A sudden wave of panic rolled over him, not the wild kind that made men scream and run, but a quiet, strangling dread that gripped his chest and refused to let go...he felt watched.

  Not by eyes, not by anything human, but by something colder, older, meticulous.

  The feeling had lingered ever since he woke in the tower, buried beneath adrenaline and the need to survive, he had pushed it aside, stuffed it into the back of his mind like an unwanted truth, but now, in the stillness, with the dream still clinging to his skin, and the fire mirroring the one from that impossible place, he knew.

  He was not alone and whatever was out there wasn't simply watching it was studying, learning about him.

  Days had passed without food, only water and even that had been a gamble. When he first found the creek, he considered boiling it, but he had nothing to boil it in no pot, no container, no tools beyond his sword and shield. In the end, thirst made the choice for him so he drank, half-expecting the sickness to come but it never did.

  Now, with the hunger twisting like wire through his gut, he realized: the water was clean because nothing lived in this jungle there was no rot, no droppings, no buzzing flies, it was like this jungle was not real, like it was part of a dream, someone’s idea of what a jungle was like, and now after the dream, he thought he had confirmation. The mist, the silence, the “thing” in his dream it hadn’t felt like memory or hallucination it felt constructed, intentional.

  A message, maybe, a warning, or worse...a design.

  This place, whatever it was, was being shaped, bent, not by nature, but by some untold will.

  He could feel it now, thrumming beneath the soil, hiding in the leaves.

  This jungle wasn't just wrong it was made that way.

  The first thing he did as the sun started it's climb was hurry to check the traps, two were untouched, just as he expected.

  But the third...

  It was shattered, snapped clean through, splinters scattered across the wet ground. Whatever had broken it hadn’t even paused, hadn’t struggled or gotten caught, it had simply walked through it.

  It had to be something massive, something that didn’t care.

  That was enough...he didn’t need more signs he didn’t need to see it, he had to get out fast, the clearing, he had to reach the clearing before the jungle decided to shift again.

  He staggered through the heat, drenched in sweat and coated in dried mud every step toward the western clearing was paid for in willpower alone, his vision swam and his legs burned, but the thought of staying behind and dying nameless beneath trees that didn’t even host moss was worse.

  He had to make it.

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  He thought again about the broken trap, whatever had moved through his camp hadn't left tracks, no prints, no crushed leaves and no scent he could feel .The rain, maybe washed it away but part of him didn’t believe that.

  “Nothing alive...” he muttered to himself, lips cracked and dry.

  “Nothing alive could’ve walked that silently.”

  Something mechanical, perhaps, or a construct, but that would have to make some noise wouldn’t it? What would such a thing be doing in a dead jungle, far from civilization? No, it had to be something he never encountered before, something dangerous. His thoughts slid back to the druid from the dream the crimson mist, the ancient tree, his memories were still scarce, like scattered leaves in the wind. He knew druids existed the way one knows a distant storm's real by the taste of the air but he couldn’t recall any direct encounters, no names or faces.

  Something like that… something powerful, primal, and old… could be behind this.

  A shapeshifter? Maybe or a summoned construct, bound to a druid’s will? That felt closer.

  Guarding something, maintaining this illusion of a jungle, keeping it still and dead exercising control.

  The thought pushed cold down his spine, he leaned forward, boots kicking through slick leaves, forcing his legs to move faster.

  It didn’t matter.

  Not right now.

  His thoughts swirled again back to the dream, the battlefield and the black-armored man with golden eyes, who was he, a superior officer, perhaps… but it hadn’t felt like obedience.

  There had been a sense of camaraderie...something shared between them, trust, forged in fire.

  What battle were they fighting?

  And what was that twisted forest? He should know, it felt like elementary information, something basic, something ingrained but he didn’t.

  If his memory never returned… would he have to learn everything from scratch? Names, faces, enemies, allies even himself? The thought gnawed at him, quieter than fear but just as persistent.

  One image from his dream was more puzzling than anything else: the rings.

  One with a griffin, the other...a serpent, the same symbol painted over his heart on the battered armor he had long since discarded. Was the hooded man real, how did he fit into his predicament? Was he the one who called him here? Was this place part of some curse… or test?

  “Who are you?”

  “A piece scattered by the wind…”

  He clenched his jaw, pushing the doubts down, his stomach growled, a hollow, useless sound now, he ignored it, he ignored all of it, all the questions and the dream, it was irrelevant if he could not make it out of here alive.

  That was the only target.

  If there was anything in the clearing, a ruin, a structure, even a corpse it might give him something, a clue, a sign, a tool to escape...or maybe it would be his grave.

  Either way, it was closer than death by starvation, and that was all the reason he needed.

  He lowered his head, set his shoulders, and kept moving through the green silence, the only sound the rasp of his own breath and the distant, constant whisper of leaves watching. He kept glancing over his shoulder, every few steps, gaze darting through the tangled green that pressed close on either side of the narrow trail. The jungle was thick here, overgrown, almost wet with shadow, and whatever had snapped the trap last night might still be out there, watching.

  He moved faster, legs churning, eyes fixed ahead on the memory of a clearing, if he could just make it there, open sky and maybe a chance, but the silence followed him, step for step, like breath on the back of his neck.