The shed collapsed like it had been waiting to die.The roof caved inward with a violent crack, raining ash and splintered wood down on Evelyn and Delaney. Evelyn threw herself over Delaney instinctively, shielding him as the debris crashed around them. The air filled with dust and smoke so thick she couldn’t breathe.
Delaney coughed violently, choking. “Ev… EV!”
Evelyn’s ears rang. She pushed herself up, spitting grit from her mouth. The shed was gone—flattened into a pile of broken boards and rusted tools. The fog rolled over the wreckage like a tide, swallowing the scene in pale grey.
She grabbed Delaney under the arm. “Move! MOVE!”
Delaney groaned as she hauled him upright. His ankle was worse now, swollen to the size of a fist. But terror gave him strength, and he limped forward, nearly falling with every step.
Behind them, the debris shifted.
Something rose from beneath it.
Cropsy.
It stood up slowly, wood and nails sliding off its shoulders. The melted mask still clung to its face, but now Evelyn could see more of what it truly was. The creature’s body wasn’t just burned flesh—it was fused with the forest itself. Thick bark-like plates covered parts of its arms. Its spine jutted oddly, as if roots had grown through bone.
And the glow behind its eyes was brighter now.
Hungry.
Evelyn dragged Delaney into the trees, forcing them through brush and broken branches. The fog chased them, swallowing their footsteps. It was impossible to tell direction, but Evelyn kept moving anyway, desperate for anything that wasn’t Cropsy.
Then she heard something that made her stop.
Water.
A faint trickling sound.
Evelyn turned her head, listening.
It wasn’t the dragging sound. It wasn’t whispering. It was real, natural, alive.
“Delaney,” she whispered, “do you hear that?”
Delaney nodded weakly. “Yeah…”
They followed the sound, stumbling downhill through tangled roots until the fog thinned slightly. Ahead, a stream cut through the forest, narrow but fast-moving, its water black and cold.
Evelyn nearly cried with relief. Water meant a trail. A stream always led somewhere.
But when she stepped closer, she realised something horrifying.
The stream wasn’t clear.
It was filled with ash.
Grey water running like diluted smoke.
And along the banks were things half-buried in mud.
Shoes.
A child’s backpack.
A torn sleeping bag.
Pieces of people’s lives, washed up like offerings.
Delaney whispered, “This is where they end up…”
Evelyn stared at the stream, her stomach twisting. It wasn’t carrying debris away.
It was collecting it.
Keeping it close.
Then she saw the footprints.
Not theirs.
Fresh ones.
Bare feet, burned into the mud as if the ground had been branded by heat.
Cropsy’s tracks.
But they weren’t following behind them.
They were ahead.
Evelyn’s heart dropped. “No… no…”
Delaney grabbed her sleeve. “Ev, what is it?”
Evelyn pointed.
Upstream, where the fog was thickest, a faint red glow pulsed through the mist like a heartbeat.
The same red glow as Cropsy’s eyes.
Delaney’s voice shook. “That’s where it lives.”
Evelyn’s mind screamed to run the other way, but the forest seemed to tighten around them. The trees pressed closer, branches snagging their uniforms. The fog curled in, blocking every path except the one leading upstream.
Like the woods were herding them.
Delaney began to panic. “We can’t go that way! We can’t!”
Evelyn didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
Because she felt it now.
A pull.
Not physical—something deeper, like the woods were tugging at her thoughts, drawing her toward the glow.
The stream led them to a widening in the forest, an open space where the trees had burned away long ago. The ground was black and cracked, but not dead.
It was warm.
Heat rose from it in faint waves.
And in the centre of the clearing was something that shouldn’t exist.
A massive tree stump, wider than a truck, split open down the middle like a wound. Inside the split was a cavity glowing red-orange, like embers still burning deep within.
The heart of the woods.
Evelyn stared, horrified.
The inside of the stump pulsed.
Not like fire.
Like flesh.
The glow brightened, dimmed, brightened again, steady as a heartbeat.
Delaney whimpered, “That’s… that’s alive…”
Evelyn’s skin crawled. “It’s not a tree.”
Around the stump were bodies.
Dozens.
Some were skeletons, blackened and fused to the ground. Others were newer—still wearing clothing, still holding shape, their skin burned and cracked but not fully decayed.
And nailed into the stump, like trophies, were melted masks.
Many of them.
Each one unique, warped into different expressions—some looked like screaming faces, some like grinning skulls.
Evelyn’s breath came out in a shaky whisper. “He’s been making them…”
Delaney backed away, shaking his head. “This is hell. This is hell.”
Then the stump opened wider.
The crack in its centre spread with a slow groan, like wood tearing apart.
The red glow inside intensified, filling the clearing with ember-light.
And from the darkness within the stump, something moved.
Not Cropsy.
Something else.
A shape deeper inside, shifting like a giant shadow, as if the stump wasn’t just a stump…
But a doorway.
Delaney screamed, “EV, RUN!”
But Evelyn couldn’t move.
Because the whispering began again, rising from the bodies around the stump.
Not random voices.
Not screams.
Words.
A chant.
Soft at first, then louder, overlapping like a choir.
“Feed the fire…”
“Feed the fire…”
“Feed the fire…”
Evelyn’s hands trembled as she raised her pistol, but her arms felt heavy, like the air itself was thickening.
Then Cropsy stepped into the clearing behind them.
No dragging now.
No slow approach.
It was simply there, appearing from the fog like a nightmare made solid.
Its eyes glowed brighter than ever.
And for the first time, Evelyn saw something in its posture that looked like pride.
Like purpose.
Cropsy raised one burned hand and pointed toward the stump.
Then it spoke, its voice louder than before, echoing through the clearing as if the forest amplified it.
“Home…”
Delaney sobbed, “What do you want?!”
Cropsy tilted its head.
Then it answered.
“We… burn… together…”
And the stump pulsed again, brighter.
As if the woods itself was preparing to consume them.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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