It had been a long night.
The glow of the markings, the voice of the old man echoing "You are the key," and the sudden shifts in time left us with more questions than answers. We returned to the cottage at dawn, our faces pale from the cold and something deeper—like we'd stared too long into the unknown.
No one said it out loud, but we were all thinking it.
Maybe it was time to step back.
I remember Bobby rubbing his temples while Ambrose absentmindedly traced patterns on the fogged-up window. Jacob just stared at his phone, calculating how far behind he was on work and messages. And me? I just kept replaying the duplicate version of myself over and over again in my mind.
That's when I spoke up. "Guys… maybe we should take a break. Regroup later. Before we lose ourselves in this."
The silence that followed wasn't disagreement—it was exhaustion. Agreement without energy.
Jacob was the first to respond, "Thank God. I've got a wife who thinks I've joined a cult."
Ambrose cracked a half-hearted smile. "And my mom keeps texting me about wedding proposals. Being in a haunted forest sounds better than that."
Bobby was quiet. He didn't say no. But he didn't say yes either. That told me more than enough—he wasn't ready to leave. Not really.
We made the call to the receptionist. We'd check out the next morning.
---
The next 24 hours were filled with awkward silence and unspoken tension. No one wanted to admit they were scared. Or maybe too intrigued. We packed our things, leaving behind the maps, Bobby's scribbled notes, and the smell of burnt instant noodles Ambrose had managed to ruin.
When we left the cottage, the receptionist asked with a knowing smile, "Checking out?"
I nodded. "For now."
She just gave a small bow. "The forest remembers its guests."
That line haunted me more than anything else.
---
Back in Reality
[Alex]
Returning to Dubai was surreal. I was physically back—but mentally I was still there. I found myself scanning sidewalks for fog, or listening for that siren in the quiet hum of traffic.
Anita was relieved to have me back. But even she noticed how distracted I was. "You're not really here, are you?" she asked over dinner.
I wanted to tell her everything. But I just said, "It's hard to explain. Like part of me's stuck somewhere else."
[Jacob]
Jacob dove straight back into routine. Work, gym, grocery lists. But something had shifted. Laura, his wife, told me later that he would wake up drenched in sweat some nights, muttering about clocks and trees.
Still, he was the one most desperate to pretend everything was normal. Like if he ignored it long enough, it would all go away.
[Ambrose]
Ambrose returned to his chaotic bachelor pad, filled with unfinished sketches and takeaway boxes. His mom visited and claimed he had "a spiritual glow" now. He joked about it, as always, but there were nights he'd just sit with a notebook, trying to sketch the forest—but every time, the lines came out wrong.
He called me once, whispering, "What if we weren't supposed to leave?"
I didn't have an answer.
[Bobby]
Bobby was the most affected.
He locked himself away in his apartment, deep-diving into quantum theories, missing persons databases, and obscure Reddit threads about time dilation. He texted once every couple of days with updates like:
> "There's a research facility in Russia studying dimensional bleed-throughs."
> "Time passes 0.0000002% slower at altitude. Not enough to explain the forest... but it's a start."
> "Need to go back."
---
Two weeks passed.
I was trying hard to let go—to remind myself we had lives here. But then Bobby called. Not texted—called.
"Alex, I figured something out. You need to hear this."
His voice was urgent, like something had snapped.
"I've found patterns. It's not just our forest. It's a global web. There are points where dimensions overlap. Our forest? It's one of them."
I didn't say anything. Just listened.
"We left too soon. We need to go back. I know you feel it too."
He was right.
---
That evening, I called a group meet.
We met at a quiet café halfway between our places. Jacob looked reluctant. Ambrose had on sunglasses indoors. Bobby was carrying printed papers and diagrams like we were preparing for a UN briefing.
"Alright," I began, "Let's be honest. Who here actually wants to go back?"
No one raised their hand.
But no one walked away either.
---
Tension Brews
"I can't just drop everything again," Jacob said sharply. "My life doesn't pause for side quests."
Bobby bit back, "This isn't a side quest, Jacob. This could rewrite the way we understand physics—reality!"
Ambrose raised a hand. "Can we maybe not become a TED Talk right now? Also, I don't think anyone signed up for our DNA getting rewritten."
Jacob crossed his arms. "We don't even know what's happening. For all we know, we hallucinated everything."
I slammed my hand on the table. "Jacob, you saw the portal. You felt the siren. Don't pretend it was all in our heads."
He looked away. "I'm just tired, man."
Ambrose finally spoke up, serious for once. "Maybe we all are. But let's not kid ourselves—we're connected to that place now. Whether we like it or not."
A long pause. Then Bobby placed a folder on the table. "Give me one week. Come back with me. If nothing happens—we drop it."
I looked at Jacob, who rolled his eyes but eventually nodded. Ambrose gave a mock salute. "Back to the madness."
We all smiled—tight, nervous smiles—but it felt like something old and familiar was coming back.
Something was waiting.