Chapter 18
"The Silent Song of the Forest"
The Shattered Forest refused to let them go.
The mist had grown thicker, almost solid now — like a living thing that wrapped around their legs, pulling, whispering, begging them to stay.
Each step forward felt heavier than the last.
But Sora couldn't stop.
Something in the glowing stone he carried pulled him onward — deeper, always deeper.
---
Dreams in the Mist
That night, when they camped beneath a twisted, ancient tree, the dreams came.
And they were not dreams of safety.
Each of them — Sora, Arin, Mira, Lyra, and even Yuno — dreamt the same dream.
> A city in flames.
Giant statues crumbling into black dust.
A crimson sky.
A voice crying out from the darkness —
"Find the Threads, or all will fall."
Sora woke with a start.
Cold sweat soaked his clothes.
Yuno whimpered softly, curling into his chest.
He looked around.
The others were stirring, faces pale.
"You saw it too," Mira whispered.
It wasn't a question.
---
The Threads
At breakfast — if cold bread and bitter water could be called breakfast — they spoke quietly.
The "Threads" the dream spoke of —
what were they?
Sora thought of the stone in his pocket.
Of the number 0169 on the knight's chest.
Connections.
There were pieces of this world, hidden, waiting to be found.
Threads tying everything together.
If they didn't find them, the vision said, something terrible would happen.
Something worse than the dead forests.
Worse than the wars.
Worse than even the ancient fall.
"We have to find them," Sora said, his voice firm.
Lyra hesitated.
"But how do we even know where to start?"
Before Sora could answer —
A new sound filled the air.
---
The Silent Song
At first it was so soft, they thought it was the wind.
But it wasn't.
It was music —
a melody without words, sad and beautiful, floating through the mist.
It seemed to come from every direction and none at once.
Without thinking, Sora stood and followed it.
The others called after him, but he didn't stop.
The music was inside him — pulling, whispering.
Come. Come. Come.
Deeper into the mist.
---
The Singer
He stumbled into another clearing.
At its center sat a girl —
no older than Sora —
playing a silver flute.
She was strange — almost not real.
Her hair floated around her head like she was underwater.
Her eyes were closed, tears slipping down her cheeks as she played.
The flute glowed faintly — the same color as Sora's stone.
He stepped closer.
The girl's song faltered — she opened her eyes.
And when she did —
Sora gasped.
Her eyes were mirrors.
Not reflections of him —
Reflections of everything he had ever lost, every fear, every hope.
She smiled — sad, knowing.
"You found one Thread," she said.
Her voice was a melody itself.
"Now you must weave the rest."
Before Sora could speak, she pressed the silver flute into his hands.
It was cold — unnaturally cold.
"Play it when you stand at the edge of the world's memory," she said.
"Or be lost like all the others."
Then —
she dissolved into mist, leaving only the flute and a scattering of blue petals.
---
What the Others Saw
When the others caught up to him, panting and shouting —
Sora was standing alone in the clearing, flute in hand.
They didn't see the girl.
They hadn't heard the song.
Only Sora.
He tried to explain — but the words sounded hollow, insane.
Still — they believed him.
Because in this forest, after everything they had seen —
even the impossible felt true.
---
The March Forward
Armed now with two artifacts —
The Glowing Stone,
And the Silver Flute —
Sora and his companions pressed deeper into the forest.
The trees grew stranger — some had faces carved into their bark, their mouths frozen mid-scream.
The ground occasionally gave way to reveal massive bones — far larger than any animal known.
The mist grew so thick they could barely see each other.
They tied ropes around their waists to avoid getting separated.
Still, sometimes... it felt like something else walked among them.
Breathing.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
Signs of a Greater Power
Near sunset, they stumbled upon ruins —
not just a village, but a city swallowed by the forest.
Massive stone archways lay cracked on the ground.
Broken towers leaned like drunkards.
And in the center —
a temple, half-buried, its doors sealed by roots thicker than houses.
Above the doors, in faded gold script:
> "The Sanctuary of Threads."
Sora's heart pounded.
This was no accident.
This was what the girl — the Mirror-Eyed Singer — had been leading him toward.
---
Preparing for the Unknown
They camped outside the temple that night.
The forest seemed to retreat slightly — as if afraid of what lay within the Sanctuary.
As they sat around the fire, Lyra cleaned her arrows obsessively.
Mira hummed nervously, her spells flickering around her fingers.
Arin sharpened his sword, the rasping sound too loud in the eerie silence.
And Sora sat holding the flute.
The silver instrument was heavier than it should have been.
And sometimes, when he held it close, he could almost hear whispers inside it.
Promising power.
Or warning of doom.
---
The Attack
At midnight —
the forest came alive.
Monsters — not like before.
These were twisted things:
Wolves with two heads and eyes that bled black tears.
Trees that uprooted themselves and crawled forward on barklike legs.
Ghosts made of mist, their faces blurred, their hands reaching.
The camp exploded into chaos.
Arin: fighting off wolves with brutal swings of his sword.
Lyra: firing arrow after arrow, her face pale but determined.
Mira: casting shields of light, her voice rising in song.
And Sora —
He held up the flute.
Something deep inside him knew: Play it. Now.
He pressed it to his lips — and blew.
---
The Song of Silence
The note that came out wasn't sound.
It was absence.
A silence so pure, so complete, that it erased the mist, the monsters, even the fear itself.
Everything froze.
The wolves crumbled into ash.
The ghostly figures screamed silently and vanished.
The crawling trees turned black and shattered.
And the Sanctuary doors —
the massive, root-covered doors —
trembled.
And opened.
----