An Old Friend

I used the tall, curling pine tree as my marker—the one that bent slightly at the top like it had once tried to reach the heavens and then changed its mind halfway through. The bark shimmered faintly with mana residue, enough to guide me under the low-hanging fog of this twisted forest.

I kept moving, dragging my boots through the patchy grass and cracked earth. But no matter how far I went, the same mutated pine tree kept showing up—once, twice… four times.

I stood in front of it again, my chest tight, breath slowing with each frustrating realization.

"Am I… going in circles?"

The thought didn't comfort me. My limbs ached, my calves stung from thorns that curled up mutated trees like barbed vines. I sank to the ground beneath the shadow of yet another tree, curling my arms around my knees. The forest was so quiet it made my ears buzz, as if nature was holding its breath.

I was trapped. That was the only explanation. Either the forest was looping, or I was losing my mind. Possibly both.

I looked around, trying to note every detail—the yellowing grass swaying stiffly in the breeze, the distorted tree trunks spiraling like frozen whirlpools, the large hand-sized grasshoppers that chirped in clusters from unseen places. I'd passed this exact same grove before. The same broken branch. The same claw marks on the bark. The same damn chunk of rock half-buried in the dirt.

My eyes drifted upward, to the sky cloaked in swirling shadow. There were no stars here—no moon, no sun, just a black canvas streaked with aurora-like currents of glowing mana. The iridescent threads twisted in strange paths, slowly shifting—living constellations. My vision, enhanced after absorbing the cockroach and that invisible energy, lit the world in radiant contrast. If I hadn't been gifted that vision, I would be walking through eternal night.

I let my gaze fall again, landing on one of the rocks from earlier—the ones the Chameleon creature had flung at me like I was a carnival target. A laugh escaped me, weak and tired.

"Really wish I could laugh without wanting to cry," I muttered.

Still… the rock held my attention. Something about the mana inside it—the way it flowed—called to me. The threads weren't random. They were structured, orderly, like the crystalline bonds in feldspar or albite. I tilted my head.

Volcanic rock?

My heart tightened in my chest. Back at the lab, I'd spent countless hours cataloging mineral structures and planetary compositions. I could still see the tables, the diagrams, the glowing screens of chemical matrices. I knew volcanic compounds like I knew my own name. And now, staring at this rock, I couldn't help but recall those sleepless nights spent under fluorescent lights and buzzing projectors. The weight of old knowledge suddenly felt useful again.

My hand moved without thinking. I reached out and traced the flow of mana within the rock, eyes narrowing as I separated the strands like muscle fibers under a scalpel. My breathing slowed. This wasn't conscious anymore. This was muscle memory. Academic instinct.

I carefully pulled the strands apart—discarding the ones that didn't match what I needed. The rock's pattern started shifting under my control. I aimed for a specific structure. One I remembered vividly from geology labs and childhood memories alike.

SiO₂. Amethyst.

The pattern snapped into place.

Something pulsed in my chest. A memory. A face.

Haley.

I whispered her name before I even realized it. It hung in the still air like a prayer.

We were born on the same day—February 7th—minutes apart in the same hospital. We were practically sisters. A coincidence that tethered us together like fate had tied a knot. Our parents had given us matching amethyst necklaces on our twelfth birthdays. Hers glittered with a deep violet hue; mine was a bit paler, chipped at the edge. We never took them off. Not until the world ended.

She always said it kept us close, no matter how far apart we ended up.

And now, here I was, surrounded by twisted trees and rotting earth, making amethyst with my bare hands.

The stone in front of me began to change, its dull black hue giving way to a glimmering violet. Sharp crystal points jutted out, catching the light of the mana-laced sky. I didn't even notice what I'd done until I pricked my palm on one of the jagged tips.

I stared at the gleaming purple gem in stunned silence, my fingers trembling as I cupped it.

"What the hell… did I just do?"

The stone was real—heavy and cold in my hand. No illusions. No tricks. Just… transformed matter.

I created this. Not with tools. Not with machines. With mana.

That thought hit me harder than the spike that had stabbed my hand.

I had no idea how I did it. No idea how any of this worked. But something inside me—some ancient knowledge, some buried instinct—had unlocked when I began molding that energy.

Could I do more?

Could I turn other things into new materials? Could I bend mana into metal or restructure matter into entirely new substances?

The implications burned through my thoughts like wildfire.

But beneath the awe, something else stirred. Grief.

I held the stone tighter, watching the pale glint of purple reflect back into my tired eyes.

"Haley… I hope you're still alive out there," I whispered. "I don't even care if you hate me now. I just want to know you made it."

She was the only piece of my past that I hadn't buried.

And now, staring at this small, imperfect amethyst, I swore to myself I wouldn't lose her too—not to this twisted forest, not to time, not to whatever this world had become.

I clutched the crystal to my chest and exhaled slowly.

Somehow, I'd created something beautiful in a world that had forgotten what beauty looked like.

Maybe that meant something.

Maybe it meant I wasn't lost—not yet.

Even if I couldn't find the clearing, even if the forest kept spinning me in circles, I still had this.

A direction. A memory. A reason to keep going.