The cracked screen of Rian’s phone still cast a dull, fading glow against the damp rock, but not a single one of them dared step forward to pick it up. The atmosphere beneath the mossy forest canopy locked solid. Rian’s breath hitched in his chest, rising and falling in jagged, chaotic gasps while cold sweat slicked down his temples.

"Yan... are you actually okay? What the hell was that on your phone?" Maya’s voice shook violently. She clamped her fingers tight around Rian’s jacket sleeve, her eyes locked in horror on the device as its screen slowly died away into total darkness.

Rian shook his head in jerky, broken motions, his voice trapped in his throat. "T-that photo... we didn't take that, May. I swear to God, that wasn't us..."

"Cut it out! Stop panicking, both of you!" Gani interjected sharply, fighting to assert his authority as group leader even as his own jaw tightened against a rising wave of dread. Gani stepped forward, aggressively brushing off the unease clawing at his chest, and swept a stern glare over his friends. "Rian’s phone probably just caught a malware glitch or a system error from the heavy mountain humidity. Don't let random tech glitches mess with our heads out here."

"A glitch your ass, Gan! All five of our faces were clear as day in that picture with a burning tent in the background!" Dika shot back, his voice pitching high with raw panic. The color had completely drained from his face, leaving him as white as paper. "I want to head down! I swear, I am not taking another step forward! This place is straight-up cursed!"

"Head down where, Dik? Our cell service is dead, our offline maps are useless, and we don't even know where the hell we are right now!" Gani snapped back, half-blinded by frustration as he grabbed Dika by the shoulders to snap him out of it. "If we split up or freak out now, we are genuinely going to vanish in these woods! Calm down, please!"

Dika fell silent, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He bit down hard on his lower lip until it bled, forcing himself to swallow a terror that threatened to tear his sanity apart.

Right in the middle of that spiking tension, Sita—who had remained stationed at the very back—suddenly lifted her head. The girl hadn't uttered a single word since the creepy episode back at Post 1, but her eyes were utterly vacant, locked straight ahead into the deep, tangled thicket bordering the left side of the trail.

"Hey... do you guys hear that?" Sita whispered softly, her voice entirely flat and hollow, instantly cutting off the argument between the guys.

Rian whipped his head around. "Hear what, Sit?"

Before Sita could answer, the next anomaly struck.

In less than ten seconds, the ambient temperature plummeted drastically. Their warm breath instantly billowed out in thick, white plumes of fog. And from between the tree trunks, a massive, intensely thick, and freezing white mist rolled over the forest with terrifying speed, slashing their visibility down to less than two meters.

In the blink of an eye, Gani, Maya, Dika, and Sita—who had been standing right beside each other—seemed swallowed whole by the dense wall of vapor. The previously quiet forest fell into absolute, deafening silence—the chirping of insects, the rustle of the wind, and even the sound of their own footsteps were entirely muffled by the thick fog.

"Gani? Maya? Where are you guys?!" Rian cried out in panic, blindly swatting at the empty air before him.

"Yan! I'm right here! Don't move away!" Maya shrieked in absolute terror, sounding uncomfortably close to Rian's position.

Suddenly, slicing through the heavy, suffocating silence of the white fog, a strange sound reached their ears.

Krotak... krotak... krotak...

The sound of snapping twigs and heavy footsteps crushing dry brush.

The noise was distinct, pacing the exact rhythm of their movement. But what turned their blood to ice was the source: those footsteps were coming from deep inside the dense thicket on the left side of the trail—moving in parallel alongside them, yet absolutely nothing—no human, no animal—was visible through the churning wall of fog.

Krotak... krotak... krotak...

"Damn it... who's out there?!" Dika screamed from the rear, his voice cracking with utter desperation. "Show your face! Stop playing games!"

"Shut up, Dik! Stop yelling!" Gani barked out a sharp, commanding order from the front, his voice a tense, piercing whisper. "Everyone close ranks! Nobody let go of each other! Grab the jacket of the person in front of you right now!"

Rian lunged forward, locking his fists tight around the hem of Gani’s jacket, while his left hand shot out to snatch Maya’s freezing palm. Behind Rian, Dika and Sita pressed close, moving in a tight huddle through the blinding white gloom.

They crept forward inch by inch, blindly feeling the dirt trail beneath their boots. That mysterious tracking sound in the brush kept pace—krotak, krotak, krotak—accelerating bit by bit, as though mocking the trembling tempo of their escape.

Suddenly, right in the middle of their staggered march, Sita froze dead in her tracks.

Her grip on Dika’s jacket slipped completely. The girl went rigid, turning her head slowly to the left, staring intently into the dense white haze masking the wild brush.

"Sita? Why are you stopping? Keep moving, Sit!" Dika hissed in a panic from the rear, reaching out to tug on Sita’s arm.

Sita didn't budge. Her eyes remained locked and vacant on the undergrowth, while her lips slowly parted into a strange, subtle smile—a smile utterly devoid of fear.

"Sita!" Maya screamed in alarm, twisting around to look back. "What's wrong with you, Sit? Stop messing around!"

From deep within the thick white fog on the left side of the path, a soft voice called out Sita’s name. It was crystal clear, intimate, and deeply comforting—the voice of an elderly woman whom Sita knew better than anyone else in the world.

“Sita... sweetheart... come here, honey. Mom’s been waiting for you right here... it's so cold...”

Sita’s eyes widened. Tears instantly spilled down her cheeks. Without caring about the frantic screams of her friends, Sita’s feet slowly shifted off the trail, stepping forward to breach the sharp, thorny brush straight toward the source of that voice in the mist.

"Mom..." Sita whispered brokenly, taking another step away from the group.

"Sita, no!" Maya shrieked hysterically, lunging forward to grab Sita’s hand, only to swipe at empty, fog-choked air.

Rian, hearing the commotion behind him, snapped his head back. His eyes caught sight of Sita’s back as she was already halfway swallowed by the grim, tangled thicket. The instant he saw it, a harsh memory slammed into Rian’s brain—the rigid warning Pak Karto had hammered into them back at the basecamp:

"If a white fog rolls down the upper slopes out of nowhere, and you hear someone calling your name from the brush, never look toward the source. Run, or you vanish."

"SITA!" Rian roared with every ounce of air in his lungs.

With explosive, desperate reflexes, Rian dove backward, plowing straight through the thorny brush. He slammed both hands down onto Sita’s shoulders, violently yanking the girl backward with brute force until they both tumbled off the path, crashing hard and rolling over the dirt.

"Ow!" Sita cried out in pain, slamming hard against the dusty ground.

"Don't look! Don't listen!" Rian snarled, his chest heaving as he pinned Sita to the ground, firmly shoving her head down so she couldn't gaze back into the fog.

Yet the exact second Rian dragged Sita back onto the main trail, that soft, motherly voice calling out to her instantly vanished.

In its place... something worse arrived.

From deep inside the white mist where Sita had nearly walked, a chorus of piercing, shrill, shrieking laughter broke out—a horrific, overlapping chorus of dozens of women laughing in unison, echoing loudly across the entire mountain slope, shattering the forest silence and tearing at their eardrums until their blood felt like it froze completely in their veins.