Chapter 5 - I ran toward the road.Silly screamed my name.
I didn't care.
The figures behind us began moving.
Not running.
Walking.
Slowly.
But somehow they kept pace with me.
I reached the road.
Turned left.
Then right.
Then left again.
The forest didn't change.
The tree remained visible behind me.
Always the same distance away.
I stopped.
Silly caught up.
“Stop running.”
“What are those things?”
“Copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“People the tree has eaten.”
My throat went dry.
“Eaten?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do they look like me?”
She stared at me.
“Because it hasn't eaten you yet.”
A cold sensation moved down my spine.
We returned to the tree.
The twelve copies had disappeared.
Only the candles remained.
Silly crouched beside the mirror.
“There's still time.”
“For what?”
“Before the final bell.”
“What final bell?”
She looked at her watch.
12:17 AM.
“The ritual lasts until 1:00.”
“And then?”
“You become part of the tree.”
I stared at her.
“You've got forty-three minutes to stop this.”
“How?”
“The mirror.”
“You said it reflects spirits.”
“It reflects what they really are.”
She picked it up.
“We need to find the original.”
“Original what?”
“The first person the tree took.”
“Mai?”
Silly shook her head.
“No.”
She turned the mirror toward the trunk.
The reflection changed.
The tree vanished.
Instead, the mirror showed a house.
Our childhood home.
I stared.
“What is that?”
Silly looked terrified.
“The memory room.”
“What?”
“The tree doesn't live here.”
“Then where?”
“In people's memories.”
I didn't understand.
Silly placed her palm against the mirror.
The glass rippled.
Like water.
“Don't touch it.”
She stepped through.
I grabbed her wrist.
She looked back.
“If I don't go in, you'll die.”
Then she disappeared.
I stood alone.
The forest was silent.
I looked into the mirror.
I saw myself as a child.
Six years old.
Standing beside Silly.
Beside us was Mai.
I remembered.
The memory came back like a knife.
A summer night.
A lantern.
A game.
The tree.
Mai crying.
Silly holding my hand.
Then a voice from inside the hollow.
“Choose.”
A shadow had appeared.
It had asked us to choose one person.
One child.
I had chosen myself.
Or at least...
I thought I had.
The memory changed.
Silly was screaming.
Mai was crying.
A fourth child stood behind us.
I looked closer.
The child was identical to me.
Another me.
The tree had created him before I was even aware of it.
Then I heard a voice.
My own.
“I'll stay.”
The memory ended.
I stumbled backward.
“No.”
The mirror rippled again.
Silly appeared inside.
She was standing in a corridor.
Behind her were hundreds of doors.
Each door had a name.
Some names were scratched out.
Others were still glowing.
One door bore my name.
Silly reached for it.
Then stopped.
Because someone was standing behind her.
Mai.
But she looked different.
Her face was older.
Her eyes were black.
She whispered:
“Silly.”
My sister turned.
Mai smiled.
“You left me here.”
“I came back for you.”
“You brought him.”
Silly shook her head.
“He doesn't belong to you.”
Mai looked directly through the mirror.
At me.
“He belongs to us.”
The lights inside the corridor went out.
One by one.
A door opened.
Then another.
Then another.
Until every door stood open.
Hundreds of voices whispered at once.
“Come home.”
Silly screamed.
I reached toward the mirror.
The glass burned my hand.
Then something grabbed Silly from behind.
She vanished into darkness.
I smashed the mirror against the tree.
It shattered.
The forest exploded with screams.
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And from inside the hollow came one final sentence:
“Now you have only twelve minutes.”
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