The return

The moment Ben stepped past the rusted gates, everything felt wrong. The air was thick with a sense of foreboding, like the earth itself was holding its breath. The familiar trees stood like silent sentinels, their twisted limbs reaching out in unnatural shapes. He hadn’t realized how much the woods had changed, or perhaps it was him that had changed, but the once-eerie landscape now seemed even darker, more alive. The breeze whispered secrets he couldn’t quite catch, but it didn’t matter — something was different, something had awakened.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that the woods were watching him, waiting for him to make his next move.

Ben hesitated, standing just beyond the threshold of the gate. The path ahead was overgrown, the dirt road buried beneath a tangle of roots and weeds. The forest seemed to close in around him, muffling the sounds of the outside world, leaving only the distant rustling of leaves and the faintest whisper of laughter — or was it a memory?

He could feel it. The presence. It had always been there, but now it was as if WildWood itself had been waiting for him. Waiting for this very moment.

His heart pounded harder in his chest, and his fingers trembled as he reached for his phone. He hesitated for a moment, his thumb hovering over Dylan’s name. But no message was sent. It wasn’t a call he could make, not now, not after all these years.

Instead, he pushed forward, his footsteps echoing in the silence. He tried to focus on the path ahead, to keep his mind clear, but the memories came flooding back — the nights spent around the campfire, the things they saw, the things they couldn’t explain. Nadia, Willy, the others… the way the woods had twisted reality, made everything feel wrong.

Ben reached the clearing where they had set up camp all those years ago. The ground was still littered with old, decaying leaves, remnants of their past. He stood there for a long moment, eyes scanning the area. It felt like they had never left, like time had stood still here, suspended in the memories of that night.

A flash of movement caught his eye. Something in the shadows, a figure — no, a presence.

His heart skipped a beat.

“Ben.”

The voice, soft and familiar, made his blood run cold.

He turned, but no one was there. Only the trees, standing motionless, as if nothing had changed.

The laughter echoed again, but this time it was clearer. Louder. A twisted, mocking sound that seemed to wrap around him.

“Nadia?” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the sound stopped. Silence fell over the woods, suffocating and heavy.

Ben took another step forward, unwilling to turn back now, unable to. The air had grown thicker, and it wasn’t just the scent of pine anymore — it was something older, something darker. The feeling of being watched intensified, and his skin prickled with unease. The past had never really left him, and WildWood had a way of holding onto those who dared to venture too close.

He walked deeper into the clearing, his eyes searching for any sign of the past — the remnants of their camp, the rusted swing, anything. But it was as if the woods had swallowed everything whole, leaving nothing behind but the ghosts of memories long buried.

Then, he saw it.

The swing set.

It was still there, but it looked different now — older, rustier, the ropes frayed and torn. Yet it was moving, gently swaying back and forth, as if someone had just been there.

Ben’s breath caught in his throat. He knew he shouldn’t, but he found himself walking toward it. He reached out, his fingers brushing against the cold metal.

And then, he heard it again.

A whisper in the wind, too soft to understand but impossible to ignore.

“Ben…”

This time, it was real. This time, the voice came from behind him.

He spun around.

There, standing just beyond the clearing, was Nadia.

Her face was pale, her eyes wide and unblinking. Her hair hung in messy tangles around her face, and her clothes were torn, as if she had been wandering the woods for years. But what made his blood run cold was the way she smiled — not the carefree smile of the girl he once knew, but something darker, twisted, and wrong.

“You came back,” Nadia whispered, her voice barely audible. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

Ben’s throat tightened, and his heart raced faster than it ever had before. “What do you mean? We… we left. We escaped.”

She took a slow step forward, her gaze never leaving him. “You never escaped, Ben. You were always meant to come back.”

Ben’s mouth went dry, his legs trembling beneath him. He wanted to run, to escape, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. There was something about her — something that wasn’t right, something that made his mind scream in warning.

And then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement. More figures, stepping from the shadows. Willy. The others. They were there too, watching him, their faces empty, their eyes hollow.

Ben stumbled backward, but he didn’t fall. The reality around him seemed to warp, as if the woods themselves were closing in, the trees shifting in unnatural ways. He could hear them now, the whispers growing louder, merging into one maddening chorus.

“Ben, you never really left.”

And the door to WildWood creaked open once more.