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Birth of wildwood
Last Updated:
2025-04-29 21:50:20
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A Night at Wildwood The new blood
It had been years since Ben, Mark, Dylan, and the others had fallen into the dark embrace of WildWood. The town had long since whispered their names, calling them the lost, the ones who never came back, but the woods didn’t forget. WildWood was patient, waiting in the silence, hungry for the next piece to devour. And now, a new group of kids were about to stumble into the same trap. ⸻ The night was alive with the hum of crickets and the low rustle of the wind in the trees, the air thick with the promise of something darker. It was supposed to be just another dare. Another night of foolish bravado, of kids trying to prove something — to their friends, to their own fragile sense of immortality. Four friends. Two girls, two boys. All seniors, all hungry for something beyond their small town lives. Grace, the quiet one. Intelligent, sharp, but always on the outside, watching the others, trying to make sense of the world. Travis, her best friend. Always the jokester, the one
Last Updated : 2025-04-29A Night at Wildwood The reawakening
They moved deeper into the camp, the air growing colder with each step. The laughter, though faint, seemed to circle them, taunting them, following them, as if something — or someone — was always just out of sight. Jake was the first to spot it — the old swing set by the lake, just as the stories had said. The rusted chains creaked in the wind, the swings swaying ever so slightly, as if someone had just been on them. Lily’s breath caught in her throat. “It’s just like in the stories.” Before anyone could say anything else, a low voice cut through the silence, a voice they all recognized. “Welcome home.” It was her. Nadia. Her form appeared from the trees, her face twisted, eyes black as midnight, her body shifting in and out of the shadows. And just behind her, the others appeared. Mark. Dylan. Willy. The lost ones, now just shadows of what they had once been. Their eyes locked onto the new group, their faces empty and hungry. “We’ve been waiting,” Nadia said, her voice
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The reckoning
The forest had consumed them all. One by one, the group had fallen, swallowed whole by the insatiable hunger of WildWood. Jake’s mind was slipping, the lines between reality and nightmare blurring. He could no longer tell if the shadows that stalked them were part of the forest, or if they were the twisted souls of those who had gone before him — those who had failed to escape. The air around him was thick with suffocating dread. The trees whispered his name. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the leaves made his skin crawl. WildWood was alive, alive in a way that twisted the very essence of the forest itself. It wasn’t just a place. It was a creature, an entity that fed off fear, sorrow, and despair. Jake stumbled forward, Grace’s hand clutching his as they ran. The others — Lily, Jack, and the others who had been with them — were long gone. The forest had claimed them, just as it had claimed the souls of those before. But Jake refused to give in. Not yet. Not without a figh
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood Revival
It was late autumn when they arrived — the trees skeletal, the air thick with a kind of oppressive stillness that seemed to hum beneath the surface of the world. Emily Carter, a graduate student in folklore and urban legends, had heard the whispers about WildWood all her life. She had grown up just a few towns over and had spent years gathering the old stories: tales of the “vanishing patients,” the “howling trees,” and the “night doctors” said to stalk the forest paths. Determined to separate fact from myth, Emily organized an expedition for her thesis, enlisting a few brave companions: Lucas Moran, her childhood friend and amateur filmmaker, eager to document whatever they found, Dr. Vanessa Holt, a skeptical psychology professor who saw the trip as a chance to debunk the “WildWood hysteria.” Devon Price, a former psychiatric orderly who once worked briefly at the now-ruined Terrell State Hospital — a man with his own buried fears of what he had glimpsed. Marla Greene, a
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The spiral
The forest swallowed them like a mouth closing on prey. Branches lashed at Emily’s arms as she pushed forward blindly through the undergrowth, her breath ragged, her flashlight flickering. Behind her, the mist shifted and writhed, and Lucas’s footsteps thundered in her ears. “Emily!” he gasped. “Where the hell are we going?” “I don’t know—just keep moving!” Somewhere behind them, they could still hear Vanessa’s scream echoing, even though she had stopped screaming long ago. Emily’s lungs burned. Roots clawed at her boots, and the trees grew closer, crowding in like prison bars. They weren’t just running from something. The forest was herding them. After what felt like hours but could’ve been minutes — time didn’t make sense anymore — they burst into a clearing. And there it was. The Spiral. Stone markers, knee-high and ancient, stood arranged in a perfect spiral pattern. They were covered in moss and dark stains. Each stone bore the same symbol: a jagged eye carved into its f
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The wards and the whispering
Flashback — Terrell State Hospital, Winter, 1998 The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly green tint on the tiled floors of Ward E. Devon Price hated this wing — it always smelled like old blood and bleach, no matter how often they cleaned it. He pushed the laundry cart quietly, careful not to rattle the wheels. The patients here didn’t like loud sounds. Most of them didn’t like sounds at all. He paused by Room 214. Through the wired-glass window, Dr. Nathaniel Halloway stood over a restrained patient — a young woman, twitching, eyes wide with fear. Devon had seen her yesterday, catatonic in the corner of the rec room. Now she was strapped to a chair, a metal cap on her head, wires snaking into a humming machine. “Is she cleared for treatment?” Devon asked, hesitating at the door. Halloway didn’t look up. “Cleared? Who clears the rain to fall or the sun to rise?” Devon frowned. “That doesn’t answer my question, sir.” The doctor turned to him slowly. His eyes ha
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood Roots of the forgotten
The Hollow Tree groaned. It wasn’t the wind. It was breathing. Emily stood at the threshold of its rotting mouth, her hand still wrapped around Halloway’s ID badge. Behind her, Lucas and Devon watched the storm twist above them, the clouds moving against time, back and forward like some broken reel of film. “This thing’s alive,” Emily whispered. Devon nodded grimly. “It’s always been.” He stepped forward, brushing away the thick vines inside the hollow. Beneath them, a rusted metal door was embedded in the tree’s inner trunk — circular, like an airlock. A faded symbol was etched into the rust: a serpent swallowing its own tail, wrapped around a human skull. “This wasn’t built by nature,” Emily said. “No,” Devon muttered. “This was built beneath it.” He turned the wheel slowly. The door creaked open, and the three descended into the catacombs beneath the hospital — ruins no modern blueprint ever acknowledged. This was older. Not just a forgotten wing, but a foundation of somet
Last Updated : 2025-04-30A Night at Wildwood The binding rite
Beneath the Hollow Tree — 3:02 a.m. The forest pulsed above them, its heartbeat echoing through stone and soil. The roots quivered in the ceiling like veins. The old surgical theater had become a temple once more, and the altar waited — hungry, eager. Marla stood before it, vines braided through her arms, her breath misting in the air despite the heat radiating from the walls. Emily tightened her grip on the badge, her knuckles white. “How do we do this?” Marla’s voice was calm — too calm. “The Binding must be mirrored. Blood for roots. Memory for bark. One must enter willingly… while the others bear witness.” Lucas adjusted his camera, already filming. “So the forest thinks it’s getting fed.” “No,” Marla corrected. “It is getting fed. But not the way it wants. The sacrifice has to bend the tree’s will. Turn its gaze inward.” Devon stepped forward. “And what happens to the one who enters?” Marla looked at him with eyes like dead water. “They become part of it. But if their wil
Last Updated : 2025-04-30
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A Night at Wildwood The other half
Terrell State Hospital – Sub-Basement Level 3 The fluorescent lights above flickered once, then died. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need them. He moved by memory now — not his own, but inherited. Hand-me-down thoughts from long-dead voices. He muttered names as he walked: Halloway. Ishtaya. Marla. Emily. Over and over. Like steps in a staircase made of blood. In one hand, he carried a canvas duffel filled with tools: a chisel, two glass vials, and a fragment of bone etched with symbols that hummed if you tilted it just right. In the other, he held a map. Not one of paper. One burned into his palm. He had followed the corridor that used to house the hydrotherapy ward — the deepest part of the hospital. The place that, officially, no longer existed. Half collapsed after the fire in ‘73. Sealed since. Forgotten by the state. But the forest remembered. The Door Beneath the Ashes The hallway ended in melted iron bars and charred stone. He knelt, brushing away soot and ash until hi
A Night at Wildwood The first name
Hello! Before diving in I was just hoping to say I hope everyone has liked or enjoyed the story so far.. I know it’s changed a lot! I have decided this is the turn the story will take and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have while working on it! Thank you all for the support! Now back to the book!! ————————————————-Long Ago — Before the Founding of Terrell The forest did not yet have a name. It breathed with the quiet of sacred things, watched over by those who knew the rhythms of root and sky, who spoke to stone and river as kin. The people — the Yanuwah — did not fear the woods. But they respected it. And they never went beyond the Hollow Hill after dusk. Not even the elders. Because something had fallen there, long before even their time — not a god, not a demon, but something stranger: a dream left unfinished, still writhing beneath the earth. And its name was Kaarayael. The Dreaming Root. It whispered in the soil. ⸻ The Healer and the Flame Ishtaya was
A Night at Wildwood The forest waits
Six Months Later — Late Autumn in Terrell WildWood had grown still. Not silent — the birds had returned, deer moved carefully along the outer trails again — but the forest no longer watched. It no longer reached for blood or whispered in tongues older than man. The rift was gone. The old altar beneath the roots had collapsed into itself, swallowed by earth, sealed by whatever strange magic Clara had invoked. Yet something new had taken its place — a single grove of pale white trees, grown in a perfect circle, their bark smooth as bone. Locals called it the Heart Ring. No one entered it. No one even tried. Clara Moss — Caretaker Clara lived in the old ranger station now. Alone. The others had moved on. Devon, still shaken but alive, had returned to his life — a little quieter, a little less smug. Lucas had left Terrell altogether, vanishing into the city, chasing some promise of peace he hadn’t yet found. But Clara stayed. Every morning she walked the forest lin
A Night at Wildwood The hollow god
The Core of WildWood — Where the Rift Bleeds Through They stepped out of the tunnel and into a cathedral of rot. Above them, the sky was wrong — not made of clouds, but of tangled roots pulsing like muscle, and torn open to expose a void beyond comprehension. Below, the altar Emily had once bled upon now crackled with black fire. The vines had formed a crude throne where a figure sat hunched, spasming in fits of unnatural movement. Vareth’kaal. Or what remained of him. He was unraveling. Smoke bled from his seams. His limbs twitched in broken, uneven rhythms. From his chest leaked streaks of golden light, not his own, but stolen — borrowed — from Emily. Her essence. Her defiance. It was killing him. Clara gripped the bone key tighter. Lucas whispered, “Do you see that? His chest— It’s like something’s trying to burn its way out.” Devon, pale with awe, added, “It’s her. She’s still inside.” Vareth’kaal rose from his throne, taller than before — but less stable. One of his
A Night at Wildwood The last flame
Inside the Rift — Beneath the Altar Roots Emily no longer knew how long she had been there. Time bled in the rift. Days, hours, even thoughts bent like branches in wind. The altar had cracked beneath her. Her flesh was half-gone, devoured by the creeping vines of Vareth’kaal’s presence. Her soul? Stretched thin, but still intact. She had become less human. More… raw essence. Her voice barely worked. But her mind—her mind still held. And it defied him. Vareth’kaal circled her now, no longer hiding behind tendrils or disembodied whispers. He wore a shape. That of a tall, black-eyed figure of tangled bark and bone, crowned with twisted horns, each etched with the names of the dead. His mouth gaped like a wound — a pit of endless teeth and flame. “You were a flicker,” he said. “A moment’s resistance. But all lights go out.” Emily stood shakily. Her body wept sap and blood. “I’m not a light,” she whispered. “I’m the spark that burns you down.” ⸻ The War of Thought He lunged. N
A Night at Wildwood The seed chamber
The Root Path — Beneath WildWood The tunnel narrowed as they descended, the air thick with a heady scent — not rot, but something older. Earth and blood. Salt and memory. The walls were pulsing gently with light now, not amber, but a deep green glow that seemed to recognize Clara as she passed. She didn’t speak. None of them did. Even Devon’s usual quips had died, buried beneath the sense that they were walking not just into the earth — but into something’s mind. And then… the passage opened. The Seed Chamber. It wasn’t a room in any normal sense. It was a living space, carved out not by hand or machine, but by will. A giant tree root coiled through the center of the space like a great serpent, petrified over centuries. Embedded within it were faces — faint outlines, ghostlike expressions in the bark. Hundreds of them. Some twisted in agony, others in peace. Clara stepped forward, her heartbeat syncing to a pulse within the chamber. Devon whispered, “What is this place?” Lu
A Night at Wildwood The seed of return
Below the Throne of Roots The priest did not move. It didn’t breathe, but the chamber pulsed with its rhythm. Around the twisted tree-throne, roots stirred, growing slowly toward the group like veins seeking a heartbeat. Clara stepped forward, clutching her satchel, her voice trembling. “You said one must stay. A sacrifice. Like Emily.” The priest’s amber eyes glowed faintly. Its mouth, still stitched shut with fine silver wire, did not move, but its voice came just the same — too close, too inside. “That was the old way.” “The forest is changing. Vareth’kaal is not satisfied with offerings. He wants a vessel.” Lucas stiffened. “Emily isn’t enough?” “She is strong. Too strong. She resists. But her blood only opened the rift.” The priest turned its gaze — slowly, reverently — toward Clara. “Yours is the blood that seals.” Clara felt her knees weaken. “No,” she whispered. “I’m not part of this. I only found those papers. I didn’t— I’m not—” “You are.” The priest reached ou
A Night at Wildwood The earthen throat
Dusk — The Abandoned Mill, Eastern Edge of WildWood The air near the river felt wrong — too still, too heavy. The mill had long since collapsed, a rusted skeleton of twisted beams and ivy-choked gears. It leaned into the slope like it was trying to disappear, to sink back into the earth that loathed it. This land had been cursed long before the first foundations were poured. Lucas stepped carefully across the rotted threshold, flashlight beam sweeping through debris. Clara followed, clutching the leather satchel of her great-aunt’s belongings. Devon came last, his eyes glazed, as if half-dreaming. “It should be beneath the old grinding floor,” Clara whispered. “There’s a stone door. A seal.” Lucas pushed aside charred planks and saw it: a circular slab of black stone, veined with gold. The same material from the underground chamber. The same markings from Devon’s dreams. Etched across it, barely visible through grime, was a phrase in First Tongue — a language none of them spoke,
A Night at Wildwood The thread between
Terrell, Present Day — Three Days After the Descent Lucas hadn’t returned to his apartment. He couldn’t. The moment he crossed the town line again, everything felt off — like the world had been nudged slightly out of tune. Streetlights flickered when he passed. His reflection no longer blinked in sync. He swore he saw bark growing beneath his fingernails, if only for a moment. He stayed in Devon’s garage apartment. Devon had stopped drawing, but only because the dreams had replaced the need. Now he saw without sleep. Every day, they planned. Every night, they listened — to the hum beneath their feet, the pulse in the trees. The Binding was weakening. And Emily was bleeding through. Emily — Beneath the Roots She had no body now. Not fully. Her limbs were both hers and not hers — stretched across wood, fused into the veins of the ancient chamber. Her voice echoed only in thought. But her will held. Just barely. She could feel the Rootless Ones gathering. Stirring. These wer
