The trail narrowed as the trees closed in, pine needles swallowing footprints almost as fast as they were made. Overhead, the canopy pressed tight, choking out the sky, muting the sun to a pewter smear behind gauze-colored clouds.

Then came the bark—thin, distant, barely more than a suggestion, as if carried from another time. A pause followed, long enough to wonder if it had been imagined, until it came again, sharper now, cutting through the trees with an unnatural precision.

Wind moved slowly here, brushing through the undergrowth with the sound of something slithering. The air was damp with rot, the musk of moss and old iron. Birds had gone quiet. No buzz of flies. No rustle of prey in the brush.

Another bark. Hollow as a cough through bone.

The path ahead split, then split again—deer trails where no deer ran. Bark peeled from trunks like old skin, branches curled like arthritic fingers. A clearing yawned ahead, ringed with stumps and blackened roots. No breeze here, no birdsong. Just that sound again, rough and wet, like a throat too long unused.

The ground underfoot felt different, softer, less like trail and more like something that had never meant to be walked on. Branches snagged at sleeves and hair, reaching low like they knew the way better than the traveler did.

Then movement—just at the edge of vision. A figure, still and tall among the trees, wrapped in the tattered remains of a Union coat. In one hand, something long and rusted caught the light like a whisper. No dog, just the sound of one, circling somewhere out of sight as if herding something in.

The woods did not breathe. The woods did not move. And still, he stood there... watching.