by siyaji
The night the forest stopped whispering, something shifted. Lumi had always believed she understood Snowberry Hollow. It was quiet in a way that felt safe. Nothing ever rushed, nothing ever broke that stillness. It was the kind of place where danger didn’t belong. At least, that’s what she told herself. But then the snowberries began to pulse—slow, uneven, like something trying to find a heartbeat. And the brook, the one sound that had never failed, turned silent… before it started moving the wrong way. That’s when she realized something wasn’t just wrong. It had been wrong for a long time. Drawn deeper into the forest, Lumi begins to notice things she had somehow ignored all her life. The way the trees seem to follow. The way the silence lingers just a little too long. The feeling of being watched—not from the outside, but from somewhere closer. Something in the hollow has been waiting. And the deeper she goes, the harder it is to ignore the truth: The forest was never keeping her safe. It was keeping her.
