Chapter 16
"Road to the Mist Peaks"
The early morning sun barely touched the ground through the thick, ancient trees.
The forest stretched endlessly in every direction, heavy with mist and silence.
Every step the group took made a soft crunch on the old, mossy ground — a sound that somehow felt too loud in the heavy quiet.
Sora led the way, Yuno perched lightly on his shoulder.
The small white creature clung gently to him, watching everything with wide, glowing blue eyes.
The air smelled strange here.
Like old rain.
Like forgotten memories.
"Are we really going toward those mountains?" Mira asked, breaking the silence.
Sora glanced up — and there they were:
The Mist Peaks.
Distant and half-swallowed by the clouds, but tall enough to be seen even from here.
"We don't have another choice," he said softly.
"Something's pulling us there."
The others nodded, though unease lingered in their faces.
---
Strange Signs Along the Way
The deeper they went, the stranger the forest became.
Trees grew in impossible, twisted shapes.
Flowers that glowed faintly even under sunlight.
Stones arranged in perfect circles — like ancient markers, too precise to be natural.
Every so often, they would spot something carved into the trees or rocks —
strange symbols that none of them recognized.
Somewhere, hidden among these carvings, one number kept appearing faintly:
0169.
But it was always so subtle — hidden within the lines of an ancient leaf symbol, or the cracks in a stone — that none of them truly noticed it yet.
Not in a conscious way.
Only a small unease grew quietly inside.
---
The First Obstacle
By noon, they reached a broken bridge.
It spanned a deep canyon, mist swirling far below.
The bridge itself was old — wood rotted, ropes fraying — but still barely holding together.
"I don't like this," Arin said, inspecting it.
"We have to cross," Lyra replied firmly, her golden eyes narrowing.
The bridge creaked dangerously under their weight as they crossed one by one.
Halfway across, the wind picked up —
cold and sharp, smelling of metal and old blood.
Sora heard it first.
A soft hissing sound from below.
He froze — scanning the swirling mists beneath the bridge.
And then — a shape.
Something massive.
Something wrong.
A scaled creature — long as a train — slithering in the mists, its body unseen but for flashes of silver and black.
"Hurry!" Sora shouted.
The others ran, the bridge swinging wildly beneath them.
Sora held tight to the ropes, heart pounding, as Yuno chirped nervously on his shoulder.
The creature below didn't surface — but its presence pressed heavily against them, like being watched by an ancient god.
Somehow, they made it across — gasping for breath, hearts racing.
They didn't look back.
---
A Broken World
Beyond the canyon, the land changed again.
The forest thinned, giving way to wide, open fields —
but these fields were wrong.
The grass grew in strange spirals.
The wind blew in odd patterns.
In the distance, abandoned stone houses leaned at impossible angles — like they were caught in a silent scream.
The group moved carefully, keeping close.
Here, the ancient world showed itself more openly —
broken towers, cracked statues of forgotten kings, and massive ruins half-swallowed by the earth.
Mira touched one of the statues —
and jerked her hand away, gasping.
"I heard something," she whispered.
"Heard what?" Arin asked.
"A voice," she said.
"It said... 'You are too late.' "
Her voice shook with fear.
The others fell silent.
They didn't laugh at her.
Because deep inside, each of them had felt something too.
This world was not dead.
It was merely sleeping.
And something beneath the earth had begun to stir.
---
Dreams of Another Time
That night, they camped among the fallen stones of an ancient city.
No fires — they didn't dare draw attention here.
As Sora lay on the cold ground, Yuno curled against his chest for warmth, sleep slowly pulled him under.
But his dreams were not his own.
He dreamt of a city — alive and bright — not ruined like now.
People bustling in strange clothes, speaking a language he almost understood.
Above the city towered a massive white structure — not a palace, not a temple — something older.
At the top of it, a symbol —
the same mark that Sora now bore on his hand.
And carved at the base of the tower:
0169.
In the dream, Sora reached out to touch the carving.
Suddenly — screaming.
Fire raining from the sky.
The earth splitting open.
And a massive shadow descending from the clouds — its shape too huge, too monstrous to comprehend.
Sora woke with a shout, heart hammering in his chest.
The others stared at him, faces pale.
"You saw it too," Mira said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
They had all shared the dream.
---
The Journey Continues
They moved carefully the next day, speaking little.
The Mist Peaks grew closer — their jagged outlines now towering before them.
But between them and the mountains lay one final obstacle:
The Shattered Forest.
A place so cursed, even the wind refused to blow there.
Where light itself seemed to struggle to exist.
Sora knew — somehow — that beyond that forest, they would find the first true piece of the mystery.
The first real answer.
But he also knew...
some of them might not survive it.
---