Caleb reread the message out loud. Again. Again. Again. Trying to understand what the Forest could possibly do to stop them.
"Okay, you can fucking stop now. I got it the first time you said it." Hissed Sasha, glaring at Caleb.
Abruptly, Caleb stopped as he realised what the text had been getting to Sasha. "You know something, don't you?" He asked, firmly.
"PAI can get us out. He has managed it before he can manage it now." Spoke Sasha, avoiding the question and turning away from the man.
As she stepped out of the shack she was suddenly hit with an intense dizziness.
The floor under the shack behind her collapsed inwards, destroying the place.
Sasha soon collapsed, going into a fit of twitches and coughing. Her eyes staring directly forward into the void.
"She is having a fit, get her into the recovery position so that she will not choke on her own vomit." PAI enforced, his casing beginning to become hot.
Caleb quickly did as he was told, moving Sasha into the recovery position and stepping back.
The coughing slowly devolved into a gargling as a black and viscous ooze began to trickle out of her mouth. Very quickly, her stomach began to convulse as the trickle of ooze became a violent projectile vomit, firing abnormally hard.
Upon contact with the ground, the ooze sizzled and dissolved a hole in the floor.
Caleb watched on in shock and intrigue. Unable to do anything more of use, he took a few steps back.
Suddenly, everything stopped.
Sasha stopped moving, choking and convulsing.
Caleb's only indication that she was still alive was the fact that every so often her entire body twitched.
He stepped closer to her. "Sasha...?" He whispered, not wanting to get any closer.
Slowly, he reached his hand down to touch her.
Upon contact, she screamed.
Caleb's fight or flight instinct kicked in as he launched himself backwards, away from Sasha.
Her scream was deafening. As if she was being murdered. She raised her hands and put them on her head, squeezing it so tight the skin looked as if it was going to rip.
Caleb watched on in horror as Sasha's hair turned from a beautiful blond to a dirty dark grey.
As quickly as it began, the screaming stopped.
She stumbled slightly as she stood, the ooze had stained her chin black.
Caleb stepped closer to Sasha, afraid to touch her again. "Sasha... What the fuck was that?"
She turned slowly, revealing that the colour in her eyes had turned from blue to a blood red.
"I don't- I don't know. I just suddenly began to feel like death..." Stuttered Sasha, her hands shaking from the adrenaline.
Caleb shook his head. "What just happened there, that wasn't natural. The Forest is doing something to you." Denied the man. "And I don't think you're turning into one of the creatures, either."
Sasha's eyes widened in fear, her heart speeding to the point where she felt it would suddenly stop. "As long as I get out of the Forest soon... I'll-- I'll be fine." She stammered, her voice still shaking.
Caleb was reluctant to believe her but he had no other choice. He pulled PAI out of his pocket, not taking his eyes off of the girl. "PAI, find us a way out. And do it fast." He ordered with a slightly firmer tone.
"Unfortunately, the closest signal I am getting is just over a mile away." Spoke PAI, fearfully.
"That's as good as it can get, I guess, which way is it?"
"North."
Caleb nodded with this, gesturing for Sasha to follow him as he walked. He had begun fearing her, especially after the ordeal she had just experienced.
Sasha stumbled forward behind him, the adrenaline in her legs not allowing them to properly function.
They walked for what felt like hours, not swapping a word.
Sasha, every so often, coughed up black phlegm onto the ground, burning away small holes as they hit the floor.
Suddenly, PAI vibrated.
Caleb pulled him out of his pocket. The AI interface was already loaded up.
"Both of you need to run."
"There is something moving behind you, and it is getting closer. Fast."
Caleb instinctively turned around, looking past Sasha and into the dense fog. A silhouette could be seen. A silhouette with extended limbs, a malformed torso and disgusting head. His eyes widened in fear. "Shit." He whispered to himself, trying to figure out a plan.
Sasha had also turned by this point, looking directly at the beast.
The two exchanged a glance and began running.
Caleb, however, quickly noticed that something was off.
Sasha was not next to him, she had been running towards the beast. Bloodlust in her eyes.
"Sasha! Stop!" He yelled, trying to get her attention, to no avail.
"Save her." Spoke PAI the panicked tone still littering his voice.
Caleb opened his mouth to argue but before he could say anything, PAI spoke again.
"Please."
Caleb sighed and began running towards the girl.
She had an almost animalistic aura around her. It was as if all of her humanity had been drained.
Sasha ran close to a tree, ripping a sharp branch off of it with one pull. As the branch detached, the tree it was connected to screeching and then crumbling to ash.
The creature had noticed Sasha by this point. It let out a horrifying scream before beginning its charge towards her.
Closer. Closer. Closer. Caleb running after Sasha, knowing in the back of his head that it was too late for an escape.
The creature and Sasha were about to clash. Its claws were extended, Sasha prepared to strike.
Caleb stopped, knowing it was too late. "Sasha!!" He again yelled, cringing and looking away as he expected her death.
Caleb waited for a moment... waiting for a crack of a bone or the squelch of a stopped heart but no such sound was heard. Instead, he only heard the creatures horrible scream, this time sounding more fearful and pained.
He opened his eyes.
Sasha had pinned down the creature and was stabbing it to death with the branch. It screeched even more with this as it tried to kill Sasha with its claws. Just in time, Sasha drove the branch through its skull.
The creature was dead.
Sasha pulled out the branch, panting. The anger suddenly overcame her once more as she thrusted it into the thing's skull again and again and again.
Caleb watched on in awe as the murderous glint in her eye grew. He began to step closer, suddenly stopping when he realised that Sasha was... smiling... she was enjoying killing the creature.
She enjoyed it's screams. The resistance of its muscle against the branch. The satisfying crunch of the bone as her weapon finally broke through it.
She kept on stabbing until the creatures head was no more than just a crevice of blood and malformed innards.
As he watched, Caleb couldn't help but feel curious. Suddenly, he snapped out of his mesmerisation and sprinted towards Sasha. "That's enough! You've killed it!" He roared, reaching out to grab her.
She ignored him, continuing to stab the beast.
Caleb grabbed her arm with this, feeling a sudden shock running through his hands and fingers.
He pulled back, his hands burning. Letting out a yelp of pain he buried them both in the dirt to stave off the ember.
"Sasha..?" He muttered, fearing her even more.
Sasha stopped moving, looking at her hands. The blood they were doused in suddenly sizzled and dissolved away. Her skin had begun to turn grey. She looked in fear to Caleb, seeing the look of shock on his face.
He looked so helpless.
Unsure of what to do.
How easy it would be to snap his neck and end it all for him.
No one would ever know.
No one would ever fucking care about that pathetic thing.
Sasha felt a familiar urge taking hold of her. The same urge she felt when she saw Reno and the same urge she felt when killing the beast she had pinned down.
She stood.
The glint of enjoyment had not disappeared from her eye as she approached Caleb.
"Think about what you're doing. Kill me, all of this was for nothing." He spoke, his voice shaking a little.
"I have thought about it, Caleb. I've had an urge... in my head..." She replied, an unnatural grin on her face. "It has only been getting stronger since my seizure. I feel so powerful... I can't help but imagine how easy it would be to just snap your neck or gouge your eyes out... Two people I cared about are dead because I promised to find you... Now I have... I... I feel..."
The smile from Sasha's face slowly dropped as she stopped moving. She let out a slight grunt of pain as she looked down at her arms. Her flesh was moving around, lumps raising and lowering. Eventually forming into tendrils writhing around beneath her skin.
The glint in her eye had disappeared. She looked back up to Caleb in fear, her humanity restored. "What- What's happening to me..?" Spoke Sasha, grunting again in pain.
Caleb did not reply, he only backed away from the woman. "I've never seen something like this happen as quickly as it is..."
"Something like what?!"
Silence, Caleb did not reply.
No words.
No movement.
Nothing.
Suddenly, the wooden tentacles burst through the skin of her arm. Sasha screamed in pain as her skin was ripped off. The tentacles writhed around for a moment before digging themselves into the ground. More tentacles grew out of the wound with this, wrapping themselves around Sasha's flesh and completely covering it.
Sasha continued screaming, Caleb watched on in horror as more wooden tentacles grew out of the ground behind her and began wrapping themselves around her neck. She began to choke again, this time not coughing up black bile, but more tentacles. The screaming stopped as they jammed her throat.
The tentacles coming out of her mouth began to wrap around her head. Her eyes kept fixed on Caleb. He saw the look of fear in them, her inability to resist. To move.
The tentacles on her head grew down to the floor, digging themselves into it. They tightened themselves around her. Sasha's struggling stopped.
The silence returned.
It was eventually broken by PAI's buzzing. Caleb pulled him out of his pocket and saw that he had received a new message.
'Śhę îś øürs ñöŵ.'
'What?'
'Śhè ŵįłl bē øûr vėśsęł tō ŷøür ŵòrłd ŵhēre ŵę ŵįlł fīnàłly bę fręè ôf thìs płåçê.'
'You're planning to put yourself inside of her head? You're a whole dimension! That'll send her insane!'
'Ŵę dįd ñôt ńęed šåńįtŷ.
Caleb looked back up to Sasha, the tentacles tightened themselves around her even more. Blood began to leak out of the cracks between each tentacle. Lots of blood. More blood than what is contained within the human body. As if it was being created as fast as it was taken.
The trees around the two began to crumble. Revealing many of the creatures in the distance, hiding in the fog. Caleb looked at them, fearing that they would make a run for him. They did not.
He watched as each and every one of them dropped dead.
The tentacles let off a gentle green glow with this before dissolving off of the ground, allowing Sasha to fall.
Her body twitched as the tentacles covering her arms and head dissolved too. Caleb could not see her face, what he could see horrified him. His heart dropping as he saw her hair had turned to a deep black and her skin had become a greyish colour. As if all of the life had been sucked out of her.
She was breathing heavily, her voice sounding raspier. Caleb did not want to move but eventually forced his tongue to speak.
"Sasha..?"
"Sasha is dead... She and we have evolved. We are one."
She now spoke in a thousand different voices. Each suffering greatly. The true voice of the Forest.
The thing looked up at Caleb. The once warm face of Sasha was now cold and unforgiving. It's eyes had become entirely black with two white pupils. It's skin was now dry and flaking.
It growled at Caleb. Revealing black gums and grey teeth, covered in the ooze Sasha had been coughing up earlier.
As Caleb looked at it he felt his vision starting to blur and his hearing starting to muffle. He began to feel dizzy and started swaying back and forth.
Until finally, a warm sensation in his hand. No, a burning sensation. The pain caused him to drop PAI, who was now scorching hot. "Snap out of it!" Yelled PAI, now cooling off.
Caleb felt his senses rush back to him. He picked up the phone and turned, beginning to run as fast as he could. "Don't look at it directly. I believe it's causing your senses to go haywire. Whether this is because of stress or because of some chemical she is secreting is unknown as of yet." PAI noted in his best attempt to analyse the creature.
Caleb continued running, taking note of what PAI had told him. He could hear the creature gasping and wheezing behind him as he ran.
He ran faster.
It ran faster.
The two were passing corpses of both creature and human alike.
"The signals for each of the trees are disappearing, Caleb, run fast or end up stuck here."
He ran as fast as he could. Cramps and stitches began torturing his entire body. The gasping and wheezing of the creature behind him.
The ground had begun crumbling away into a black void around the tree. It fell faster and faster as it got closer to the final disgusting tree.
As the ground fell away, the man began to see something beneath it... Paths winding and bending around one another. He had no time to look.
Finally, the tree was in sight. Caleb felt a burst of motivation. Adrenaline pumping through his veins.
It had begun to collapse, but then stopped. He let out a yell of pain as the stitches began to get to him.
He took a final leap for the tree. Caleb slightly undershot, only getting his hands through the crack. He clenched both of his hands, grabbing onto the splinter ridden tree and began to pull himself through as the crack got smaller and smaller.
The creature by this point had gained on him, lunging for his legs and latching onto his ankles. It spat at him, causing the back of his coat to dissolve and burn into his skin. Caleb screamed in pain, still pulling himself through.
Caleb was now halfway through. The tree had half collapsed. If he could kick the creature off of him, he could lock it inside there forever. He began to kick and trash his legs to no avail, the creature had latched onto him deeply with its claws.
He had now pulled his arms through. Suddenly, he felt a pressure on them, like people were grabbing his arms and pulling him.
He blacked out.
When Caleb came to, he was lying on the ground, surrounded by men wearing lab coats and suits.
"Evening, Mr Poole." Said one of the lab coats.
He looked around in a panic until he saw the creature had escaped with him, but they had managed to trap it in a cage. It was growling and spitting at the bars, but they took no notice, not dissolving or even corroding.
One of the lab coats pulled out a device from his coat, placing it on the cage. When the creature ran for the bars after this it was struck with a surge of electricity, knocking it out.
One of the men wearing a suit stood Caleb up.
They turned him to face one of the lab coats, a sickeningly familiar one
.
"Hello, Dr Geoffrey. I had hoped I'd never see you again." Growled Caleb, frustration in his voice.
"It is a shame. I had hoped for the opposite, Mr Poole. You have been very irritating to us." Replied Dr Geoffrey, mockingly imitating the frustration.
"We have sent PAI back to where he belongs. I have requested for you to join him soon after a small interview. Although, I will give you credit for leading us back to our friend, Jack. Our most important test subject."
"Fuck." Caleb mumbled under his breath, knowing he had made a mistake at even attempting to escape the forest. It would've been better if he'd had locked himself in with the creature.
After a few minutes of preparation, the group were now in a car with blacked out windows. Dr Geoffrey looked at Caleb, smiling.
"I hope you're looking forward to heading back. The CEO is dying to see you again."
——————FIVE YEARS LATER———————
PAI and Mr Caleb Poole ran down a corridor. They had a plan to escape. PAI, having being trapped in the bowels of Lynch.co for years, had a blueprint layout.
This layout led to a faulty door to the surface. The door was their goal.
As he ran, Caleb could feel himself running out of energy.
"If you are tired, my sensors detect we have lost Subject 0594. We are safe." Spoke PAI as his face appeared on the screen.
They came to a corridor that split off into three different directions, Caleb nodded as he stopped to catch his breath.
There was a moment of relative silence. The odd scream of an unfortunate soul caught by one of the many creatures down here every so often interrupting it.
"Did you ever find out what happened to Sasha?" Asked PAI, melancholy in his tone.
"No. Sleepy tried to tell me--" Caleb stopped himself before he could finish his sentence. "I don't want to talk about this right now..."
"Fine. I'd like to know eventually." Replied PAI, frowning.
"Do you know what direction we're supposed to be going from here?"
"Our escape is in the corridor to the left of the direction you're facing."
Sure enough, down the corridor, Caleb could see the small glimmer of sunlight as a rush of air hit his face.
The door wasn't open enough for the two to fit through. Caleb searched his surroundings for something to pry it open with.
After a moment of searching, he noticed an old rusty pipe jutting out of a broken wall panel. Caleb pulled as hard as he could, the pipe eventually ripped in half where the rust was most prominent.
Eventually, the door was propped open enough to fit through.
Caleb smiled, taking in a deep breath of air as he took PAI out and sat down on the grass. He looked over the field and into the trees, at the blue sky and the fluffy clouds. He hadn't realised how much he had missed all of it.
"They're going to think you're dead." PAI spoke, his face loading up on the screen.
"I know, it's great, isn't it. They no longer have any power over us." Hummed Caleb, smiling from ear to ear.
PAI also seemed to smile as he began speaking. "All of this has happened because of Lynch.co. So much death. So much pain. You're supposedly a courier of chaos.
You have also vowed to kill the most powerful man on the Earth. These next few years are going to be very...
...very...
...interesting."