They finally reached their first genuine landmark roughly two hours into the forest — a clearing where the surrounding trees grew in an unnervingly perfect, entirely unnatural circle, and at its precise center, half-buried beneath years of fallen pine needles, lay a small, scattered collection of ordinary objects.
A worn cricket ball.
A single child’s school shoe.
A carefully folded paper boat, soft and fragile with age.
“Things people lost here,” Aanya murmured softly, crouching down to examine them more closely.
“Or perhaps things that were simply taken from them, along with whatever else this place took.” Vihaan crouched beside her and carefully lifted the small paper boat, examining its folds — something about them looked disturbingly recent, entirely unweathered despite the ancient forest surrounding it.
A small, hesitant voice, layered and uncertain, spoke suddenly from somewhere close behind them both.
“That belongs to me.” They turned quickly.
Kanhaiya stood at the very edge of the clearing — considerably more solid now than he’d appeared previously, no longer entirely translucent, though still faintly unfinished, like a photograph that had only been partially developed.
“You followed us all the way here,” Aanya said, relief and genuine alarm tangling together uncomfortably in her voice.
“I’m already here,” the boy said, gesturing vaguely toward the surrounding clearing, toward the forest stretching endlessly around them.
“Ever since…
ever since I was taken, I’ve essentially been here the entire time.
Your remembering me brought part of me back, but not everything.” “We’re going to properly finish this,” Vihaan said firmly.
“Show us exactly where.” Kanhaiya’s still-flickering form turned slowly, pointing deeper into the surrounding trees, toward a patch of darkness that seemed to swallow the scattered, patchwork sunlight almost entirely.