Whispers Beneath the Leaves

They walked in silence.

Not the silence of comfort or peace—but the suffocating kind, the kind that pressed against your eardrums and made every footstep feel like a sin. The forest should've been alive with chirps, rustles, croaks, and creaks. But now, the towering blue-leaf trees of Crevtowood stood like statues. No wind whispered through their branches. No insects buzzed. No birds called. Only the soft crunch of boots on damp soil and the occasional rustle of shifting gear marked their passing.

Cren, at the rear of the group, kept glancing back over his shoulder.

"It's too quiet," he muttered.

Gilian turned his head slightly. "Too quiet?"

"You don't get it yet," Cren said. "This kind of silence… usually means something awful already happened. Or is about to."

Ahead, Herman stopped and raised a fist. The group halted. His eyes scanned the underbrush, his nose twitching slightly.

Gilian saw it too now. The faint scent of old blood mixed with the earthy scent of moss. It was subtle, but present. He looked down.

Dried smears.

Spattered over roots. Stained into bark. Long since darkened and dried, but still visible.

"There's blood," Arvan said softly. "Everywhere."

"It's not fresh," Herman murmured, kneeling by a clump of crushed ferns. "These prints… humania-sized. Some monster too. Broke branches here. Heavy. Wide gait. But look here."

He pointed to a second set of tracks—erratic, dragging, as if someone had been crawling or limping. Then another—smaller, lighter, but also smeared with what looked like blood or mud.

Gilian crouched beside him. "It's like they were fleeing."

"Or hunting," Herman said grimly.

They moved again, slower now.

A low breeze stirred the mist, revealing more of the forest path—and more signs. Broken branches at odd heights. Scratch marks on tree trunks, too high for common beasts. A half-eaten satchel hung from a thorn bush, its contents strewn along the path.

None of them spoke.

The silence was deeper now, almost aggressive. Every step forward felt like an intrusion. Even the forest itself seemed to shrink back, curling its branches away as if unwilling to witness what might come next.

A rusted cooking pot, dented and splashed with old blood, lay beside a blackened fire pit. Around it, the remains of a camp—half-collapsed tents, shattered crates, and a lone shoe with its sole torn off.

Arvan broke the silence. "That was a camp. An adventurer. Recently used."

"No bodies," Cren said. "No tools, weapons, or packs either. Just... debris & scattered blood."

Gilian stepped closer to one of the trees. A handprint—brown-red and flaked—was pressed into the bark at chest height.

It had claw marks through it.

A cold chill ran through his spine, and unbidden, an image of the mage biting the swordsman's throat flickered through his mind—feral, bloodstained, her eyes rolled back.

He blinked hard and stepped away.

"Let's keep moving," Herman said, his voice tight. "Quickly. Quietly. Eyes everywhere."

The path twisted, leading uphill where the mist thickened. Shadows shifted strangely. Shapes loomed and vanished in the fog. More than once, Gilian thought he saw a figure standing between the trees—but when he turned to look, it was gone.

Every twig snap beneath their feet made Arvan flinch. He kept glancing behind him, hand gripping the hilt of his dagger so tight his knuckles had gone white. At one point, Cren reached out to steady him.

"Focus," Cren whispered. "If something's out there, panicking won't help."

Finally, after what felt like hours, the forest began to thin. The fog didn't lift, but the tension in the air gave way to something colder—watchfulness.

Through the trees ahead, a wall of massive logs emerged from the mist—bound tightly together, twice the height of a grown Humania. The sight of it should've been comforting.

But even Arnan Village, with its sturdy log barricades and watchtowers, looked… still.

Too still.

No smoke rose from the chimneys. No sounds of tools, voices, or animals.

The front gate stood ajar. One of the guards, a tall, lean man in rust-colored armor, stood at attention. As the group approached, the guard blinked in surprise.

"Herman?"

The hunter nodded. "Keynes."

The guard stepped forward quickly. "Long time no see, it's good to see a familiar face. We haven't had a word from Huina in weeks."

Herman's brows furrowed. "We didn't know that. Things are wrong in the woods. Really wrong."

Keynes's expression hardened. "You'd better come with me. The Chief needs to hear this."

As they stepped through the gate, Gilian cast one last glance back into the forest.

The mist hadn't lifted.

But something had followed them.

He was sure of it.

A soft twig snapped far behind. Too far for anyone to notice. Too close to ignore.

And deep in the fog, something watched. Silently. unblinking.