Before Marek answers, Julia sees in his eyes what she feared most:
he knew.
He knew from the beginning.
She's not an accident.
She's not a victim who stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Since when...?" Julia begins, but her voice trembles. "Since when did you know that... that I'm next?"
Marek clenches his fists.
He looks at her as if searching for words where there are none.
"Since the moment you arrived in town," he finally says. "This forest, Cliff House... they only respond to the chosen ones."
"Chosen *for what*?! " Julia loses her patience. "To be taken away? To be eaten? To have their souls devoured?!
Marek shakes his head.
"Not just to be taken away," he says quietly. "Sometimes... to be replaced."
Julia freezes.
"Substitutes?"
"This 'thing' doesn't just kidnap. It replaces. It leaves a copy. Some... version of a human."
"A fake?" Julia whispers, finishing for him.
Marek remains silent.
And that silence is an answer.
--
The wind suddenly blows, this time unnaturally warm, like the breath of something gigantic. The branches above them bend towards Julia, as if pointing a path—or a path to whatever wants her.
The symbol on her wrist begins to pulse again.
More strongly than before.
Regularly.
*Like a heartbeat.*
"Marek..." Julia raises her hand, and the flashlight's beam illuminates her skin. "It's moving."
And indeed—the black spiral slowly, barely perceptibly, moves across her skin like a worm.
It's no longer a sign.
It's a living entity.
Marek holds his breath.
"Don't look at it," he says nervously. "If you look, it will connect with you faster."
"Connect?!!" Julia shouts. "What else are you hiding from me?!
Marek steps closer until his voice becomes a whisper.
"Julia... This isn't just a sign. It's an invitation."
"An invitation to where?!
"To that other world."
The earth trembles slightly.
Julia feels it beneath her fingertips, as if "that other world" were calling her, tempting her, tugging, opening cracks just beneath the surface.
"Marek, I can't..." she begins, but suddenly her vision blurs.
The image around her blurs like water-soaked watercolors.
"Julia?" Marek's voice grows distant. "Julia, look at me!"
But she can't.
The view of the forest begins to change.
The trees twist into inhuman angles. Their crowns lengthen, as if growing at an accelerated pace.
The branches pulsate like veins.
And between them, eyes gleam—dozens, hundreds, all staring at her.
She hears a voice.
Not one.
Many.
Hundreds at once.
*Come back… come back… come back…*
Julia's wrist burns. The symbol expands as if trying to escape her skin.
Marek shakes her, forcibly breaking her out of her trance.
"You're connected to them!" he hisses. "We have to break this. *Now*."
"How?!" Julia screams, clutching her head. "Marek, I can hear them inside! Inside my head!"
The forest responds with a long moan.
The lights in the surrounding houses—though distant—fade out one by one.
As if the time of night were changing to something deeper.
More terrifying.
“Julia, listen to me,” Marek grabs her shoulders. “There’s one place we can try to stop this.”
“Cliff House…” she whispers.
Marek nods.
“That’s where it all begins. And ends.”
“But there’s…” Julia doesn’t finish. She can’t say the word “she.”
Marek doesn’t tell her to finish.
He looks her straight in the eyes and says,
“If we don’t go there now, you’ll never get yourself back.”
Julia takes a shuddering breath.
The symbol pulses so strongly she can feel it in her entire hand.
She knew she’d return to Cliff House someday.
But she didn’t know she’d return **on the other side of herself**.
“We’re going,” she says firmly. “Before it speaks louder inside me than I do.”
Marek offers her his hand.
“Are you sure?”
Julia tightens her fingers around his.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore. But I know one thing—I won't let it take me."
The forest whispers.
Shadows move with her footsteps.
And the symbol on her skin pulsates like an eye just opening.
**And it sees everything.**
---
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