You stand at the edge of the trees, uncertain how you came to be here. The map in your hands insists there should be nothing but an empty field for miles, yet the forest sprawls before you, indifferent to your confusion. You remember the road: straight, unbroken, no turns to lose yourself on. It should have led you back to the city. But the city is gone. Only this line of trees, thick and silent, pressing close. The map refuses this place, but the forest does not care. It has settled itself beside you, quiet and patient, as if it crept up while your eyes were elsewhere and now waits, like a stray animal choosing you for reasons you cannot name.

You stare at the map, searching for the mistake, but the paper offers no answers. Movement flickers at the edge of your vision. Something steps from the trees. Unfolding itself, as if it has always been a part of the forest and only now remembers. It stands as tall as you. Body a careful arrangement of green leaves, each one pressed and folded into the memory of a person. The shape is wrong. Pale pink eyes, round and luminous as flower petals drenched in moonlight, regard you without blinking. It halts where the wild meets the road, where the world is supposed to be safe and mapped. It lifts its hand, slow and deliberate. Not a command. An offering. The leaves whisper, though the air is still. For a moment, you feel the forest itself reaching out, wearing this fragile shape. It waits. Silent. Eyes never leaving yours. No threat. No comfort. Only the open path behind it, green and deep, waiting for you to follow.

For an instant, a sharp scent rises. Crushed moss and something sweet, like old rain on stone and violets. A sound hovers at the edge of hearing. A thin, high note that knots the back of your throat with a feeling almost like longing or recognition. A memory flickers behind your eyes. A grove you do not recall having visited. Sunlight warm against your back. The same scent wrapped around you. A voice calling to you from the edge of the trees.

Each step you take in these woods presses something new into you. The trees do not blink. Their knots gape, watching, patient. Air moves around you, thick with voices that slip between the leaves. They whisper names, not yours, not yet. Shadows stretch, reaching. They remember you, or think they do. You move deeper. The line between your skin and the forest blurs. Illusions here are not tricks. They are how you survive. The fey wait, their faces borrowed, their hands open. They smile, inviting. Will you let them in? Will you let yourself change? Or will you find the way out before the forest learns your shape and wears it as its own?