I woke up on my back to a sky the color of bruised charcoal and deep reds, still aching from the pain in my side. I check where the wounds were only to find nothing there. Faint ribbons of ashen light drift like exhausted spirits, and for a moment I think the night had simply forgotten how to end, or I was out a lot longer than usual. I touched my neck, the long slit no longer there. Maybe I was out until the next morning even, but yet I felt like I wasn’t in the same place that I had left.
Then the smell hit me, sharp and bitter, the lingering breath of something that burned too hot and too long. The ground beneath my palms is a fragile crust of soot that breaks apart under my hands, revealing embers glowing faintly underneath like the last thoughts of a dying fire.Around me stretched what might once have been a forest. Skeletal trees stood in blackened silence, their trunks split and blistered, branches twisted into clawed silhouettes that scrape softly against one another in a wind that carries no warmth. Wisps of smoke coil lazily between them, not rising but drifting sideways as though gravity itself has grown uncertain. The air shimmered with heat that no longer existed, distorting the shapes of fallen logs and collapsed canopies into wavering illusions, so that every step feels like walking through a memory rather than a place. Ash was falling in delicate flakes from a sky with no visible source, settling on my shoulders like gray snow, dissolving when I brush it away. Somewhere deeper in the forest, something cracks. Wood shifts,or perhaps something moved, yet the sound echoes strangely, stretched thin and distant, as though the world has too much space and not enough substance. There are no birds, no insects, no signs of life, only the faint pulse of red light glowing in the hollow cores of trees, like watchful eyes refusing to close.Even my own breathing seems intrusive here, too loud against the oppressive hush. As I rise, I realize I had been laying in a graveyard, headstones and mausoleum standing around me in burned ruin. My footsteps leave impressions that slowly fill with drifting ash, erasing proof I was ever there, and I realize this is not merely a forest that survived a fire. It’s a place suspended in the aftermath, trapped between destruction and rebirth, a dark ethereal threshold where the flames have gone but their presence still lingers, waiting for something to disturb the fragile silence.
Ash clung to the air like drifting snow as I moved through the charred skeletons of trees, their blackened limbs clawing weakly at the pale, otherworldly sky above. The forest felt wrong, too quiet, too hollow, asif the fire had burned away more than bark and leaves. Each step crushed brittle cinders beneath my boots, the sound echoing strangely through the smoky stillness. Suddenly a sharp rustle cracked through the silence above me, and I jolted backward, just as a dark coil shifted along a scorched branch. A snake,thin and glossy despite the ruin around it, lifted its head and flicked it's tongue at the air. For a moment it watched me, unmoving, its eyes reflecting the faint ghostlight filtering through the dead canopy. It’s eyes were pure white, seeming to stare into what used to be my soul. It hissed at me, full fangs exposed telling me it wouldn’t hesitant if I made a wrong move. Then,without hurry, it loosened itself from the branch and began to slither away,its body winding through the burned wood like a living shadow until it disappeared into the gray haze of the ruined forest, leaving me alone again with the quiet.
I moved forward through the fragile hush, boots sinking into the soft layers of ash, and that’s when I see her. A slender silhouette standing between the charred trunks in the distance, half-veiled by drifting smoke. At first she seems like another trick of the shimmering air, another phantom born from heat and memory, but then something in the tilt of her head,in the familiar line of her shoulders, strikes me with a force that steals the breath from my lungs. I know her. The realization blooms slowly and then all at once, painful and electric, as if a door inside me had been thrown open. Long strands of dark hair fall down her back, catching the embers glow in the hollow trees, and I remember the way that hair once caught fire light, in the field,surrounded in darkness and rain that feels impossibly distant now. She was facing away from me, motionless at first, yet there is intention in her stillness, a quiet awareness that made my pulse hammer in my ears. She slowly turned towards me, revealing those green eyes that seem to hold me hostage every time they catch mine. She smiled at me, and a warmth came over my whole body I had never felt before. The forest remained silent, but the red light pulsing within the burned-out trunks brightens subtly, reacting to the recognition that trembles through me.
When she begins to walk away, slow and unhurried, she leaves no trace in the ash from her bare feet, her sheer white dress gently gliding over the ash covered ground with ease. And panic lances through me at the thought of losing her again. I started to follow her, more urgently, weaving between skeletal trees and shattered limbs, smoke curling around my legs like grasping fingers. She seems to flicker at the edges, at times closer than she should be, at times impossibly distant,as though space bends around her fragile form. I want to call her name, I feel it rising in my throat, but my voice chokes it back. The forest presses inward as I move deeper, embers glowing brighter, the hush growing heavier, and still Istill push on, driven not just by curiosity but by the aching certainty that this woman belongs to me in some unknown way, that finding her may mean remembering why I’m is here in this burned and breathless world at all.
I push myself faster, ignoring the way the ash shifts treacherously underfoot, ignoring the oppressive silence that thickens with every step, and at last the distance between us begins to close. The forest seems to resist me, charred branches groan and tilt inward, smoke coils tighter, the ember glow in the hollow trees flaring as though in warning. But I I force my way through, eyes locked on the pale shimmer of her figure ahead. She slows. Not abruptly, not startled, just a gradual easing of her pace, as if she has always known I would reach her. My pulse pounds in my ears, each beat matching the red pulse in the burned trunks around me. When I’m only a few steps away, the air changes; it cools, the metallic taste fading, the drifting ash settling gently to the ground as though held in suspension by her presence.I reach out, hand trembling, half-expecting her to dissolve like smoke under mytouch. But she doesn’t. Instead, she stops completely. For a breathless seconds she stands there, back to me, close enough that I can see the faint rise and fall of her shoulders. Then she turns.
Her face is both exactly as I remember and impossible altered, illuminated by a soft, internal glow that casts no shadow. Her eyes hold the same depth I know, yet behind them is something vast and distant, like the sky before a storm. Recognition passes between us without words, heavy,undeniable. The forest seems to bow inward, trees creaking softly, embers dimming as if the world itself is holding its breath. I finally whisper her name, and this time the sound does not vanish. “Eve”, I say, as if it were a question, trying to figure out if this is all a dream or if I finally died for good this time. It lingers in the air between us. She studies me with a sadness that feels ancient, a fragile smile ghosting across her lips, and when she lifts her hand toward my face, the air ripples outward in slow concentric waves. Her fingers brushed my cheek softy, and the moment her skin meets mine,the burned forest flickers. For an instant I see another version of this place layered over the ruin: living trees, green and towering, sunlight breaking through leaves. Then it fades back to ash and shadow. She does not pull away.Instead, she steps closer, close enough that I can feel the quiet gravity of her presence, and in her eyes I see both reunion and warning, as though catching up to her was never the end of the journey, but the beginning of something far more fragile and irreversible.
I moved toward her slowly, as though afraid she might dissolve like the ash around us. “Are you real?” she whispered, her voice carrying strangely in the hollow quiet.
“I’m very real,” I murmured, “and I’m gonna prove it to you”.
When I reached for her, my fingers brushed her wrist, and even in that cold, ruined world, her skin was warm. The contrast made me shiver. She turned to face me completely, eyes reflecting pale light, and for a moment the devastation around us seemed to fall away. My hands settled at her waist, tentative at first, then certain when she stepped closer. The ash swirled around our ankles as if stirred by our breath alone.
Our kiss began softly, almost fragile against the desolation. It was warmth offered in a place that had forgotten it. Her hands slid up my chest again, feeling the steady beat beneath my ribs, grounding herself in something alive, at least for the moment. The air shifted, subtly at first. The scent of smoke thinned. Beneath it, something greener lingered,faint as a promise.
I deepened the kiss, and the ash began to shimmer.
When my forehead rested against hers, a tremor ran through the earth. The blackened bark of the nearest tree cracked, not with destruction, but with renewal. From the fissures, thin veins of green light pulsed outward. She gasped softly as my lips traced the curve of her jaw, her throat, each touch reverent, unhurried. With every brush of skin against skin,the world responded.
The ash at our feet softened into dark soil. When I lowered us to the ground, it was no longer cold and brittle, but rich and warm beneath our palms, moss seeming to grow underneath us in a natural softness. She pulled my shirt off, and I responded with the same to her, slowly drawing the top of her dress down, her breasts exposed for only me to see. Her skin was so soft against my lips as I laid her down and traced over her nipples. I kissed down her body, feeling every shiver under my lips as I stopped between her legs. The sheer fabric slid softly up to her hips like air. I let my tongue dance over her secret, hearing her light breath with every movement I made. I felt her fingers run over my head, aching for more.
I kissed my way back up her body, my heart pounding like it was my first time. I hovered over her, my eyes searching hers, asking without words. She answered by drawing me down, undoing my pants and pulling them down.Her breath catching when our bodies aligned fully, sliding inside her with ease.She took a sharp breath as I entered her, but softened as I kissed her neck. The moment we started moving together, slow and deliberate, the transformation surged.
Charred branches unfurled with sudden life, stretching into emerald canopies overhead. Leaves burst forth in cascades of impossible green.Vines coiled upward, blooming with luminous flowers that opened as though awakened by our closeness. The red sky dissolved into a wash of violet and blue, light filtering down in radiant beams through the branches above us that painted our skin in shifting patterns.
Our movements remained tender, exploratory, the rhythm of them steady as a heartbeat returning to a once dead world. Wherever my hands traveled, warmth followed. Where her breath met my skin, petals drifted into the air. The forest grew thicker, richer, ferns uncurling, moss climbing stones, distant water beginning to sing.
She arched toward me, not in desperation but in trust, her fingers threading through my hair as the last traces of ash disappeared. The air now smelled of rain and blossoms. Our whispered moans blended with birdsong that hadn’t existed moments before. It felt as though our intimacy was not just happening within the forest, but creating it.
Everything inside of me was building in likeness with her,rocking back and forth as our heartbeats quickened, our breath increasing with every thrust. I kissed her harder than before, knowing the end was near. Itensed with one final thrust, burying myself inside her as her voice cried out into the silence, feeling every contraction as she reached her pinnacle of pleasure. With me.
When we finally stilled, wrapped in one another, the world had fully transformed.
Above us stretched a lush canopy alive with color and light.Butterflies flickered between shafts of sun. The earth beneath was soft with moss, cradling us in green abundance. I couldn’t stop staring at her flushed face, still labored and blissful from our lovemaking. I brushed a strand of hair from her face, simply in awe. Not just for what had just happened between us, but for what had happened around us.
The burned forest had not vanished, it had simply been reborn.
The last echoes of our passion still lingered in the air,warm and electric, when I got up and started to pull myself together. I Heard Eve getting up behind me, the air seeming to smell like her perfume from the night before. I turned around to embrace her, only to falter within seconds.She was no longer lying flat against the moss-covered earth. Instead, her body had changed in the span of a breath. Her once-smooth stomach now arched outward in the unmistakable curve of full pregnancy, straining gently against the delicate fabric of her gown. A faint golden glow pulsed beneath her skin, as though starlight had taken root inside her. The ancient trees surrounding them whispered in a language older than memory, their leaves trembling as if acknowledging some powerful spell fulfilled. She looked down at herself in stunned silence, one trembling hand resting over the life that had appeared as swiftly as a conjured flame. I stared, heart hammering, caught between awe and disbelief, realizing that in this enchanted world, creation did not wait, it answered immediately, irrevocably, to desire. She took my hand and placed it on her belly, smiling as she did. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I also had never felt a love like this. And it was for someone I had never even met before.
But it didn’t last.
The golden glow beneath her skin began to flicker, like dying ember starved of air. Her breath hitched, wonder collapsing into confusion, then into something far more terrible. She clutched her swollen belly as a sharp tremor wracked her body, the luminous warmth draining into a sickly gray. The forest’s whisper turned into a low, discordant moan. I reached for her, but she doubled over with a strangled cry, black tears streaming down her face as she tried to curl around her belly, trying desperately to protect the life inside her. But it was all in vain. The curve of life that had risen so impossibly began to recede just as unnaturally, as though unseen hands were tearing time backward in cruel haste. A black liquid started streaming down her legs, overtaking the white sheer fabric within seconds. A shadow rippled beneath her skin before vanishing, leaving her trembling and hollow.
She stared at me, pupils swallowed by a dark void, and when she blinked, more of the viscous liquid spilled free, dripping onto the moss where it hissed and smoked. “This is all your fault”, she said, acid dripping from every word. Her words pierced me like a dagger. “You brought death into mylife”, she said, “you bring nothing but tragedy to everything you touch”. The trees recoiled. Leaves shriveled mid-branch, bark splitting with sharp cracks that echoed like gunfire. A spark leapt from root to root, unnatural and hungry, and within seconds flames clawed up the trunks in spirals of furious orange. The green canopy ignited as though soaked in oil, fire devouring blossom and branch alike. Smoke choked the violet sky, turning it bruised and red once again.
I stumbled backward as heat surged around us, the air alive with embers. She remained kneeling in the growing inferno, black tears streaming endlessly down her face, her expression no longer fearful but distant,empty. I tried to reach for her, tried to pull her out of the growing inferno. But it was no use. Every angle I tried was undone by falling trees and rising flames. And as the forest burned in a roaring wall of flame, I understood that our fleeting act had not created life at all, but only brought her pain and loss.
I fell backwards onto the ground again, watching the world around me become engulfed in flames. I started choking on smoke, suffocating against the ash in my lungs. The more I coughed,the worse it got. I was dying, and couldn’t stop it. Everything began to fade again, until there was nothing left to do but let go.
***
I wake like I’m being dragged up through tar. Lungs seizing, throat ripping open on a breath that tastes like pennies and rot. My head slams against the window of the backseat, the glass cold and sweating against my temple, and for a second I don’t know where I end and the dark begins. I guess there was still death inside me, because as soon as my eyes open, I puke into the floor, the same black goo from before overtaking the mat below. I lay down across the backseat, giving myself a chance to fully recover.
I was gone. I know I was. Remember dying very clearly. All the blood that drowned me in the dirt. Nowthere’s upholstery under my fingernails as I claw at the seat, brittle leather cracking beneath fingers that don’t feel entirely mine. It’s always an interesting feeling coming back to life. Almost like being born, but in the sickest form possible.
The air inside the car is stale,unmoving, like it’s been sealed for years, but when my eyes finally clear, Iknow I’m in Tyler’s car. When I look down my shirt is stiff against my skin, the blood from the stab wounds dried into dust as I sit up in the seat. I don’tknow how long I’ve been dead. Minutes. Hours. Days even. I looked up at the windshield and saw the headlights were on, but the car wasn’t moving. The now soft raindrops hitting the windshield sounded like soft white noise inside the car. The faint sound outside the car made it clear I wasn’t alone, but it sounded like a shovel moving dirt. I lifted myself back up and tried to focus on what was happening outside the car. To my relief, the one shoveling dirt around was Tyler, seeming to be filling in a hole in the ground.
I forced my zombified muscles in my hand to move and open the door, almost falling out into the mud before catching myself with my still half numb legs. I limped myself into the headlight beams and leaned against the car. “Who’s in the hole?”, I ask him. He turns towards me,shovel full of dirt, “’Bout time you woke up sleeping beauty”, he said, “well,I noticed your target coming out of the woods, but not you. Figured you needed the backup. Took me like an hour to find you out there, but I got to you before the coyotes could make a meal outta your corpse”. I made my way over to his side as he threw more dirt into the hole. The body in the bottom was basically mangled mess, slashes and stab wounds everywhere I could see. Not to mention the left arm that was facing the wrong way.
“Wow”, I say, “you really went all out on him”. “Not my fault he tried to run”, he said while continuing to shovel.He must’ve noticed my mouth out of the corner of his eye. “What’s that black shit on your face?”, he asked, “looks like you’ve been drinking paint”. I wiped my mouth off again and realized there was still a quite a bit of that mysterious black liquid on my mouth and chin. “Oh”, I said, “yeah, I kinda puked in your backseat”. Tyler rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, “thank god for floor matsI guess. By the way, there’s another shovel in the trunk if you wanna help me out here”. I gave him a side glance, “I just came back from the dead, and you want me to help you with filling a hole?”. “Yeah”, he said, “it took me four hours just to dig the hole eight feet down in the first place. And in the rain.Besides, he’s your target anyway, I just finished the job after he got the drop on you”. I rolled my eyes and started stumbling away towards the trunk, “fine,whatever. Give me a second. I still haven’t completely gotten my legs back yet”.
We slowly filled in the hole fora good hour, only about three feet full when Tyler stopped shoveling and started walking over towards some bushes. I stopped shoveling and put my hands up inconfusion. “Hey”, I say to him, “we’re not done here yet. And I’m not finishing this by myself”. I watched as he bent over and picked something up, something that started to stink worse and worse as he made his way back to me. In the light of the headlights I finally recognized it was a skunk in his hand that he had bythe tail. “Dude, what the fuck?”, I say as I covered my nose, “what are you doing with that thing? Get it out of here”. Tyler smirked at me as he tossed the skunk into the hole and started shoveling again, like he didn’t do anything at all. I stared at him, waiting for him to explain. After a couple seconds he finally explained himself. “If someone actually decides to come looking for this guy, they’ll probably trace his steps out here. And God forbid the cops bring cadaver dogs. So, if dogs come sniffing around, even if they dig, they’llrun into the skunk and assume that’s what the dog was smelling, not the body”,he said, and continued filling in the hole.
I couldn’t help but give the kid some credit. “Not bad”.
We finally finished as the sun started to creep into view on the horizon, barely an inch of us not covered in blood and mud. The rain that had engulfed the field had finally slowed into almost nothing, having completely covered up the fact that we had just buried a body, not even a boot print left behind. We put the shovels back in the trunk and climb into the car, Tyler pointing the car towards the road towards home. The sunshine glimmered off of the leftover rain hanging on the decaying forest. The early morning fog parted for the car like the red sea as we sped down the road,the sky behind us getting brighter with every passing minute. My mind began towander back to my dream. At least, I think it was a dream. Purgatory maybe? But how could that be purgatory with the incredible beauty that came out of it. That came from us. Everything felt so real there. I could still feel her soft skin under my hands, her lips against mine. She was so beautiful there, until everything came crashing down.
Because of me.
I guess I was thinking about my guilt a little harder than I thought because Tyler broke the silence. “Got something on your mind?”, he asked, “you look a little more dead than usual. And not in a good way”. I thought about telling him, thought seriously about what it all could mean. Maybe he would even know exactly what had happened and where exactly I had gone when I died last night. But, I couldn’t get myself to spill anything from my mouth. “Nah man”, I lie, “just not quite back to normal yet”. He laughed at my words, clearly not believing me. “Fine”, he said, “don’t tell me.I’ll just wait for you to cave and confess later”. “Whatever”, I say, looking out the window. I wouldn’t confess anything now, if ever. No use in dragging him down like I did Eve.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyuk0R447zD
and then Add to home screen.