Iris bit down on her thumbnail, an old stress habit she’d developed after being dragged into one too many so-called “suicide missions.” The second she realized what had happened, she started running.
She couldn’t stay anywhere near Michello.
If he saw her again and noticed that her fate had somehow reset for a second time, she had no idea what he would do.
Most likely kill her again, and Iris wasn’t particularly interested in finding out whether this strange loop would save her a third time.
“So, how’s it going, my dear friend who I will absolutely never bring up in therapy?” Iris muttered between breaths as she hurried out of the school grounds.
“As you can probably tell, I’m screwed. That man is someone I wouldn’t want to fight even at my peak, and right now I haven’t even unlocked my Curse yet.” She continued running until the school disappeared behind her, only slowing once she reached a nearby park.
Iris dropped onto an empty bench and immediately went back to biting her nail, staring at the ground as she tried to organize twenty years’ worth of memories.
There was something uniquely frustrating about knowing the future when nearly everything that had once allowed her to survive it was currently unavailable.
“I should probably explain a few things. You’re the only person I can talk to about any of this without sounding completely insane, so listen carefully.” Iris leaned back against the bench and stared toward the sky.
“If you haven’t figured it out already, this entire town is screwed. In three days, the Applecrest Massacre happens. By the end of it, only five people make it out alive. Michello and I are two of them, and two more won’t even arrive in town until later today.” Her expression darkened as the most obvious problem settled over her again.
“And I don’t even have access to my Curse yet. I didn’t awaken it until after the massacre.”
Curses were supernatural abilities possessed by an extremely small number of people.
Even in a country as large as the United States, there were years when barely twenty new Cursebearers were discovered.
Each Curse granted its wielder an ability far beyond anything an ordinary human should be capable of, but that power never came freely.
Every Curse carried a Stigmata alongside it—a drawback, restriction, or punishment inflicted upon the Cursebearer in exchange for wielding something humanity was never meant to possess.
Some destroyed the body, others warped the mind, while certain Stigmatas demanded far stranger prices.
Whatever form they took, one rule remained consistent: power always demanded something in return.
Iris sighed and lowered her hand before she could chew her thumbnail down any further.
“In other words, I know exactly what’s going to happen, I know almost everyone in this town is going to die, and I only survived the first time through pure luck.” She stared upward for another moment before letting her head fall back against the bench.
“Wonderful start.”
She leaned forward, forcing herself to think.
Panicking wasn’t going to change anything.
“Stopping the massacre itself is impossible. A Blood Moon will appear, the entire town will be sealed off, and monsters will start raining from the sky. Once it begins, nobody gets out.” Her voice remained strangely calm despite what she was describing.
Perhaps twenty years had simply made those memories too familiar.
“I can’t save everyone, and honestly, I don’t particularly plan to. All that matters is saving Mom. That’s it.” Iris brought her thumb toward her mouth again, caught herself, and lowered her hand with an irritated sigh.
“So think, Iris. Think. Surviving the first time was practically a miracle, so how the hell am I supposed to pull it off twice?”
Then she stopped.
A memory surfaced.
A smile slowly spread across her face.
“Wait…” Iris sat upright.
“If I remember correctly, a few years after the massacre, they found an artifact buried somewhere in the ruins of Applecrest.” She rose from the bench, excitement gradually replacing the anxiety in her expression.
“A Grade 0 artifact. The thing turned an already powerful Cursebearer into someone who was nearly impossible to beat.” Her smile became slightly more amused as another memory followed.
“Well, until he went insane and I killed him.”
Artifacts were supernatural objects classified from Grade 4 to Grade 0 by the world’s major supernatural organizations.
Grade 4 artifacts could be useful or dangerous in the right circumstances, while each rank above them became progressively more difficult to contain.
Grade 0 sat at the very top—objects powerful enough that entire organizations might fight over their possession.
Most people involved with the supernatural could go their entire lives without ever seeing one.
Iris certainly hadn’t expected one to have been sitting in her hometown this entire time.
“Even if I can’t wield Miasma yet, and even if my Curse hasn’t awakened, that artifact should be more than enough to give me a fighting chance.”
The idea wasn’t perfect.
Nothing involving a Grade 0 artifact ever was.
But it was better than entering the Applecrest Massacre as an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl armed with twenty years of trauma and absolutely nothing capable of killing the things she knew were coming.
Iris immediately started running again.
There were still parts of the original timeline she wanted to preserve.
Later that day, the two brothers would arrive in Applecrest, and Iris needed to encounter them roughly the same way she had the first time.
Michello noticing the change in her fate had already proven how dangerous altering events could become, and until Iris understood what exactly had happened to her, recklessly rewriting everything seemed like an excellent way to make an already terrible future even worse.
But before any of that, she needed that artifact.
Absolutely needed it.
Iris left town and headed toward the forest on its outskirts.
White Wood Forest had been considered haunted for as long as she could remember, little more than a local legend parents used to scare children away from wandering too far from home.
People whispered about monsters between the trees, children disappearing in the fog, and strange shapes watching anyone foolish enough to enter alone.
Most residents treated those stories as exactly that—stories.
What nobody in Applecrest realized was that their fear had eventually made those stories real.
Enough people believed monsters lived within White Wood Forest that eventually, monsters actually did.
“At least the rumors say they only live inside the forest,” Iris muttered as she approached the tree line.
“Which means they’re forced to stay here. Guess that’s one thing I can be thankful for.” Cold air drifted between the trees, carrying pale strands of fog with it.
Even before crossing the boundary, Iris could feel the unmistakable sensation of something watching her from deeper within.
She glanced toward the shadows beneath the trees and sighed.
“But the second I cross that threshold, I’m fair game. The power of belief really is terrifying.”
A small wooden sign stood beside the entrance.
WHITE WOOD FOREST
CHILDREN SHOULD NOT ENTER ALONE.
Iris stared at it for several seconds.
Of course it said that.
“I doubt somewhere tied to a town this small ranks very high, but entering a T.A.L.E. without any powers is still going to be a problem, even if it’s only D-Rank.” She adjusted her glasses before looking beyond the sign.
“Especially when this particular one is much more dangerous for children.”
T.A.L.E.s were locations physically altered by rumors, stories, fears, and collective thought.
The official name was a Thought-Anchored Localized Event—an area where enough human belief had accumulated that reality itself began obeying the narrative people had created for it.
A haunted house repeatedly whispered about for decades could eventually become genuinely haunted.
A road rumored to claim the lives of anyone who drove across it at midnight might someday begin doing exactly that.
The stronger and more widespread the belief became, the more firmly the T.A.L.E.
imposed its rules upon the world.
Humanity had always possessed a remarkable ability to believe in things that weren’t real.
Unfortunately, reality had eventually started listening.
And at sixteen years old, Iris currently fit the warning written on the sign perfectly.
“Still…” She stared into the forest, where pale fog drifted silently between rows of white-barked trees.
“If I can’t survive this place, then I definitely won’t survive when the entire town becomes a T.A.L.E.”
There was another problem she didn’t particularly want to think about: the Grade 0 artifact had been recovered from the ruins years after the massacre.
Iris knew it had originated somewhere around Applecrest, and she remembered enough information surrounding its discovery to narrow down where it should be, but there was no guarantee she could simply walk into White Wood Forest and pick it up.
Powerful artifacts had a tendency to come with problems attached.
Then again, so did Iris.
She stepped past the sign.
The change was immediate.
Thick white fog poured between the trees, swallowing the path behind her so quickly that Iris barely had time to turn around.
Within seconds, Applecrest disappeared completely.
The distant sound of cars vanished with it.
Even the afternoon sunlight seemed weaker beneath the canopy, leaving nothing behind except Iris, the trees, and whatever had already noticed the child foolish enough to enter alone.
Iris stared into the fog for a moment.
Then she smiled faintly.
“Alright, then.”
Something moved between the trees.
A branch snapped somewhere to her left.
Iris turned toward the sound, adjusting her crooked glasses as another shadow disappeared behind a pale trunk.
“Let’s see if sixteen-year-old me can still survive a horror story.”