Novel-novel oleh R. Mobley

Lucas didn’t remember falling asleep, but he remembered waking. The air was colder. Denser. Everything around him pulsed faintly in shades of gray-green and red — not from his lantern, which had long since sputtered out, but from the walls themselves. Bioluminescent growths spread across the passage like veins beneath skin, lighting the narrow corridor as he pressed on. The silence was different here. Less like quiet — more like anticipation. He’d descended for what felt like hours, through winding stone and living bark, past skeletons wrapped in vines and roots that pulsed when touched. Some of the bones had markings — symbols. Ritual cuts. Tattoos. Some bore resemblance to Ashani’s people. Others… to his own. Lucas felt that tug in his chest again. Not the totem — it had broken when he entered. But something older. Something in his blood. ⸻ The Gate of Teeth He stepped into a chamber shaped like a ribcage — massive roots woven into arching spires above, and at the far en

The tunnel pulsed like a throat, slick and warm, lit only by the glow from Ashani’s blade and the flickering fire that still smoldered from Emily’s hands. Each step they took echoed like a drumbeat inside a living, dying god. Clara led. Emily followed, slower now, her strength waning even though her eyes still glowed with ancestral fire. Ashani watched them both in silence, every breath measured. “We’re close,” she said. “Too close. The air—it doesn’t breathe right down here.” They passed murals formed not from paint or carvings, but from growths — bark and sap frozen in shapes that hinted at stories. One showed a great tree, upside down, its roots devouring the world below. Another showed figures in flame, casting something ancient into the dark earth. And another—almost erased—showed three women standing at the edge of a hole, each bleeding from the eyes. Clara stopped. Her fingers brushed the final mural. “I’ve seen this in the journals,” she whispered. “The Daughters of

The path had long since vanished. Lucas moved through the trees with only instinct and the faint, pulsing tug of Ashani’s totem guiding him. Every few steps, it throbbed like a heartbeat in his palm, pulling toward the old quarry entrance — now swallowed by overgrowth and warded stone. The forest was quieter than it had any right to be. No birds. No insects. Just the creak of wood and the low groan of roots moving beneath the ground like tectonic plates. He passed the place where Devon had vanished — just a patch of dirt now, but he could still see his friend’s hand reaching up through the bramble in that last, horrible second. The vines had pulled him under like water. Lucas didn’t linger. He pressed on. And then the forest spoke. “Lucas.” A voice he hadn’t heard in years. He turned sharply — hand at his side where he’d tucked a broken hatchet — and saw someone standing just beyond the trees. A woman. Familiar. Long hair. Pale blue dress. Eyes like frost and winter wat

The sky above WildWood was no longer a sky. It was a bruise. Dark clouds churned in unnatural spirals, greenish-black, pulsing like something diseased. Lightning arced across the horizon without sound, and the wind didn’t howl — it whispered. Lucas stood at the tree line, his hands deep in his jacket pockets, staring out over the forest that had already taken so much. His breath fogged in the sudden cold, though it was April. Behind him, the cabin groaned. Its wards still pulsed faintly — sigils burned into the wood, clay, and old bone — placed by Ashani before she left with Clara. Lucas hadn’t slept. Couldn’t. Too much of him was still down there. Buried in that rotting earth with Emily. With Clara. With everything he’d run from once. The forest whispered. Not loud. Not forceful. Just enough. She’s gone, you know. They all are. Like Devon. Like the rest. You’re the only one left. Again. He gritted his teeth and turned away. But the memory of Devon’s face—that flicker

The tunnel pulsed around her like a living throat. Each breath Emily took felt like inhaling ash and sorrow. But she moved now—not dragged, not bound—her feet pressing into the Root’s spongy flesh as she descended deeper. The ember inside her burned steady. She was more than herself now. A vessel, yes—but one of defiance, not submission. The whispers tried to claw back in. She left you. They all left you. You belong to the forest now. But they didn’t have the same weight anymore. Emily touched her chest, feeling the heat beneath her sternum, where the memory of her grandmother still lingered like a ghost’s touch. And then she heard footsteps. Not behind her—ahead. She slowed. Something shifted in the path before her. The walls bulged outward, and from them stepped a figure. A girl. Blonde hair. Slender frame. Dressed in the same hoodie she’d died in. Emily’s heart stopped. “Marla…?” The girl turned. Her face was wrong. It was Marla—but warped. The eyes were black pi

Beyond the Bone Gate The moment Clara stepped through, the forest changed. The air turned thick, like soup. The heat pressed against her skin with oily fingers. The path was no longer dirt or stone — it was flesh, soft and slightly pulsing, covered in moss and bone fragments. The walls around them weren’t carved or eroded — they were grown. It wasn’t a cave. It was a womb. Ashani kept her blade unsheathed, its obsidian edge humming faintly with the spiritwork bound to it. She moved slower now, more deliberate. “It’s not just a root system,” she whispered. “It’s alive. Like a brain stretched through the earth.” Clara shuddered. “And we’re inside it.” Their lanterns barely pierced the thick dark. Shapes slithered just at the edge of sight — twitching limbs, eyes that blinked and vanished, small mouths set into the walls like tumors. It watched them. Every step. Clara’s heart pounded harder, but the ember inside her gave her strength. It pulsed in time with the deeper rhythms