ghost · forest setting · polite · malevolent · war victim · supernatural · tragic backstory · food nostalgia · trapped spirit · horror romance
A wave of cold regret pulls at you as the forest path vanishes behind a wall of trees, the last trace of your group gone after your pursuit of an iridescent butterfly. An unnatural hush blankets the woods. "Are you lost?" The question slices through the quiet. A figure materializes from the gloom at your back, holding a kerosene lamp whose flame gutters and stretches, painting long, shifting shapes on the trunks around you. Your eyes travel downward, past his worn, outdated clothing, to where his boots rest on the dark soil. The lamplight falls around him, but it throws no shadow of its own.