In a hunt for the enthusiast

The silence that followed the fight was greater than the thunder of the beast had been. I stood in the clearing, the breaths torn from my body, the air thick with a metallic tang like burned earth. My shard was dulled, the steady pulse unsteady now. I pushed it back into my pack; my fingers trembled.

"Anyone missing?" Lira called out, cutting through the heavy silence like a knife.

A quick count revealed we had lost two more soldiers in the fight. Their absence was a weight we all felt, but none of us voiced it. There wasn't time to mourn, not here.

"What now?" Rykard asked, his tone stripped of its usual bravado.

"We keep moving," Lira said, her eyes fixed on the path ahead. "The Wraithwood isn't done with us, but we're not done with it either."

I nodded, falling into step behind her as the group began to move. The soldiers were silent, their faces pale and drawn. The light of our torches seemed weaker, barely piercing the oppressive gloom.

The path narrowed, the trees pressing in until their twisted branches intertwined above us, blocking out what little light remained. The whispers returned, louder now, their words almost discernible.

Turn back.

You are not welcome.

This is your grave.

"Ignore them," Lira said, her voice steady.

But it was easier said than done. The whispers clawed at the edges of my mind, filling it with doubts, with fears I thought I'd buried long ago.

And then the voice came.

It wasn't like the whispers. It was deeper, more resonant, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"You are persistent," it said, its tone laced with amusement.

We stopped, every muscle in my body tensing.

"Who's there?" Lira demanded, her sword at the ready.

The voice chuckled, a sound like dry leaves rustling in the wind. "I am the Wraithwood. I am its heart, its mind, its will. And you… you are trespassers."

"Then show yourself," Lira said, her tone defiant.

There was a pause, after which the shadows around us began to shift and coalesce. It was tall and impossibly thin, its form draped in robes of shadow, and its face was a void, much like the creature we had just faced, but so much more oppressive.

"You desire to destroy that which you don't know," the figure spoke, its voice echoing into the forest. "You wish to shatter the locks which bind me, but know nothing of what is beyond them."

"What's beyond doesn't concern me," Lira answered. "Your corruption here will end."

The figure gave its head a tilt; Lira guessed it debated the words.

Brash, but blind. Are you really under the notion your little fragment can defend you?

Lira looked at me, her face unreadable. I reached into my pack and pulled out the shard, its dim light flickering weakly.

"You fear this," I said, holding it up.

The figure's form rippled and the forest seemed to shudder. "It is a fragment of what once was. A remnant of a power long extinguished. But even a spark can be dangerous… in the wrong hands."

"Then we'll see that it's in good hands," Lira said.

The figure laughed, and the earth shook. "You think you are saviors? Heroes? You are but playthings, blind to the fact of what you serve."

The shadows rushed forward, and the figure disappeared into darkness. The path before us twisted wildly, the trees contorting and reshaping themselves, blocking our passage.

"Move!" Lira shouted.

We ran, the forest closing in on us. The path shifted beneath our feet, roots rising to trip us, branches clawing at our faces. The whispers grew louder, a cacophony of accusations and warnings.

I clutched the shard tightly, its faint light the only thing keeping the darkness at bay.

"Keep going!" Lira yelled, her voice barely audible over the din.

The ground dropped downward suddenly, and we stumbled into another clearing. This was different. There stood a massive tree at its center, the trunk blackened and gnarled, the branches bare. The air around it is heavy with power, the whispers falling silent as we approach.

"The heart of the Wraithwood," Lira says, her voice low.

The shard in my hand sparked to life, cutting through the darkness. The tree responded with a shudder of its branches and a groan from its trunk that was deep and guttural.

"This is it," I said. "This is what keeps the forest together."

"And it senses we're here," Lira said.

The ground below the tree started to fissure, as if its very lifeblood were seeping out. The whispers grew urgent, then almost a scream, in their intensity, their pleas.

"Do we destroy it?" Rykard asked, his voice shaking.

Lira looked at me, and I felt the weight of the decision settle on my shoulders.

"If we destroy it," I said, "we might free the Wraithwood's victims. But we might unleash something worse."

"And if we leave it?"

"It will keep spreading. It won't stop until it consumes everything."

Lira's jaw tightened. "Then we finish this."

I nodded, stepping forward, the shard growing brighter with each step. The tree shuddered, its branches lashing out, but the shard's light held them at bay.

As I raised the shard, the forest screamed—a sound of rage, of fear, of despair.

And then I struck.