveled twice, the most recent one was last night, after we reached the mountains. I suppose him being a [Ranger] and leading us through the wilds is playing directly into his class. He filled out a few more of the basic or fundamental skills for [Ranger], 3 total. He tells us for level 6 he got [Basic Forage] and [Trailblazer]. [Basic Forage] is obvious, helps him forage, while [Trailblazer] lets him scout the path ahead and leave little magical yellow marks for us to follow him.

So, he’s been enjoying scouting ahead, taking a break from the “kids” and being back in his element for a while.

He was, until yesterday, when we hit the mountains.

Whenever we’d catch up to him for regular check-ins, or have our breaks or eat our meals, he’d always seem… troubled. He’d constantly look around us, inspect plants, turn over rocks, just have a general air of suspicion.

Eventually, I had to jog ahead to find him privately and ask him. When I caught up to him, he had his crossbow drawn and aimed at me, I held up my hands and waited for him to lower it. He must’ve heard me coming and wasn’t expecting me.

“Alright man, what’s up? You’ve been jumpy all day.” I asked him.

He peered around again, held up a finger to his mouth to get me to be silent, and we stood in that uncomfortable silence for several moments. I heard nothing at all but my own breathing, and the slight shuffle of my clothes.

“Somethin’ ain’t right about this place,” Mato says.

“The woods should never be silent, not unless there’s somethin’ out there that the critters are tryin’ not to be heard by. And humans rarely warrant that.”

“The plants are strange too, not a one of ‘em has been so much as nibbled on, and I haven’t seen a single bit of scat.

Son, tell me, have you heard even a single bird in the past day? Cuz I haven’t. Where are you takin’ us?”

With my [Perfect Memory] I was able to recall the entirety of the day, and skimmed through it like sped up footage.

“Last time I heard a bird was at breakfast. And I’m taking us to some kind of office on this mountain range. What does all this mean?”

Mato let my words sink in, and asked “an office? On this mountain? Isn’t that a bit out of place?” Before he continued with, “all this means that there’s no animals here. Not even insects. I’m not sure if that means this place ain’t so kind to life, or if there’s somethin’ keepin’ ’em away.”

“Cmon, we gotta tell the other two.”

Mato told Demarcus and Izzy, and it went about how you’d expect. Izzy kicked up a storm of complaining, blaming it on me and cracking jokes about it. Demarcus was rather stoic, but I knew the signs to see how scared or frustrated he was. He hates problems he can’t do anything about.

We decided to set up camp before dark, and take watches. Mato was first, and I walked over to him as he stood on the edge of camp, shock still.

He jumped a bit when I cleared my throat to let him know I was there, and then I asked

“What’re you looking for?” Hoping desperately for an insignificant answer.

“I’m just watching the sunset.” He said, and I breathed a sigh of relief, prematurely.

“But, tell me Cy, do you know how to tell what direction you’re facing, without usin’ the sun?”

“Uh, no. I don’t”

“I do. We’re facing East. The sun is setting in the East. It wasn’t yesterday. Did your book warn you of that?”

I just shook my head for an answer.

“Wherever we are, something's wrong with it. We better get where we’re goin’ fast cuz I don’t wanna find out what.”

That night, last night, he leveled up to 7. He gained one skill.

[Heed The Omens].

He woke us up before dawn.

“We need to move. Now. Pack yer things.”

“There’s somethin’ in the woods with us.”

We immediately began throwing our supplies together, hastened along by a panicked Mato.

In the early pre-dawn dark, something saw us. Something that was patiently biding its time and had now realized that the jig was up.

A desperation that mirrored our own caused it to cry out, only making its performance that much better.

“Guys! Guys I found you! Jesus fuck man, I can’t see in this dark. You would not believe the hell I went through to get here. Where are you? Get over here, I can’t find you!”

I heard Higgy’s voice and my feet stopped before my brain caught up to them, and I fell to the ground. I turned my head as we heard the shout from far in the woods, deep and distant, yet clearly legible. The group stopped their hurried scramble and their heads craned and looked about, trying to find the source, but no matter where we looked it seemed to be just behind a ledge, a rock, the treeline.

I stopped looking immediately, frozen in place before Mato came back and picked me up.

I only just barely managed to break from it and push Mato and Izzy onward.

I didn’t hear Higgy again, but quickly, originating from the same spot, we heard a different voice.

“No! Don’t! My daughter is home! Don’t you dare!”

I nearly tripped over Isabella as she stopped dead on the trail.

“What? What is it?” I asked her.

The voice cried again.

“Princesa! It’s alright! I’m here, it’s alright! Where are you? Where are you princesa?”

Mato came near and held Izzy’s shoulders, hard and firm, and her voice came out choked, and quiet.

“That’s not my father.”

As if it could hear her, the voice changed tack, and came from the other side of the woods. As if it had been pacing around us, surrounding us. Or perhaps, there was more than one out there.

“Monkey? Is that you? I’m lost. Mato, please! I don’t know where I am! I’m scared!”

Mato gave up the act, and yelled.

“My wife has been dead for twenty years, you sonuva bitch! How dare you use her voice!”

There was an audible shuffling in the woods, and Mato turned to us and yelled.

“Run!”

He grabbed Izzy by the wrist and dragged her along as she stumbled over the rocky terrain in the dark.

Finally, it played its last card.

“Honey, please! He’s almost here! You know how he gets, it's best if we just wait it out. I’m right here, baby please!”

The voice of my mother screams from the woods, desperate. But I had never heard her give this much of a shit. She would’ve tossed me at him as a distraction so she wouldn’t be bothered. Whatever this voice is, it was the desperation to not lose us that we heard, so it played every card it had. Even going so far as to try and trick me twice.

It was in that moment, thinking clearly, the illusion broken by this thing trying to find someone I would actually want to run to and having to stretch a memory just to make it fit, that I realized it.

It didn’t try to trick me twice.

Higgy was for Demarcus.

Fear of abandonment Demarcus.

Demarcus, hearing a voice from the only family he ever knew.

[Loyal To A Fault].

It was dark. Very dark. It could almost be forgiven that I hadn’t noticed he was gone until then.

Almost.