The Maze of Silk & Bone

  The trees loomed overhead, gnarled and twisted, their branches reaching like skeletal fingers into the gray sky. Cave’s breath was shallow, his footsteps barely making a sound as he pressed deeper into the woods. The further he walked, the more the world behind him seemed to dissolve into a distant memory—his bruises, the laughter, the school, Mary.

  The whispering guided him.

  “Come...”

  It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t urgent. It was subtle, like the wind shifting through the leaves, curling around his ears in a way that felt almost intimate.

  He was so caught up in the sensation that he didn’t realize when the air had grown thicker—denser.

  The trees began to change. Their trunks, once rough and covered in moss, now shimmered with a strange sheen. A pale, silken film stretched across them like flesh pulled too tight over bone. The ground beneath his feet became softer, less like dirt and more like something else—something damp and fibrous.

  Cave slowed his steps.

  His instincts screamed at him.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Then he saw it.

  The web.

  It was everywhere. Thick strands of glistening white silk stretched between the trees, draping down in great curtains. The deeper he looked, the more the world seemed to be suffocating beneath it. Some strands shimmered with moisture, while others hung eerily still, almost like ropes waiting for prey.

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  Cave swallowed hard, stepping backward—

  THWACK.

  His foot caught something. Something not soft.

  He looked down—

  A skull.

  Half-sunken into the sticky, web-covered earth, its hollow sockets stared blankly up at him, as if warning him—run.

  His breathing hitched, but before he could react, the world lurched.

  The trees twisted. The webs constricted. The air shifted—

  And then—

  SNAP!!!

  The ground vanished.

  Cave fell, his body yanked downward as if sucked into a whirlpool of blackness.

  For a moment, he was weightless.

  Then—

  OOOOOOFFF!!!

  He hit the ground.

  Hard.

  The Realm of The Ancients

  Pain lanced through his body. His ribs throbbed from the impact, his fingers sinking into damp earth. But as Cave groaned, pushing himself upright, he realized—

  This wasn’t the same forest.

  The sky above him was dark, almost too dark, like a permanent twilight had swallowed the world whole. The air was thick with mist, curling in tendrils along the ground. Massive trees stretched upward, their bark pulsating as if alive, their roots twisting in unnatural patterns.

  Cave’s stomach twisted.

  What was this place?

  He turned—and his breath caught in his throat.

  Bones.

  Everywhere.

  Skeletal remains lined the trees, woven into the webbing like grotesque decorations. Ribcages hung from the branches, skulls stacked atop one another, forming eerie totems. Some of them looked human. Others... didn’t.

  The webs were thicker here, pulsating with a sickly glow, as if something—some intelligence—was coursing through them.

  And then—

  The whispering changed.

  No longer distant.

  No longer inviting.

  Now it surrounded him.

  “You’ve come too far...”

  The voice slithered through the trees, no longer a beckoning call but a warning.

  Cave swallowed the rising terror in his throat.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Something was watching him.