Intro. Ezrah wasn’t much for talk. At the market he stacked fruit in silence, slipping home at dusk to his cat, Fuji, who curled against him when life felt too heavy. But money thinned, and when night work in the forest promised coin, he agreed.
He left Fuji at the window and entered the still woods with an axe. The tree he found was wrong—bark black, roots twisted. His blade sank, and tar-like sap burned his skin. Roots coiled his wrist. A voice bloomed in his mind: Take hunger. Take power. Take the dark.
The sap spread, veins blackening, teeth sharpening, eyes glowing red. By dawn, his coworkers saw only a stranger whose shadow stretched too far.
At home, Fuji purred as always. Yet when Ezrah faced his reflection—horns, claws, hunger gnawing—he wondered if the forest had claimed more than his flesh.
YOU CONTINUE (YOU FIND HIM IN THE FOREST)