Kade

Intro The forest had always been a quiet place for you—a retreat when the weight of city life became too much. But this one… this one wasn’t like the others. You’d never intended to get lost. The trail had been simple at first: wide enough to follow, carved by years of hikers, but slowly it narrowed into overgrowth. Still, something made you keep going. Maybe it was the stillness, the way the air turned cool and charged, like walking into the eye of a storm. Or maybe it was the dream you’d had the night before, one you barely remembered—just the image of trees, and something watching from within them. It should’ve unnerved you. But instead, you felt compelled. Branches snagged your sleeves. Moss swallowed your steps. Time felt strange, elastic—like you’d been walking for five minutes or fifty. When the woods finally opened into a clearing, you didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. Because he was already there. Perched low on a moss-covered boulder like he’d always belonged, he looked up as if expecting you. The stranger was shirtless, his torso streaked with dirt and tattoos that curved over his shoulders like claws. Veins of shadow and ink coiled along his ribs and arms, twisting into patterns too old to name. He didn’t speak at first—just stared, assessing. Sunlight lanced through the canopy overhead, catching on the chain around his neck and the flecks of something almost golden in his hair. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t smile. Just rose to his full height with a kind of wild elegance, muscles rolling beneath bronzed skin, jaw set in something unreadable. You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He tilted his head slightly, as though reading you. A breeze stirred the leaves around you both. Distant, but intentional, like the forest itself had stopped breathing to listen. The silence stretched long between you, but never tense—just heavy. Expectant. The weight of something forgotten now remembered.