All Chapters of A Night at Wildwood: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Flashback — Terrell State Hospital, Winter, 1998 The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly green tint on the tiled floors of Ward E. Devon Price hated this wing — it always smelled like old blood and bleach, no matter how often they cleaned it. He pushed the laundry cart quietly, careful not to rattle the wheels. The patients here didn’t like loud sounds. Most of them didn’t like sounds at all. He paused by Room 214. Through the wired-glass window, Dr. Nathaniel Halloway stood over a restrained patient — a young woman, twitching, eyes wide with fear. Devon had seen her yesterday, catatonic in the corner of the rec room. Now she was strapped to a chair, a metal cap on her head, wires snaking into a humming machine. “Is she cleared for treatment?” Devon asked, hesitating at the door. Halloway didn’t look up. “Cleared? Who clears the rain to fall or the sun to rise?” Devon frowned. “That doesn’t answer my question, sir.” The doctor turned to him slowly. His eyes ha

Beneath the Hollow Tree — 3:02 a.m. The forest pulsed above them, its heartbeat echoing through stone and soil. The roots quivered in the ceiling like veins. The old surgical theater had become a temple once more, and the altar waited — hungry, eager. Marla stood before it, vines braided through her arms, her breath misting in the air despite the heat radiating from the walls. Emily tightened her grip on the badge, her knuckles white. “How do we do this?” Marla’s voice was calm — too calm. “The Binding must be mirrored. Blood for roots. Memory for bark. One must enter willingly… while the others bear witness.” Lucas adjusted his camera, already filming. “So the forest thinks it’s getting fed.” “No,” Marla corrected. “It is getting fed. But not the way it wants. The sacrifice has to bend the tree’s will. Turn its gaze inward.” Devon stepped forward. “And what happens to the one who enters?” Marla looked at him with eyes like dead water. “They become part of it. But if their wil

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

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,

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