Chapter 79: Endless Forest

Starlight ran.

Branches whipped against her arms and face as she forced her way through what seemed like an endless black forest, her lungs burning with every desperate breath. Thick roots twisted across the ground like serpents, snagging at her feet whenever she tried to pick up speed. Dead leaves crackled beneath her sneakers, their sound swallowed almost immediately by the oppressive silence hanging over the woods.

She did not know why her feet were carrying her through the endless forest, nor did she know what was chasing her, but a primal terror coiled tightly in her chest and urged her to run faster. It was a terrifying feeling, knowing something was hunting her without having any idea what it was or where it was coming from. She could not see it, could not hear it, and had no idea how close it was, but every instinct in her body screamed at her to keep moving. So she stopped trying to understand it and simply followed that instinct, running as fast as her legs could carry her.

The forest stretched endlessly in every direction, a maze of towering black trees so tall their crowns disappeared into the darkness.

Their trunks were twisted and unnatural, as though they had been bent by unseen hands.

Worse still were the strange patterns carved into the bark of every single tree, crude, jagged shapes resembling unblinking human eyes that seemed to track her every movement from every angle and every height. The sensation crawled beneath her skin, making her feel as though every step she took was being watched by whatever was hunting her. Some were narrow and watchful, while others were wide and unblinking, sending chills down her spine.

Then a thick root suddenly caught around her ankle. Starlight gasped as her balance gave out, her body pitching forward before she crashed hard onto the forest floor. Pain exploded through her palms and knees as rough bark and jagged stones tore into her skin. She hissed through clenched teeth, but she barely gave herself a second to recover before pushing herself back up. Dirt clung to her hands, and tiny droplets of blood beaded along her scraped palms, but she barely noticed as she forced herself forward.

She just had to keep running.There had to be an end to this cursed forest somewhere.

There had to be somewhere she could escape.

So, she kept running, her breaths growing shorter and harsher as exhaustion began to drag heavily at her body. Every inhale burned her lungs, while every exhale came out in ragged gasps. Her legs ached with every step, her muscles trembling beneath her weight, but she refused to slow down. The deeper she ran, the darker the forest seemed to grow, the twisted trees closing in around her until even the faintest trace of light disappeared behind them.

Then suddenly, a beam of brilliant silver light cut through the dense canopy ahead.

Starlight’s heart leapt. "There! This must be it, the end of the forest." Ignoring the pain shooting through her legs, she gathered every ounce of strength she had left and sprinted toward the silver glow. The oppressive darkness began to fall away the closer she got to the light, and with every step, the glow grew brighter. The darkness around her gradually gave way to silver, until the light became so brilliant that she could no longer see anything beyond it. Still, she did not stop. She kept running straight toward it, desperate to escape the suffocating darkness behind her.

A second later, she stumbled into a moonlit clearing, nearly falling again as her eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden brightness. Slowly, her vision cleared, revealing the soft silver light spilling across the grass. She finally stopped, bending forward slightly as she dragged in deep, trembling breaths, her chest heaving from the desperate run. The grass swayed softly beneath an enormous silver moon hanging impossibly close in the sky.

The clearing was peaceful, almost unnaturally so, and far too silent after the chaos of the forest.

Then she saw them. Standing in the center of the clearing were the imperial crown twins, Mikhail and Nikolai Wolfhart. They stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the moonlight, their eyes gleaming as matching smug smiles stretched across their faces. Starlight blinked.

"What the fuck is going on here?" she breathed.

Mikhail’s smile widened.

"No matter how hard you run," he said, his voice echoing strangely through the clearing, "you always run back to us."

"Yes, Starlight," Nikolai added, his smile somehow grew even more unsettling as his eyes remained fixed on her. "You’ll always come back to us, and no matter how far you run, you can never escape your fate. You belong to us!"

Starlight’s eyes flew open.

For several seconds, she could only stare into the dark ceiling of the dorm, her chest rising and falling rapidly while her heart hammered against her ribs.

"What’s with these absurd dreams?"

She pressed a hand against her forehead and groaned. Ever since she had set foot in Asterion Academy, her dreams had become progressively weirder. Her mind had been conjuring the strangest scenarios every time she fell asleep. The last one had been a bizarre, disjointed dream involving the twins and a dragon that had somehow been chasing them through the academy. Now she was sprinting through an endless black forest with eyes carved into the bark. Though, could she even call it endless considering she had eventually run right out into a clearing?

The common denominator in all of these dreams was infuriating obvious. Had her life become so absurdly entangled with Mikhail and Nikolai over the past few days that they were now invading her unconscious mind? Seriously, what was wrong with her subconscious?

Grumbling under her breath, she sat up and ran a hand through her hair, clearing away the lingering remnants of the strange dream.

Starlight reached for her phone resting beside her pillow on the high bunk. The screen lit up, illuminating her face in the dim room.

5:45 AM.

"That’s almost six o’clock." She sighed and let her back fall gently against the mattress. Going back to sleep was out of the question. Her body had long since been conditioned not to fall back asleep once she was fully awake, no matter how early it was. Maybe an early morning swim wouldn’t be such a bad idea.