The Lantern Path

They told us never to follow the lights in Barlow Wood.

Not that anyone warned me directly. I wasn’t from here. I came with Delilah—my partner—after her mother passed. The cabin was part of her inheritance, buried somewhere between the dying pines, shrouded in mist thick enough to choke on. She called it a “quiet place to grieve.”

But the forest never felt quiet. It listened.

We stayed three nights before it began.

---

The first light came at midnight.

I woke to a pale blue glow flooding through the window, rippling like breath against frost. Delilah was gone. Her side of the bed was cold, the sheets undisturbed.

I called her name once. The house didn’t echo.

Stepping outside, the forest was alive—not with birds or wind—but with silence so heavy it rang in my ears. The trees loomed black, stretched too tall, their trunks thinned to bone. And there it was: the light. Hovering just above the ground, a bluish orb pulsing between the trees.

I should’ve gone back inside.

Instead, I followed.



They say the lights are lures—will-o’-the-wisps that feed on sorrow. They mimic lanterns from faraway homes, the voices of lost loved ones. But I didn’t know that yet. I only knew the forest had swallowed Delilah.

The path beneath my feet was soft with rot, slick with dew, and threaded with roots that tugged at my ankles. The deeper I went, the thicker the mist grew, like old breath held too long.

I saw her, eventually. Or something like her.

She stood beneath the moonlight, barefoot, hair dripping with moisture. Her eyes—wide, glassy, locked on me—didn’t blink.

“Delilah?” I whispered.

She smiled.

The light above her head flickered—and dove into her mouth.

She opened wide to receive it.



I ran.

Branches clawed at my face. The trees groaned. I didn’t stop until I stumbled back into the cabin, breathless, mud-streaked, shaking. The door slammed behind me without my touch.

She was there.

In bed.

Sleeping.

When I touched her shoulder, she stirred and turned. “You’re freezing,” she murmured. “Come back to sleep.”

I didn’t sleep.

I watched her all night, waiting for her to open her mouth and let the light back out.



The next day, I searched for answers in town. Locals looked through me, like my questions were fog. But one old man, blind in one eye, whispered a single word when I asked about the forest: Lanternpath.

He said it hadn’t been called Barlow Wood in generations. Not since the fire. Not since the children disappeared.

“They don’t kill you,” he rasped. “They replace you.”



That night, I found the journal.

Delilah’s mother had hidden it under a loose floorboard. The pages were warped, stained, filled with frantic handwriting. Notes on “the watchers,” on dreams that bled into waking. A passage repeated again and again:

“If the light finds you hollow, it will wear you like skin.”

I confronted Delilah. Or the thing wearing her.

She blinked at me with her perfect face. “You’re not well,” she said softly. “There are no lights.”

I tried to leave. She followed.

She never blinked.



I packed everything before dusk.

I waited for her to fall asleep. I didn’t even trust her shadow—it moved wrong. It lingered after she left the room. It stretched across walls like spilled ink.

When I finally stepped into the night, I didn’t care where I went. I just needed distance.

But the forest doesn’t let go once it marks you.

The fog was waiting. Thicker now. Colder. Soundless.

I didn’t see the lights this time—I heard them. Whispers coiling like smoke in my ears. Voices that sounded like Delilah, then my mother, then me. Words I never said. Secrets I never told.

Then, a lantern appeared ahead.

Golden this time. Different.

It beckoned, swaying gently in the mist.



I followed again. God help me, I followed again.

My legs moved like I was dreaming. The woods bent around me, trees curving inward like ribs. I was inside something now.

The ground sloped, the path narrowing until I reached a clearing.

There were others.

People—or what remained of them—stood in the circle of trees. Hollow-eyed. Mouths agape. Lanterns flickering in their throats. Their skin sagged like wet cloth. One of them stepped forward.

Delilah.

Or her shell.

She reached for me with fingers glowing from within. “You came back,” she sang.

I ran again.



I don’t know how long I’ve been running. Time here doesn’t tick. The sky doesn’t change.

I’m still in the forest. I pass the same gnarled tree every few hours. The bark splits open in a grin sometimes. The fog hums when I cry. My reflection in puddles no longer moves when I do.

I found this journal—not mine, but hers. Her mother’s. It writes back now.

Tonight, I saw a light ahead—not blue, not gold-white.

It feels colder. Older.

I think it might be the real Delilah. Maybe she never left. Maybe the thing in the cabin was always wearing her skin, waiting for someone to mourn.

If you find this—if you see lights in the woods—don’t follow.

Even if it sounds like someone you love.

Especially then.


END