CHAPTER 9 – Echoes in the Forest

Late January 2005 – Forks, Washington

Ren

It had started as a walk.A simple, quiet detour through the woods behind the estate.

Ren liked the isolation. The silence between trees. The cold air that bit but didn't burn. The trails here were uneven and wild, shaped more by animal paths than human intention, and that suited him. Nothing polished. Nothing performative.

The sun had dipped early, leaving only a silvery residue in the sky. The dense canopy above dulled everything but the sounds — crunches of undergrowth, the snap of a branch in the distance, the slow inhale of wind filtering between trees.

But tonight, something was… off.

Ren paused.

The world around him vibrated with a subtle tension. He extended his senses, quieting his breath, letting his awareness unfurl like thread across the landscape.

The metal particles — microscopic shavings from rocks, worn-down tools, even the trace minerals in the soil — responded to his call without effort now. They pulsed gently in his presence, like a breath syncing with his own.

But now, they… twitched.

The entire field of his awareness contracted in a sudden, uncoordinated flicker — like a ripple had passed through the world beneath his feet.

He narrowed his eyes.

What was that?

Instinctively, his hand curled. A small cluster of mineral fragments lifted from the dirt and floated into his palm. They hovered, quivering. Uneasy. As if they too felt the shift in atmosphere.

Ren stepped forward slowly, and that's when he saw them.

Tracks.

Huge. Impossibly spaced. Four-toed. Deep.

They resembled a wolf's — but stretched, elongated, wrong. Whatever had made them had mass, intelligence, and a pattern of movement more deliberate than an animal's.

But the strangest thing?

They just… stopped.

Halfway into a soft bend of moss, the tracks vanished. No turn. No leap. Just there one moment… and gone.

Ren knelt beside them, staring at the impression, then closed his eyes and let his awareness sweep outward again.

No movement. No sound beyond the rustling of distant trees.

But the metallic field whined. A high, nearly imperceptible frequency, humming along his spine.

Like it's trying to warn me, he thought.

The forest was quiet.

But not empty.

And something — or someone — had stirred it before him.

He made it home just before full darkness, and didn't tell his parents about the walk.

He simply stood in his workshop long after they had gone to bed, staring at a stripped-down engine block without seeing it.

That strange feeling — the tightening in his chest, the faint echo of a call without language — hadn't left him since he stepped back onto the trail.

And for the first time in years…Ren felt watched.

Kira

She couldn't sleep.

No matter how she shifted under the sheets, how many windows she opened to let in the night air, her body was burning from the inside.

It wasn't illness.

Her temperature was normal — she'd checked, twice.

But her skin buzzed with heat, and her limbs felt like they were vibrating beneath her flesh. Her thoughts spun wildly. Memories, sensations, fragments of emotion she couldn't place — all crashing in wave after wave.

Frustrated, Kira shoved the covers off, got dressed in a hoodie and shorts, and slipped out the back door of her aunt's cottage. The night air hit her like a breath of clarity.

She didn't even bother with shoes.

Her feet touched the earth like they remembered it.

Before she knew it, she was running — not jogging, not pacing — but running like something inside her was trying to leap through her skin.

The trees blurred. Branches whipped past. Cold wind kissed her face, tangled her hair. She didn't know where she was going. Only that she had to move. To keep going. Or she'd break open.

Her lungs ached. Her legs burned. But none of it mattered.

Because she felt something calling.

Not a voice. Not even a direction.

Just a pull.

Her bare feet hit stone, then soft loam, then cold grass.

And then — water.

She stumbled to a stop.

Before her lay a lake, half-hidden by forest. Moonlight spilled across its surface like glass dust. Mist curled at the edges, soft and whispering.

Kira collapsed onto the cold ground, her heart still hammering. Her skin damp with sweat. Her body alive with something she couldn't name.

Her breath shook as she looked at her reflection in the black water.

Eyes wide. Lips parted.

There was something wrong with her.

Or maybe… something awakening.

She lay back, hands gripping the soil, as her heartbeat began to slow.

And yet—somewhere, just beyond her reach—something mirrored her presence.

Like two halves of a broken mirror, lying just out of sight.

Ren (Parallel Scene)

At that exact moment, Ren stood at the edge of the same lake — the far side — beneath the same moon.

He had wandered further than he meant to. Or maybe, something had led him here.

The lake was silent.

But it felt… watched.

He didn't hear her. He didn't see her.

But he felt something across the surface of the water.

A current of emotion.

A mirror of disquiet.

He sat down, folding his arms over his knees, and stared at the water's calm face.

A strange ache bloomed in his chest — unformed. Not pain. Not joy.

Just yearning.

Kira

On the other side of the lake, Kira whispered:

"…Who are you?"

She didn't know who the question was for.

Maybe herself.

Maybe the moon.

Maybe the presence that stirred when she thought about that quiet boy with black eyes and silence like armor.

Ren

And in his mind, for no reason he could explain, one image came back to him — not the forest, not the tracks, not the hum of metal…

But her.The girl who smiled without fear.The girl who ran.

Two pulses, two tigers, and the moon between them. The forest had begun to remember.