Wonderful Insane World

The three days of waiting were introduced with a heavy gravity, like a silent pact between survival and obedience.

At dawn of the first, Élisa divided the remaining soldiers into small reconnaissance units: thin groups of three, rarely four, all composed of ordinary soldiers. No Awakened — too precious to risk their lives in those uncertain woods.

The orders were strict: advance, observe, but never cross into zones where the mist thickened so much that one could no longer see a hand stretched before one's face. They were forbidden to step into clearings where the trees twisted like carcasses, or approach rivers whose waters glistened in a darkness too unnatural to be real. Their role was not to fight, but to report. See, listen, return.

The first patrols departed in tense silence. It seemed they were not walking on soil, but on a fragile weave, ready to break beneath their steps. Behind them, the camp resonated with muffled sounds: hammers cobbling together makeshift defenses, the hushed voices of healers, the crackling of fires that were stoked too often to ward off cold and fear.

The first day brought nothing. Scouts returned with flat reports: tracks erased by rain, an echo of a howl in the distance, blurred prints that could belong to either a beast or a lost soldier. Nothing concrete, nothing to confirm or deny the presence of Zirel and his men. Waiting became a sharper torture: the silence of the woods resembled a shroud.

On the second day, tension rose. The same groups were sent out, the same instructions repeated to exhaustion. But this time, one of the teams, led by a veteran with a furrowed face named Hadrin, returned panting, eyes wide.

They had crossed a moving silhouette, first indistinct in the mist. Five shadows, wavering, advancing with heavy steps. The soldiers, weapons in hand, thought for an instant they were about to face another horror from the forest. But as the shapes grew clear, they recognized faces. Faces worn, blackened by mud and exhaustion.

It was Zirel. Zirel and his team. And they were alive.

They were returning to camp.

Their arrival tore through the veil of anguish. Faces lifted, incredulous. Some exhaled sighs, others clenched fists to hold back emotion. Even Tonar, who had stubbornly refused to speak of the dead without bodies, could not hide the brief gleam that flickered in his eyes.

But if Zirel had returned… then one question already burned on every lip: what had they seen, what had they faced, to come back five days late, their faces marked by shadows deeper than mere wounds?

⸻

The wind carried the smell of fire and cut wood when the silhouette appeared, first as a black blot at the edge of the woods. Then another, then a group. The sentinels posted on the palisade raised their voices — a sharp signal, then surprise: human figures, not vermin.

Élisa's heart slammed against her ribs. She rose before Tonar could give the order. The men returning had none of the triumphant bearing of a victorious troop: they limped, tunics in tatters, skin smeared with soot and mud, anima gems clinking like gravestones in battered sacks.

Zirel was at the front, leaning on his blade as if it could hold him upright. His gaze met Élisa's — brighter than fatigue, yet hollow at the edges of his pupils, enough to make her shiver. Behind him, four men staggered; two places were empty.

"Zirel!" Tonar swallowed hard, then gestured them forward. The wounded were carried to the tents. Murmurs quickly sharpened into cutting questions.

The leader of the reconnaissance team, wiping mud from his face, spoke in a hoarse voice:

"We found the hamlet. A nest. Things — a wooden mask, chants, men nailed to stakes. We heard voices — Renn and Kael… we saw them. Alive. But not themselves."

Zirel spat the blood rising in his throat. His lips trembled as he added:

"They're no longer entirely them. Something… or someone… seems to possess them. We saw what was behind it… we took what we could."

He tapped the pocket where an anima gem, cracked and pale, throbbed weakly, like a sick heart.

"This forest… it holds. It traps. We almost lost our souls there."

A heavy silence fell. Even the fire seemed to hesitate before crackling again. Zirel's words seeped into the flesh like an invisible bite.

Then, like a hammer blow, urgency.

Tonar straightened, his voice grating:

"Care first. Isolate those who seem… different. No panic. Élisa, take the healers: Zirel and his men here. Audel, strengthen the guard to the north — not a single man leaves the camp without orders."

Élisa nodded, blood still hot in her veins. She signaled the healers, who rushed in with blankets, vials, and balms. But behind the logistics and medical gestures, everyone held their breath: what had really returned with them from the heart of the forest?

Inside her, a small flame rekindled: the certainty that they could no longer wait blindly. But for now, they had to save those who had returned — and wrest from their lips every fragment of truth before the night once again smothered everything.

⸻

The medical tent was soon saturated with odors: crushed herbs, hot blood, rancid sweat. The wounded groaned as shattered armor was torn from their bodies. The torches cast warped shadows on the canvas, silhouettes writhing as if trying to flee the fire.

Élisa supervised, but her eyes kept drifting back to Zirel. His face had been washed, his shoulder bandaged, yet nothing erased that strange stillness, that void between his pupils. He spoke little, letting himself be handled, docile as a carcass still warm.

Two of the survivors, however, did not share this docility. The youngest, a soldier with a furtive gaze, trembled whenever a question was asked. His lips moved but no sound came. When pressed, he began to laugh — a dry, nervous laugh that froze the blood of those around him.

The other outright refused to speak. He stared at the ground, jaw clenched, fingers locked around a piece of wood no one had been able to pry away. The healers, uneasy, had left him like that, as if forcing him would shatter more than his bones.

Tonar entered, his shadow swollen by the torchlight. He stood beside Zirel.

"You say you saw Renn and Kael. What does that mean, exactly?"

Silence thickened. The young soldier laughed again. The other squeezed his piece of wood tighter.

Zirel lowered his eyes to the anima gem he still kept in his pocket. His voice dropped, heavy:

"We saw them tied up. Thought they were prisoners of that hamlet of monsters. We thought we could reach them… but the mask turned toward us."

A shiver rippled through the tent.

Élisa whispered:

"The mask…?"

Zirel finally raised his eyes. For the first time, his face showed not fatigue but raw, animal fear.

"It had no mouth, yet I heard its words inside my head. And since then, they have not left me."

The young soldier's nervous laughter broke into a hiccup. The man with the wood shut his eyes, as if to shield himself from a memory too vivid.

Tonar placed a hand on Zirel's shoulder. His voice cut sharp:

"Rest. We'll go ourselves tomorrow."

But in the glance he exchanged with Élisa, there was no certainty. Only a dull, growing worry, as if the entire camp was already breathing the poisoned air of the forest.

⸻

Night settled over the camp like a heavy, sticky shroud, where every crack of the firewood carried the weight of an omen. The men drifted to sleep in waves, some curled in blankets, others panting in the medical tent. But not Élisa. She kept watch, sitting beside Zirel, the firelight carving their profiles into jagged red fragments.

Unlike the other survivors, prisoners of convulsions and incoherent murmurs, Zirel seemed strangely lucid. His breathing was steady, his eyes anchored in the present, as if he fought with all his strength to remain on this side of the threshold.

He leaned forward, his voice ragged from hours of pain yet vibrating with an urgency Élisa felt at once in her flesh:

"We must prepare a strategy to besiege that hamlet."

Élisa frowned, almost surprised by the clarity of his words.

Zirel continued, his speech spilling halfway between confession and military order:

"That creature with the wooden mask… it is not alone. It acts like a hearth of flames, and every being it touches becomes a torch. It seems able to control several at once. Renn and Kael were not victims: they had become its conduits. And I think…" He drew a painful breath. "I think their number has grown since then. We must mobilize all means against these creatures before this infection swallows everything."

The firewood cracked, scattering sparks into the night. Élisa's stomach tightened. Zirel spoke with such intensity it was almost frightening. It was as though he had just returned from a face-to-face with a truth no one wanted to hear.

She whispered, eyes fixed on him:

"If you're right… then every hour we wait turns against us."

Silence stretched. Behind them, one of the wounded groaned, then broke into a strangled laugh. The healer at the tent's entrance turned her head, worried.

Zirel didn't flinch. His hand, clutching his blanket, trembled slightly.

"Listen carefully, Élisa. If we strike with half-measures, we lose everything. The mask holds them, but it is not invincible. I felt… a weakness. When I drew near, before my men fell, there was resistance. As though its will had to cling with all its strength to keep its grip. If we strike fast, and hard, we can break that link."

His pupils glinted in the firelight. Fear, yes — but also a spark of defiance.

Élisa nodded slowly, weighing the gravity of his proposal. A frontal assault against a force they did not even understand… But could she afford to doubt?