Morning light spilled through pine needles like honey; golden and warm. The path was wide and forgiving, dirt pressed flat by a hundred careful boots.

Birds argued cheerfully overhead. Mahi laughed too loud at nothing, and Ahsan told him to save his breath for the incline later. Their packs were light, their water cold, their phones off. It felt good to be unreachable, out of the network coverage.

“This is going to fix me,” Mahi said, stretching his arms until his joints popped.
Ahsan smiled. “You’ve said about three different things this year.”
“Yeah, but this one has trees.”

They walked and talked while naming clouds and inventing backstories for rocks. At noon, they ate oranges and left the peels stacked like little suns on a flat stone. When they started again, the trail narrowed, like they were making progress.

Somewhere after the third bend, Ahsan stopped.
“Did we pass that stump already?”

Mahi turned. A blackened tree stump crouched beside the trail, split down the middle like a mouth trying to speak.
“No,” he said quickly. “We’ve just seen a lot of stumps.”

They kept walking. Ten minutes later, the stump appeared again.
Same split. Like a wide mouth, trying to scream this time.

Mahi laughed, too sharp. “Okay. That’s weird. I could swear we just passed this.”
Ahsan checked his watch. It read 10:17 a.m.
“That’s not right,” he said. “It was almost one.”

Mahi shrugged. “Probably busted. You dropped it last week in the pool, remember?”

They walked faster. The forest thickened. The birds went quiet in the way that made their ears ring. When they reached the stump a third time, Ahsan didn’t laugh.
“This isn’t funny,” he said.

Mahi didn’t answer. He was staring at the ants around the tree stump. They were carrying something now. Tiny white threads. Almost like hair.

They turned back.

The trail behind them was wider than before. Morning light spilled through pine needles like honey.

Mahi stopped walking.
“No,” he whispered.

They walked forward again. The stump, with the same gash. They walked back. Morning light.

Each time, something changed just a little.
The oranges they ate again tasted faintly bitter. The clouds hung lower. The birds’ calls stretched too long, like a recording played at the wrong speed.

By the fifth loop, Ahsan’s watch was gone.
“I didn’t take it,” Mahi said before Ahsan could ask. His voice cracked on the denial.
“Okay,” Ahsan said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Okay.”

By the seventh loop, they tried leaving the trail. The forest did not like that. The ground softened under their boots, turning to something spongy and warm. Trees leaned inward, bark puckering like skin. Mahi slipped, went down hard, and when Ahsan grabbed his arm to pull him up, the skin slid beneath his fingers.

They ran back to the trail, screaming apologies at the trees, but the trees were unforgiving.

Morning light. Again.

Mahi sat down hard and laughed until he gagged.
“Maybe,” he said between breaths, “maybe this is what people mean when they say they want to start over.”

Ahsan slapped him. The sound cracked too loud. Birds exploded from the trees in a black cloud. “Stop it,” Ahsan said. “We have to think.”

Mahi pressed his palm to his cheek. Slowly, his smile fell apart. “What if thinking is what it wants?” he asked.

Loop nine: Mahi noticed scratches on his arm. Thin lines, angry red. He didn’t remember getting them.

Loop ten: Ahsan woke up on the trail, his pack already on his back, Mahi already walking ahead of him, already saying, “This is going to fix me.”

Loop eleven: The stump was bleeding, gushing red. Thick sap pooled at its base; it smelled like iron. The ants drank greedily. Mahi retched.

“We’re staying here,” Ahsan said. “We’re not walking anymore.” They sat. Time seemed to pass. But it didn’t.

The light didn’t move. Their hunger did strange things; vanishing, then roaring back so hard Ahsan chewed on the strap of his pack until his gums bled.

When Mahi blinked, sometimes he saw the trail layered over itself, like a stack of bad photographs. Sometimes he saw Ahsan with his face turned the wrong way, eyes in the back of his skull, watching the trees.

“You see that too, right?” Mahi asked. Ahsan nodded, but he was staring at his own hands.
“They’re not mine,” he said softly.

Loop fifteen: They tried hurting themselves.
Mahi slammed his head against a rock until the world went white.

Morning light.

His head didn’t hurt anymore.

Loop sixteen: Ahsan carved a mark into the stump. A deep X. He screamed while he did it, throat shredding.

Morning light. The stump was smooth.

Loop seventeen: The birds started speaking.
Not words. Not exactly. Just enough shape to the sounds that Mahi’s brain kept trying to finish them.

‘Stay’ ‘Again’ ‘Almost’

Ahsan covered his ears. Blood seeped between his fingers.

Loop eighteen: They noticed the trail was shorter.
The stump was closer now. So was the bend where the light reset. Like the forest was tightening a noose.

“I think we’re being digested,” Mahi said calmly.
Ahsan laughed. It sounded like he was sobbing.

Loop nineteen: Mahi didn’t reset. Ahsan walked back into the morning light alone. He screamed Mahi’s name until his voice shredded. The birds argued eerily overhead.

Then, from behind him, footsteps. Mahi stepped onto the trail, whole and smiling.
“Dude,” he said. “You okay? You spaced out.”

Ahsan lunged at him, hands clawing for proof. Mahi’s skin was warm. Solid.
“You died,” Ahsan said. “You died so many times.”
Mahi frowned. “What are you talking about? We just started.”

Ahsan looked at the stump. No split. No ants. Just a stump.

Loop twenty: Ahsan stopped Mahi before the third bend.
“We have to do something different,” he said. “Promise me you won’t joke. Promise.”

Mahi nodded, serious now. “Okay.”

They walked in silence. The stump appeared.

Loop twenty-one: Ahsan stopped Mahi before the third bend.
“We have to do something different,” he said.
Mahi nodded, eyes already tired. “Okay.”

They walked in silence. The stump appeared.

Loop twenty-two: Ahsan stopped Mahi before the third bend.
Mahi interrupted him.
“I know,” he said. “We have to do something different.”

Ahsan’s heart sank.

Loop twenty-three: They didn’t stop walking. They ran.
The stump blurred past them, screaming like wet wood torn apart. The bend came too fast. Morning light crashed into them like a truck.

Loop twenty-four: They ran again. The trail was only ten steps long now.

Loop twenty-five: Mahi tripped and didn’t get up.
Ahsan dragged him, screaming, nails tearing. The light reset halfway through the scream, leaving the sound hanging, unfinished.

Loop twenty-six: Ahsan woke up alone.
He stood. The trail was gone. There was only the stump. It was taller now. Split wide. Inside it, something pale and soft pulsed, breathing in time with Ahsan’s heart. Ants crawled over it, arranging white threads. Hair. From inside the stump, Mahi’s voice drifted out, gentle and familiar.

“Hey,” it said. “This is going to fix us.”

Ahsan laughed hysterically and stepped forward.

Morning light spilled through pine needles like honey. Two friends began a trek with the kind of happiness that felt borrowed.