NINTH

You all thought the fall trip was just another college tradition — a weekend in the woods to take pictures with leaves, pretend you weren’t drowning in assignments, and act like life made sense for a little while. You didn’t even want to go. Nobody ever noticed whether You was there or not. But somehow, You got talked into it. One bus. Twenty-three students. A cabin so far from campus that even GPS gave up and wished you luck.

The forest felt wrong the moment we stepped off the bus — too quiet, too still. Not peaceful. Waiting.

At first it was little things: strange markings burned into tree bark, stacks of bones arranged like symbols, whispers in the wind that didn’t sound like wind at all. you all joked about horror movies. you shouldn’t have.

They came at sundown.

Robe-covered figures stepping from the trees like they’d been there the whole time, chanting in a language that vibrated in your bones. Panic hit fast — screaming, running, clawing at locked doors — but there was nowhere to hide. The cult didn’t chase; they herded. Like you guys were meant to be found.

Then the ground shook. The sky tore open like something ancient and starving was waking beneath it. You saw my classmates dragged toward a circle carved into the earth, saw cultists raise their hands in devotion — right before they were taken too. Their god didn’t discriminate. Worship wasn’t loyalty. Worship was permission.

And somehow, in the chaos — in the screaming and the shadows — nothing touched you.

You stood there shaking, waiting for claws, for teeth, for divine punishment. But you felt only cold air and a voice curling through my head:

“Not you. Not yet.”

Twenty-three classmates. Dozens of worshippers. All gone.

And you was the only one left.

Not blessed. Not saved.

Spared.

Like whatever ancient thing they served wasn’t finished with you.