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The binding rite
Last Updated:
2025-04-30 23:09:29
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A Night at Wildwood Echoes in the soil
Six months later- Lucas hadn’t touched the footage. Not once. It sat on the hard drive in his desk drawer, beneath old receipts and two half-smoked packs of cigarettes he never meant to finish. It pulsed at the back of his mind like a heartbeat he couldn’t silence. WildWood hadn’t followed him. It had stayed. That’s what he told himself. But every night, when he closed his eyes, he could still hear the trees whispering Emily’s name. Devon hadn’t spoken to anyone about what happened in the ruins. He’d returned to the city, tried to pick up his life — classes, coffee shops, meaningless conversations. But something had broken loose in his mind. He couldn’t sleep in buildings taller than trees. He couldn’t eat anything that came from soil. And worst of all — he could still see her. Emily, in flashes. Reflected in car windows, standing just at the edge of streetlamps, her eyes black, her skin laced with bark. At first, he thought it was trauma. But then she started talking.
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood Beneath the binding
Lucas’s Apartment – 2:14 a.m. The footage had changed. Lucas knew the files. He’d watched them so many times he could quote every soundless scream, every flicker of green fire. But this… this wasn’t there before. He sat frozen on his couch, bare feet cold against the floor. The monitor pulsed in front of him — not with static, but with a new frame. A still image. A single moment he had not recorded. Emily. But not the Emily they had lost. She stood in the ritual chamber, vines hanging like curtains around her. Her body was thinner, unnaturally elongated, as if stretched by invisible hands. Her eyes were twin voids, bleeding sap. And behind her… something shifted. Not the forest. Not Halloway’s ghosts. Something older. Something with wings made of bark and bone. Devon hadn’t slept. For the third night in a row, he found his hands raw and bloodied, black dirt under every fingernail. His sketchpad was full again, page after page of impossible things: circles of antlers, spira
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The thread between
Terrell, Present Day — Three Days After the Descent Lucas hadn’t returned to his apartment. He couldn’t. The moment he crossed the town line again, everything felt off — like the world had been nudged slightly out of tune. Streetlights flickered when he passed. His reflection no longer blinked in sync. He swore he saw bark growing beneath his fingernails, if only for a moment. He stayed in Devon’s garage apartment. Devon had stopped drawing, but only because the dreams had replaced the need. Now he saw without sleep. Every day, they planned. Every night, they listened — to the hum beneath their feet, the pulse in the trees. The Binding was weakening. And Emily was bleeding through. Emily — Beneath the Roots She had no body now. Not fully. Her limbs were both hers and not hers — stretched across wood, fused into the veins of the ancient chamber. Her voice echoed only in thought. But her will held. Just barely. She could feel the Rootless Ones gathering. Stirring. These wer
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The earthen throat
Dusk — The Abandoned Mill, Eastern Edge of WildWood The air near the river felt wrong — too still, too heavy. The mill had long since collapsed, a rusted skeleton of twisted beams and ivy-choked gears. It leaned into the slope like it was trying to disappear, to sink back into the earth that loathed it. This land had been cursed long before the first foundations were poured. Lucas stepped carefully across the rotted threshold, flashlight beam sweeping through debris. Clara followed, clutching the leather satchel of her great-aunt’s belongings. Devon came last, his eyes glazed, as if half-dreaming. “It should be beneath the old grinding floor,” Clara whispered. “There’s a stone door. A seal.” Lucas pushed aside charred planks and saw it: a circular slab of black stone, veined with gold. The same material from the underground chamber. The same markings from Devon’s dreams. Etched across it, barely visible through grime, was a phrase in First Tongue — a language none of them spoke,
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The seed of return
Below the Throne of Roots The priest did not move. It didn’t breathe, but the chamber pulsed with its rhythm. Around the twisted tree-throne, roots stirred, growing slowly toward the group like veins seeking a heartbeat. Clara stepped forward, clutching her satchel, her voice trembling. “You said one must stay. A sacrifice. Like Emily.” The priest’s amber eyes glowed faintly. Its mouth, still stitched shut with fine silver wire, did not move, but its voice came just the same — too close, too inside. “That was the old way.” “The forest is changing. Vareth’kaal is not satisfied with offerings. He wants a vessel.” Lucas stiffened. “Emily isn’t enough?” “She is strong. Too strong. She resists. But her blood only opened the rift.” The priest turned its gaze — slowly, reverently — toward Clara. “Yours is the blood that seals.” Clara felt her knees weaken. “No,” she whispered. “I’m not part of this. I only found those papers. I didn’t— I’m not—” “You are.” The priest reached ou
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The seed chamber
The Root Path — Beneath WildWood The tunnel narrowed as they descended, the air thick with a heady scent — not rot, but something older. Earth and blood. Salt and memory. The walls were pulsing gently with light now, not amber, but a deep green glow that seemed to recognize Clara as she passed. She didn’t speak. None of them did. Even Devon’s usual quips had died, buried beneath the sense that they were walking not just into the earth — but into something’s mind. And then… the passage opened. The Seed Chamber. It wasn’t a room in any normal sense. It was a living space, carved out not by hand or machine, but by will. A giant tree root coiled through the center of the space like a great serpent, petrified over centuries. Embedded within it were faces — faint outlines, ghostlike expressions in the bark. Hundreds of them. Some twisted in agony, others in peace. Clara stepped forward, her heartbeat syncing to a pulse within the chamber. Devon whispered, “What is this place?” Lu
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The last flame
Inside the Rift — Beneath the Altar Roots Emily no longer knew how long she had been there. Time bled in the rift. Days, hours, even thoughts bent like branches in wind. The altar had cracked beneath her. Her flesh was half-gone, devoured by the creeping vines of Vareth’kaal’s presence. Her soul? Stretched thin, but still intact. She had become less human. More… raw essence. Her voice barely worked. But her mind—her mind still held. And it defied him. Vareth’kaal circled her now, no longer hiding behind tendrils or disembodied whispers. He wore a shape. That of a tall, black-eyed figure of tangled bark and bone, crowned with twisted horns, each etched with the names of the dead. His mouth gaped like a wound — a pit of endless teeth and flame. “You were a flicker,” he said. “A moment’s resistance. But all lights go out.” Emily stood shakily. Her body wept sap and blood. “I’m not a light,” she whispered. “I’m the spark that burns you down.” ⸻ The War of Thought He lunged. N
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The hollow god
The Core of WildWood — Where the Rift Bleeds Through They stepped out of the tunnel and into a cathedral of rot. Above them, the sky was wrong — not made of clouds, but of tangled roots pulsing like muscle, and torn open to expose a void beyond comprehension. Below, the altar Emily had once bled upon now crackled with black fire. The vines had formed a crude throne where a figure sat hunched, spasming in fits of unnatural movement. Vareth’kaal. Or what remained of him. He was unraveling. Smoke bled from his seams. His limbs twitched in broken, uneven rhythms. From his chest leaked streaks of golden light, not his own, but stolen — borrowed — from Emily. Her essence. Her defiance. It was killing him. Clara gripped the bone key tighter. Lucas whispered, “Do you see that? His chest— It’s like something’s trying to burn its way out.” Devon, pale with awe, added, “It’s her. She’s still inside.” Vareth’kaal rose from his throne, taller than before — but less stable. One of his
Last Updated : 2025-04-30
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A Night at Wildwood The root beneath the green
Deep WildWood — The Edge of the Threshold The ground had changed. The further Clara and Ashani moved into the WildWood’s heart, the more the forest stopped resembling anything earthly. Trees leaned at impossible angles. Bark had gone from deep brown to a pale gray, like the skin of something long dead. The leaves overhead no longer rustled — they hung still, as if holding their breath. The old ranger paths had vanished. Now, only roots marked the way — wide, veinlike things coiling through the dirt like exposed arteries. “We’re close,” Ashani murmured. “I can feel it pulling.” Clara nodded. The ember inside her had begun to burn hotter. Her chest felt tight — not from fear, but pressure, like something wanted out. “Clara…” Ashani paused, then lowered her voice. “What if what we find… isn’t Emily anymore?” Clara didn’t answer right away. Her eyes scanned the warped horizon, the way the trees bent away from some central point ahead, as though recoiling from something too ancient
A Night at Wildwood Below the surface
Beneath WildWood – The Depths of the Forgotten Emily’s chest heaved in the damp air. Her arms, twisted and scraped, were held by the roots — no, by hands that were far older than the trees above. She had stopped screaming hours ago. There was no use in that anymore. Every time she had, the roots only tightened. There’s no escape, she thought. But she would not give in. The earth, once so alive beneath her feet, now felt like a grave. The roots had grown into her, had claimed her, but they didn’t just want her blood — they wanted her. They wanted to rewrite her. She gasped for air. It felt thinner the deeper she went, and the pain in her ribs was unbearable. There was nothing but the hum of the roots, the soft whispers of voices long lost. And beneath it, a darker presence. Her vision blurred. For a moment, Emily could hear Clara’s voice again, faint as if carried through time and space. Don’t stop fighting. But what could she fight when the forest had already made her part o
A Night at Wildwood Blood remembers
Old Creek Crossing – Near Dusk Clara hiked back from Hollow Hill with the fire still burning inside her. It hadn’t faded. If anything, it had rooted itself deeper, spreading through her veins like wildfire stitched into bone. Every step she took left a tingling print of heat in the soles of her feet. The forest no longer whispered to her — it watched. Aware. Wary. She stopped at Old Creek Crossing to refill her canteen. The stream there had dried up years ago, but a narrow vein still trickled under the broken bridge. As she leaned down, she caught a reflection beside her own: A face. Painted. Eyes like flint. Clara spun, reaching for the blade on her hip — but the woman had already stepped back, hands raised in peace. “You’ve awakened it,” the woman said. Her voice was low, sharp. “I felt the ember flare from half a valley away.” Clara didn’t lower the blade. “Who are you?” The woman stepped closer. Late thirties, maybe. Hair braided tight, feathers laced through in the ol
A Night at Wildwood The fire buried in stone
Hollow Hill – Midday Clara hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Not Devon. Not the few rangers left who still patrolled the outer trails. Some places asked for silence. Hollow Hill was one of them. She hiked through overgrown trails lost to modern maps, past a dry riverbed and two fallen markers carved in spiral patterns. They were warnings, according to the Yanuwah texts — spirals meant a descent, a place where time curled inward and memory became a trap. As she reached the summit of the hill, the air changed. Still. Electric. The wind stopped, though the trees swayed slightly, as if breathing. And at the very top of the hill, buried in moss and half-swallowed by roots, lay a flat black stone. She brushed the leaves away. Beneath it, etched in a language she didn’t know — and yet somehow understood — was a single word: “Ishtaya.” Clara whispered it. The ground responded. ⸻ The Descent The stone shifted. Not away — but down. It sank, groaning, revealing a narrow spi
A Night at Wildwood Names that should not be spoken
Ranger Station – Just Before Dawn Clara hadn’t slept. She sat at her desk surrounded by books — some borrowed from the Terrell Historical Society, others from the dusty back shelves of the town’s near-forgotten library, and one, far older, bound in worn deer hide. It was a gift. Left anonymously at her door six months ago. No note. No return address. Only a title burned into the cover in no language she could read. But tonight, when she flipped to its center, the same split tree symbol was there. Beneath it, in delicate, angular script: “Kaarayael. The Forgotten Root.” Clara exhaled, slow. The name vibrated in her skull. Just like the whisper from the forest. A call from below. She kept reading. ⸻ The Fragmented Record – Translated Excerpts “Before the settlers came, the Yanuwah spoke of two spirits: the Guardian and the Dreaming Root. One kept the balance. The other longed to become something else.” “The Root was not evil… but incomplete. Hungry. It did not understand dea
A Night at Wildwood The other half
Terrell State Hospital – Sub-Basement Level 3 The fluorescent lights above flickered once, then died. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need them. He moved by memory now — not his own, but inherited. Hand-me-down thoughts from long-dead voices. He muttered names as he walked: Halloway. Ishtaya. Marla. Emily. Over and over. Like steps in a staircase made of blood. In one hand, he carried a canvas duffel filled with tools: a chisel, two glass vials, and a fragment of bone etched with symbols that hummed if you tilted it just right. In the other, he held a map. Not one of paper. One burned into his palm. He had followed the corridor that used to house the hydrotherapy ward — the deepest part of the hospital. The place that, officially, no longer existed. Half collapsed after the fire in ‘73. Sealed since. Forgotten by the state. But the forest remembered. The Door Beneath the Ashes The hallway ended in melted iron bars and charred stone. He knelt, brushing away soot and ash until hi
A Night at Wildwood The first name
Hello! Before diving in I was just hoping to say I hope everyone has liked or enjoyed the story so far.. I know it’s changed a lot! I have decided this is the turn the story will take and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have while working on it! Thank you all for the support! Now back to the book!! ————————————————-Long Ago — Before the Founding of Terrell The forest did not yet have a name. It breathed with the quiet of sacred things, watched over by those who knew the rhythms of root and sky, who spoke to stone and river as kin. The people — the Yanuwah — did not fear the woods. But they respected it. And they never went beyond the Hollow Hill after dusk. Not even the elders. Because something had fallen there, long before even their time — not a god, not a demon, but something stranger: a dream left unfinished, still writhing beneath the earth. And its name was Kaarayael. The Dreaming Root. It whispered in the soil. ⸻ The Healer and the Flame Ishtaya was
A Night at Wildwood The forest waits
Six Months Later — Late Autumn in Terrell WildWood had grown still. Not silent — the birds had returned, deer moved carefully along the outer trails again — but the forest no longer watched. It no longer reached for blood or whispered in tongues older than man. The rift was gone. The old altar beneath the roots had collapsed into itself, swallowed by earth, sealed by whatever strange magic Clara had invoked. Yet something new had taken its place — a single grove of pale white trees, grown in a perfect circle, their bark smooth as bone. Locals called it the Heart Ring. No one entered it. No one even tried. Clara Moss — Caretaker Clara lived in the old ranger station now. Alone. The others had moved on. Devon, still shaken but alive, had returned to his life — a little quieter, a little less smug. Lucas had left Terrell altogether, vanishing into the city, chasing some promise of peace he hadn’t yet found. But Clara stayed. Every morning she walked the forest lin
A Night at Wildwood The hollow god
The Core of WildWood — Where the Rift Bleeds Through They stepped out of the tunnel and into a cathedral of rot. Above them, the sky was wrong — not made of clouds, but of tangled roots pulsing like muscle, and torn open to expose a void beyond comprehension. Below, the altar Emily had once bled upon now crackled with black fire. The vines had formed a crude throne where a figure sat hunched, spasming in fits of unnatural movement. Vareth’kaal. Or what remained of him. He was unraveling. Smoke bled from his seams. His limbs twitched in broken, uneven rhythms. From his chest leaked streaks of golden light, not his own, but stolen — borrowed — from Emily. Her essence. Her defiance. It was killing him. Clara gripped the bone key tighter. Lucas whispered, “Do you see that? His chest— It’s like something’s trying to burn its way out.” Devon, pale with awe, added, “It’s her. She’s still inside.” Vareth’kaal rose from his throne, taller than before — but less stable. One of his
