37 parts Complete Humanity is struggling to survive in a world that's no longer theirs.
Liv, a scavenger leading missions to the edges of the city for food, medicine, and iron, knows things are getting worse. Every trip feels more desperate than the last. Humanity has an expiration date-the forest, and the creatures that dwell there, just have to wait them out.
When a mission turns out to be a trap and Liv wakes up on the wrong side of the tree line-alone, disoriented, and for some reason not dead-she learns the forest doesn't just kill people or take their souls.
It changes them.
She doesn't know what she's becoming. Only that it's something way stronger than what she was.
And that killing things never felt this good.
Murderbot meets The Cruel Prince-with a whole lot of psychological horror
My entry for onc2025, based on prompt 125:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Frank Herbert
