The forest doesn't just grow here. It eats. It remembers.
My name is Sylva, and I'm the thing the woods forgot to swallow whole.
I used to be a girl, once—before the rot seeped into the roots and bled through the bark. Now I'm a thorn in the side of gods and mortals alike.
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The trees speak in broken tongues—cracks in the sky, whispers on the wind that make your skin crawl if you listen too long.
I learned to listen.
Not with ears. With everything.
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I wander the borderlands where the world still holds onto life like a dying breath. Between the towns that refuse to speak of the Gate, between the shadows that crawl beneath the moon's cold stare.
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They hunt me.
Not because I'm dangerous.
Because I know the truth.
The truth is buried beneath the thorns.
Beneath the bones.
Beneath the lies.
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I wear the forest's scars like armor—thorns in my flesh, leaves in my hair, eyes that see too far and too deep.
When I pass, silence follows.
Not peace.
Silence.
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Last night, I found a bleeding tree—black sap running like blood down its trunk.
The Gate is waking.
The forest knows.
And so do I.
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They think I'm mad.
Maybe I am.
But madness is the only clarity in this broken world.
And I will whisper the truth until the last thorn pricks the last eye.