Micah opened his eyes. It was already morning, and something damp prickled his arms. He was lying on a carpet of moss.

  He rose slowly. The pain in his back—left over from the fall the night before—still throbbed, accompanied by a piercing migraine that scrambled any attempt at rational thought.

  “Shit… Is this a hangover…? Did I drink last night or something?”

  He tried to organize his thoughts, but the morning light invaded his eyes, making the surroundings feel even stranger.

  A dense forest surrounded him, but something was deeply wrong with it—something that made the air feel heavy and sent a chill crawling up his neck. The trees didn’t look natural. Their twisted bases bent grotesquely, forming a deformed “C” that resembled bodies writhing in agony far more than any natural growth. Each warped trunk stretched for five meters before straightening out, where it branched into long, arched limbs bearing thin, dark leaves that resembled dead fir cones, dried out by time. But what truly made his stomach churn was the impossible uniformity of the scene; every tree was identical. Every curve, every crack, every shadow cast upon the damp ground looked cloned. All of them pointed north, like accusing fingers—or soldiers of an army dead for ages, silently marching in formation. They were tall, suffocating, rising dozens of meters upward, where their thick foliage formed a natural vault that blocked out the sun. It was as if the light were afraid to enter. The silence was oppressive, but it was not empty—there was a vibration, a low hum, almost imperceptible, that seemed to emanate from the trees, like the muffled whisper of something alive, something watching him.

  Micah felt the weight of dozens—perhaps hundreds—of invisible eyes judging him as prey.

  The forest was damp and cold, with a constant breeze that made Micah shiver in his light summer clothes. Beyond the trees and a few sparse fruit-bearing shrubs, mosses and fungi of different sizes and shapes spread everywhere, all sharing a gray, dead, slightly translucent color, as if they had something more to offer—hiding their true nature behind a mundane, posthumous appearance.

  Micah rubbed his eyes, ran his hand along one of the curved trunks to feel its rough, moss-covered texture, and confirmed what he already knew: this didn’t feel like a dream. It was real. Cold. Cruelly real.

  “But what the hell… Where the hell am I?”

  Once he was sure of his sanity and lucidity, he finally became aware of the cold. This wasn’t S?o Paulo. He knew that. The temperate climate made no sense. It was December—peak summer. And this forest? It looked like something straight out of a nightmare or a European fairy tale, nothing he had ever seen in South America.

  Mortified, almost compulsively, he shoved his hand into the left pocket of his shorts, searching for his phone—empty. Then the right pocket, nothing. He rummaged through every pocket, but not a single object was there.

  “Fuck! They must’ve robbed me while I was asleep too. Goddammit, I hadn’t even finished paying for it yet…” Micah muttered.

  Only then did he notice a long road of worn stone stretching out in front of him—which meant there had to be a city nearby, where he could get information about where he was and, possibly, find his way back home.

  Micah followed the road in the direction the trees curved toward—the North.

  …

  He walked for two straight hours. His legs begged for rest as he felt the marrow of his bones freezing. The constant breeze wasn’t strong, but it mocked his clothing, wholly unfit for the cold—a cheap parody of the Second Circle of Hell, equally torturous and, ironically, a fitting punishment for him.

  When the company—imaginary or not—of thousands of watching beings had already become habitual, he saw silhouettes on the horizon, accompanied by the almost inaudible sound of hooves striking stone. Micah hid behind a bush and watched cautiously.

  It was a caravan.

  “Wait… Horses, people! A caravan? They’re wearing helmets… iron ones…? What is this, some kind of cosplay group in the middle of a forest?!” the redhead wondered, frowning.

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  The caravan had five wagons, all covered with white fabric roofs, suggesting they carried perishable goods. People resembling medieval soldiers marched along both sides of the convoy. The few rays of sunlight that slipped through the canopy reflected off their equipment, implying that every piece was real. Their chainmail, helmets, pikes, and halberds were all made of legitimate metal—not plastic or cardboard, but something serious and lethal.

  Almost all of them wore standardized tunics, black and impeccably aligned, bearing an embroidered crest at the center of the chest. The crest consisted of a shield divided vertically into three stripes: black on the left, silver in the center, and gold on the right. In front of the shield was a golden triangle pointing upward. At each vertex of the triangle, a silver sword was embedded. At the center of the triangle, a detailed silver eye stared coldly at the world. Beneath the shield, a small banner embroidered in golden thread read: “Three Pillars, One Kingdom.”

  All of them had light-colored hair, ranging from blond to light brown. The blonds wore theirs openly and proudly, while most of the light-browns hid theirs beneath their helmets, as if avoiding comparison.

  The only soldier wearing a silver tunic walked at the front of the caravan. He was young—appearing to be the same age as Micah, twenty-four. His long blond hair, slightly whitened near the tips, was tied into a loose ponytail that fell to his lower back, allowing a rebellious lock to drift in front of his face like strands of gold that gradually turned into marble—no, silver. His face, aside from the freckles, was almost perfectly symmetrical, strangely androgynous, yet still carrying a full, confident masculinity. His posture and beauty were so different from the other brutish soldiers that his very presence felt like a poorly made collage. His eyes, green as emeralds, conveyed a gaze that was somehow both focused and directionless—a look of someone who takes his duty seriously, yet is trapped in an eternal daydream from which not even imminent death could pull him out of. His nearly complete armor and posture clearly communicated high leadership status, but beyond that, nothing more could be extracted from the mysterious blond figure through Micah’s eyes.

  When the fourth wagon passed him, Micah’s heart clenched, and he almost sighed too loudly when he noticed two lines of people of all ages and genders—but all of them redheads—walking alongside the caravan on both sides.

  Their condition was deplorable. Every one of them was shackled, their ankles bound together by a single chain attached to the wagons. They were dirty, barefoot, visibly malnourished, and exhausted. The clinking of chains formed a silent orchestra of despair and suffering, because if any one of them let out even the slightest groan of pain, they were immediately whipped by one of the soldiers escorting the lines.

  Micah clenched his fists when he saw one of the children being punished. The fragile flesh gave way beneath the force of the leather, staining the torn clothes a dark red that looked older than new. The only thing the boy could do was let out a hoarse scream of pain and keep limping forward in tortured steps.

  Tears ran silently down his freckled cheeks, but despite that, he didn’t utter a single complaint—and that said everything. It wasn’t the first time.

  His back was covered in grotesque wounds, some so deep that whitish fragments of bone were visible, like porcelain shards breaking through flesh. His thin body trembled with every movement.

  That was when Micah noticed another detail that tightened his chest even further: the child’s hands.

  Each hand ended in only three fingers—long and crooked, like broken branches. It was an obvious deformity, a birthmark the world had condemned him with without even asking. He didn’t even have the consolation of normalcy to shield him from punishment. There, in that place, difference was just another excuse for violence.

  And, ignoring all odds… the child kept moving forward.

  Like a candle that refused to go out, even under a storm.

  That was when Micah realized the truth—one so cruel it made him hold his breath: this wasn’t an act. They weren’t people in costumes. They were real human beings, of flesh and bone, and their wounds weren’t well-done makeup, but open scars, pulsing with blood. The image of the limping child burned into his mind like a specter, and the smell of blood, sweat, and profound helplessness filled his nostrils, the same way the stench of the stream had made him dizzy during his earlier suicide attempt.

  Micah felt his body tremble. His throat tightened—but it wasn’t fear. It was the suffocation of what he knew to be true: his cowardice wasn’t a bias. He knew that even if he had the means, he wouldn’t take a single step, out of the most blatant fear—a filthy self-preservation not even seen in the worst people, the confirmation of his selfishness.

  He didn’t feel bad for the prisoners, not even for the child. He felt bad for himself. Deep down, he knew he didn’t care about those people, and that was his greatest fear—not that he couldn’t help them, but that, in that moment, he was the worst person in the world. Even in the face of others’ suffering, he couldn’t stop thinking about himself. And even being the most selfish individual alive, he wouldn’t dare challenge a single person to assert himself, because he only exists to please, please, and please.

  Like the egocentric bootlicker he had always been.

  Suddenly, he heard a shout. One of the soldiers was staring straight at him.

  — HEY. YOU. HOW DID YOU ESCAPE?!