UNITY

Chase quickly swiped the match against the surface of the branch again.

However, just as the first couple of times, nothing happened.

He was cold and could not see anything at all because of the impenetrable darkness of The Dark Forest.

'It certainly stays true to its name,'

Chase frustratingly thought to himself as he continued to strike the match, only out of pure spite.

Of course, the match did not burn.

He started to hear loud steps that rattled the trees and caused the leaves to rustle violently.

Chase remembered a random fact from his grade school teacher when he spotted the paper matches.

Mr. Dane had once said that while The Dark Forest was technically impossible to survive for longer than a week with a group of average humans, many creatures in The Dark Forest were actually afraid of light—meaning you could technically stretch the time longer and survive in nighttime scenarios when a monster happens to find you.

While Chase did not want to waste one of his few matches, he realized that he was probably going to be here for much longer than a week.

You would probably ask him: Why don't you just go back to your village? He would have loved to; however, the distance between any neighboring villages and Willowmere was more than a six-month walk, and that would be a walk without breaks, as well as on flat land.

So where would Chase go after he got back, not to mention everyone there was probably already long dead?

It was a terrible thought for a child to have, but it was also the correct thought.

Guards were probably still stationed to stand guard at the exits and would be until the village was completely pillaged and the leaders were ready to leave.

For all Chase knew, they could be planning on staying for months...

He grit his teeth, regretting even thinking about his old home. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, and he wanted to curse the gods—but Chase did no such thing. He needed to survive. He wanted to know if his father and friends were alive, and he wanted to kill the woman with the stone armor—

'No, that was an irrational thought.' She was far too strong, and her own presence was enough to drain the air from the throats of the people not strong enough to stand on par with her—or stronger than her.

Chase was scared, his hands were shaking as he tried to light the match with anything he could find, and he could feel tears tugging at the corners of his eyes.

Suddenly, however, a terribly gruesome idea appeared in the back of his mind...

He took the small paper match and quickly swiped it against the surface of his own forearm.

A small flame ignited on the tip of the match.

Chase let a twisted grin sneak onto his face for only a few seconds as he ignored the searing pain in his left arm.

He lifted the match to meet one of the shirts he had left in his backpack. He then threw the now aflame shirt into the dark abyss below him.

As the aflame cloth shirt fell down below the tree, hundreds of terrible outlines of creatures could be seen rapidly moving away from the light of the fire.

Chase felt a horrifying chill creep down his spine.

The loud steps had stopped; however, as he held the match in his hand, looking over the barely visible city of trees,

A terrifying creature—blanketed in swirling shadows, with twelve massive black tentacles, as well as piercing crimson eyes that sat at the top of a plague doctor-shaped face made of hollow ivory bones—appeared.

The tendrils seemed to ripple and pulse, their jagged edges blending into the darkness like living smoke. Each step was a muted thud, like the beat of a war drum buried beneath layers of earth.

The creature reared its head back and let out a viciously high-pitched scream as its eyes met the boy's.

Its eyes then traveled across Chase's body, leading it to the lit match that resided in the boy's hand.

The hollow-boned creature quickly backed away and slowly disappeared into the shadows, letting out a low growl that could barely be heard.

Chase was left frozen in fear as he sat atop the branch of the giant tree.