A dull throb echoed through Sam's skull as he drifted back to consciousness. He blinked slowly, vision blurred, and tried to lift his head—but it felt like a thousand bricks were resting on it. The ground beneath him was cold, rough, and damp, pressing against his spine like the forest itself was trying to reclaim him.
He groaned softly.
Everything ached.
His body felt like it had been trampled by a herd. His ribs stung with every breath, and when he tried to move, iron rattled.
*Clink.*
He froze.
Slowly, with great effort, he turned his head and looked down.
Shackles.
Thick iron cuffs bound his wrists and ankles, chained together tightly. The metal bit into his skin. The chill of night wrapped around him like a shroud. The moon hung high above, pale and cold through the dense branches of tall trees that towered around him.
He was in a forest.
But not just any forest—something felt… off. The air was unnaturally still. And there were others around him. Shadows.
People.
Lying on the ground.
Dozens of them.
All sleeping or unconscious.
All chained like him.
"What the hell…" Sam muttered, barely able to hear his own voice.
He tried to remember. Bits and pieces of the past rushed at him like broken glass.
Elena's scream.
Kevin's voice, sneering with hatred.
Ruddy's knife, glinting in the light.
Blood.
His. Hers.
The image of Elena getting stabbed seared itself into his mind like fire. He tried to sit up, but dizziness overwhelmed him. The world spun. His breath came in shallow, shaky bursts.
"Elena…" he whispered, eyes wide. "Where… where is she? Did she…"
He couldn't finish the thought.
His body trembled. His soul felt like it was collapsing.
"I couldn't protect her."
A hot tear rolled down his cheek, tracing a path through the dried dirt and blood on his face. He clenched his fists weakly—only for the chains to rattle again.
A sound behind him—just a man shifting in his sleep. Sam whipped his head around, heart racing.
No one was awake.
Just him.
The others—young and old, some barely more than kids, others built like soldiers—all lay still. Some groaned in their sleep. Others muttered unintelligible words.
The forest around him was suffocatingly dark, like the sky itself had collapsed and buried the world in shadows. Moonlight trickled in weakly through the towering trees, casting strange, twisted shapes on the ground. Every branch above seemed to creak with menace. The air was thick—humid, damp, and heavy with the earthy scent of moss and rot.
Sam's ears twitched as he began to hear the forest breathe around him.
In the distance, a low howl echoed through the trees—long, mournful, and far too close for comfort. The shrill screech of something avian followed, sharp enough to make his skin crawl. Twigs snapped somewhere in the underbrush. The chirping of insects was constant, layered beneath the rustling of unseen creatures slithering or scurrying nearby.
It was the kind of forest that didn't just feel *alive*—it felt like it was *watching*.
The trees themselves loomed like sentinels, ancient and uncaring, their gnarled branches reaching down like fingers ready to grab anyone foolish enough to move. Shadows shifted where they shouldn't. The ground was uneven and soft, as though it had been dug up and hastily re-covered.
Everything about this place screamed danger—not just from the people who had captured him, but from the world itself.
Sam swallowed hard. A cold sweat dripped down his temple.
He wasn't just trapped.
He was *alone* in a place where even the forest wanted him to disappear.
His breathing slowed. The thought hit him harder than the pain in his chest.
This wasn't Earth.
He wasn't in a hospital.
Not even the basement of a psychopath.
The forest, the moons above, the armor he glimpsed earlier on the guards—it was all wrong. Too fantastical. Too unreal.
But too *real* to be a dream.
"Did I… get transported?"
He thought of the novels he used to read. The manga. The isekai stories.
People dying and waking up in new worlds.
But did he die? He remembered the pain. The blood. The screaming.
Then… nothing.
And now this.
Shackles. Dirt. Cold.
He tried to push himself up again—his elbows shaking under the weight of his body. Just as he managed to sit up fully, pain surged through his chest and abdomen.
The bandages.
Someone had roughly tied cloth strips over his wounds. Not clean. Not professional. But enough to stop the bleeding.
His strength was gone.
His body felt hollow, like a shell barely held together by willpower.
The edges of his vision blurred again.
"No… no… I need to…"
But he couldn't finish the sentence.
His arms gave out.
His body slumped back to the earth, breath ragged.
As darkness crept in again, his last thought was not of pain, or fear.
It was her.
Elena—smiling, laughing.
His light in the dark.
*I'm sorry…*
Then everything faded once more into shadow.
📢 Author's Note 📢
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Love y'all. Until the next chapter—stay curious, stay wild.