How I Became the Most Wanted Villain

The forest welcomed no one.

It wasn't some lush sanctuary, no cradle for fugitives or storybook exiles. It was ancient, tangled, and alive with silence that pressed against the skin like wet cloth. The trees were too tall, their trunks gnarled like tortured limbs reaching skyward. Their branches clawed at the moonlight, letting only shreds of pale silver drip through.

Vaun ran.

His feet struck earth and roots and hidden stones. He didn't care. Pain was familiar. Pain meant he wasn't dead. The air dragged sharp and cold through his lungs, carving icy lines in his throat. Every heartbeat throbbed in his temple like a war drum.

Behind him, alarms howled from the prison. Their cries had become distant, but not absent.

Keep going.

The forest floor shifted beneath his weight. Loose soil, treacherous roots. He stumbled once, caught himself on a twisted trunk, and kept running. His hand came away bloodied from bark like razors. The cut stung, but he didn't flinch.

The forest watched.

Branches stirred where no wind blew. Leaves shivered in patterns too rhythmic to be natural. The shadows moved when he didn't. There were no birds. No crickets. Just the sound of his boots and breath and the low, patient breathing of something not human.

Eventually, his legs burned. He collapsed near a dry creek bed, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat and grime. His breath steamed in the chill night air.

Silence returned.

The kind that wrapped around the throat and waited.

Vaun pressed two fingers to the bleeding cut on his arm. The blood smeared across his skin like ink. He could almost feel it pulsing—not just from his veins, but from the air around him.

I'm still bleeding. Still hunted. But I'm free.

He peeled himself off the ground and moved again, slower this time. Eyes sharp, ears tuned to every break in the brush. The terrain grew more uneven. Slopes dipped without warning, and thorned vines snatched at his legs like greedy fingers.

After another hour, he came upon the clearing.

And froze.

Six bodies dangled from the trees. Hung upside down by coarse rope, throats slit, their blood long since drained into the soil below. Pale, twisted, limp.

One of them wore a prison uniform.

Flies hovered like a funeral veil. The stench was metallic and wrong, sharp enough to sting the nostrils. Vaun didn't look away. He studied the scene as if reading a map, eyes tracking the way the bodies swayed, lightly, rhythmically. As though something had moved past them just moments ago.

Then he saw it.

Carved into the bark of the largest tree, just behind the central corpse, were four deep words:

"THE FOREST IS NOT YOURS."

The gouges were fresh. Blood still seeped from the wood, as if the tree itself bled in protest.

Vaun stepped back, fingers tightening around the bone knife Rellan had given him. The air around the clearing felt different—denser, like breath before a scream.

He didn't speak.

Didn't run.

He simply turned and melted back into the trees.

Whatever did this wasn't a patrol. It wasn't prison guards.

It was something else.

The forest was its territory.

And Vaun had trespassed.

He moved fast but deliberate now, every sense sharp. He splashed through a narrow creek and climbed a ridge where the treetops bent like bowing servants. His hands were raw from gripping bark, and the cut on his arm throbbed against his skin with every heartbeat.

Night deepened. Somewhere in the distance, dogs howled. Not close—but closer than he liked.

He found shelter inside the hollow of a collapsed trunk. Tight fit. Damp. Smelled of rot and ash. But it hid him.

Inside, he pressed his back against the curve of wood, closed his eyes, and listened.

Branches snapped.

Twice.

Then silence.

Then again. But this time, farther away.

Something's tracking me.

He didn't dare move.

Not until the whispers started.

They came from nowhere. Or maybe from the wound on his arm.

Not words. But feelings. Images.

A gloved hand over a bleeding mouth.

A nail dragging across a throat.

A drop of blood falling upward.

Vaun opened his eyes.

The wound wasn't just red anymore.

It pulsed.

Like it wanted something.

He clenched his fist, forcing the blood to drip freely. It ran over his fingers and pooled in his palm, thick and dark under the pale moonlight filtering through the trees.

But it didn't fall to the ground.

The drop hovered.

Vaun stared as it floated, trembling in midair like a captive thought. He reached for it instinctively—but it vanished the moment his fingertips neared, like it had never been.

His breath came shallow.

No spells. No training. Just blood responding to me.

This wasn't magic he had studied. This was instinct. The forest was awakening something buried deep, something carved into his name and bones long before he'd crawled into the world.

And it was getting stronger.

He forced his body to calm, wiping the blood against the trunk. The whispers faded, but not completely. They lingered like breath on his neck.

He exited the hollow hours later, just before dawn.

The sky was a bruised gray, the light sickly and faint. The air stank of wet bark and old ash. But it was quiet now. The trackers hadn't found him. Whatever had followed his trail had moved on—or grown bored.

Vaun followed the sound of trickling water until he reached a narrow stream.

He washed his face, the cold water numbing his skin, hiding the flush of heat pulsing under it.

That's when he noticed the boot prints.

Fresh. Deep. Not from guards.

Too large, too staggered.

He dropped low and touched the edges. Still damp. Whoever it was, they were close.

And then he heard it: metal dragging against stone. No breathing. No steps. Just that low scrape.

He ducked behind a boulder, crouched in shadow.

A figure moved through the trees.

Not a guard. Not even fully human.

It was wrapped in stitched cloth and plated bone. Its jaw hung slightly open, revealing blackened teeth and a swollen tongue. Its eyes were hollow. Glowing faintly red.

It moved like a puppet.

But Vaun could see it was sniffing the air. Following him.

He stayed motionless. Not even a breath.

The thing tilted its head. Then turned away.

When it was gone, Vaun exhaled.

There were worse things than guards in these woods.

And someone had let them loose.

He didn't wait to see if it returned.

Moving carefully along the stream's edge, Vaun crept deeper into the forest. The terrain rose, the trees thinning just enough to let patches of gray sky peek through. He found an outcrop of stone where he could rest, half-sunken into a moss-covered slope.

His body ached.

The forest had stripped him down. No walls. No tools. No allies. Just raw instinct and that slow-burning presence in his blood.

Vaun pressed his fingers to his cut again. The flesh had sealed more than it should have. Not fully healed, but… different. Stronger. Like it wasn't just clotting. Like it had listened to him.

That scared him more than the stitched thing.

He didn't want a gift.

He wanted control.

A branch snapped behind him.

He turned, knife drawn, eyes wide.

Nothing.

But then, above the canopy, a sudden burst of red light seared across the sky. A flare. It hissed like an arrow catching fire and bloomed overhead before dying into smoke.

It wasn't from the prison.

It came from the far ridge, just beyond the next valley.

Vaun narrowed his eyes.

Who else would send a signal out here?

Not soldiers. Not scavengers.

No—someone knew he was loose.

He stood, tucked the knife close, and traced the path with his eyes. He'd need to cross lower terrain, risk open sightlines. But he had to know who was calling.

He descended quickly, choosing his steps with precision. Each movement was calculated, not wasted. He stopped thinking like prey and started acting like the predator.

Halfway down the ridge, the air changed again.

He felt it—not with his skin, but in his chest.

Like gravity pulling toward something… familiar.

The blood in his veins whispered.

A voice. Soft. Female.

"You are waking."

He stumbled, then growled.

"No. Not yet."

The voice didn't respond.

He climbed down, faster now, heart thundering.

As he neared the edge of the trees, he spotted the signal's landing point: an open patch of dirt scorched black. The flare's casing still smoked.

But no one was there.

Just three footprints.

Booted.

Barefoot.

And a third... clawed.

Vaun crouched and ran a hand across the prints. They weren't fresh. Maybe ten minutes old. The clawed ones dug deeper, erratic.

A message had been sent, but not just to him.

Something else had received it too.

He stood slowly.

And behind him, high on the cliff, something moved.