Finders Ain’t Keepers

Table of Contents

The gray woods of Lin stretched endlessly beneath a low, cloud-choked sky. The trees here were old impossibly old their gnarled roots coiling like petrified serpents through the damp earth. Moss draped the trunks in thick green shrouds, and every so often, the wind would thread through the canopy, carrying the smell of rain and something older, like stone dust and decay.

Nora and Sam had been hiking since morning, their boots squelching in the soft soil, the only sound besides the faint trickle of water somewhere ahead. The trail was narrow and winding, forcing them to move single-file. Conversation had died out hours ago, replaced by a comfortable silence or at least it had been comfortable, until they reached the creek.

The water was shallow, barely ankle deep, running over smooth stones. That was when a faint glint caught Nora’s eye. She slowed, squinting at the source. Beneath a tangle of wet leaves and silt, something gold winked back at her.

“Hold up,”

She murmured, crouching at the water’s edge. Her fingers brushed the leaves aside. Half-buried in the streambed lay a gold pendant, its surface etched with jagged runes. The markings didn’t look random. They caught and twisted the dim light in ways her eyes couldn’t quite follow, like the surface of the metal was shifting beneath her gaze.

She hesitated for a heartbeat, then reached for it.

The instant her fingers closed around the pendant, a shock surged up her arm, sharp enough to make her gasp. It wasn’t pain, exactly more like something cold and electric threading into her bones. For a moment, the forest felt impossibly still. Then a whisper, faint but distinct, uncoiled in her mind. She couldn’t make out the words, but the meaning was there: power. Sam stepped closer, frowning.

“What is it?”

She held the pendant up. Water slid down its chain in rivulets, and Sam’s eyes fixed on it at once. His fingers twitched, almost involuntarily, as though they wanted to snatch it away. The moment stretched, their gazes locked, the only sound the soft gurgle of the creek. Then Sam forced a laugh, shaking his head.

“Probably some cheap trinket.”

“Probably,”

Nora echoed, though her voice lacked conviction. She slipped the pendant into her jacket pocket, and they continued along the trail. But more than once, she caught him glancing at her pocket, and each time his eyes lingered a little too long.

By the time the sun slid behind the trees, they had set up camp in a small clearing near the water. The fire popped and spat sparks into the dark, and the smell of damp wood filled the air. The pendant’s presence pressed at Nora’s thoughts, refusing to be ignored.

She took it out again, letting the firelight dance over its runes. The hum she’d felt earlier wasn’t just in her head anymore — it was in her chest, her fingertips, even in the rhythm of her breathing.

Sam was watching her.

“Why don’t I hold onto it tonight? Just so you’re not tempted to drop it in the creek or something.”

Her grip tightened.

“No. I found it.”

“It’s not like it belongs to you,”

He said, his tone light but his jaw tense.

“I said no.”

The edge in her voice surprised even her. She slipped the chain around her neck, tucking the pendant beneath her jacket. Sam didn’t press the matter, but when he lay down in his sleeping bag that night, his dreams churned with strange images. He saw the pendant glowing like molten gold, the air around it alive with a sound that was almost a voice. Nora’s face appeared in the dream, smiling — but the smile turned sharp, mocking. The voice whispered to him, low and coaxing: She will never give it to you. You have to take it.

The drizzle began in the early morning, pattering on the tarp overhead. They packed their gear in silence. Nora kept her jacket zipped all the way up, one hand resting protectively against the pendant beneath it. By midday, the tension between them had thickened into something heavy and sour. She caught Sam watching her more than once, his eyes not on her face but on the outline of the pendant’s chain. She shifted her pack to block it from view.

When they stopped for a break, she palmed the knife from her belt and slid it into her pocket. She told herself it was just to feel safer in the woods but her mind whispered other reasons. Sam had begun muttering under his breath as they walked. At first, she thought he was talking to himself, but more than once, she was sure she heard her own name tangled in the words. And not kindly. Steal… curse… kill.

By the third day, the woods felt different. The fog clung low and unbroken, and every step through the sodden ground made a sound like something breathing underfoot. Neither of them spoke. It happened quickly. One moment Sam was trudging ahead of her, the next his eyes flicked down to the faint bulge under her jacket. His expression changed lips thinning, shoulders tightening. He lunged. The impact drove them both into the mud. His hands scrabbled for the chain around her neck, yanking hard enough to choke her.

“Give it to me!”

His voice was raw, ragged.

“No!”

Her words came out as a snarl. The hum inside her head had risen to a deafening roar. He twisted the chain, trying to tear it free. She felt the metal bite into her skin. Her hand closed around the knife in her pocket, and without thinking, she drove it upward.

The blade slid between his ribs. His breath hitched, a wet gasp escaping his throat. Blood pooled beneath them, its heat stark against the cold rain. He managed one last curse whether for her or the pendant, she couldn’t tell  before his body sagged.

She shoved him off. The pendant’s glow had grown so bright it seemed to burn through her jacket, spilling tendrils of light into the fog. Her thoughts came apart in shards, her mind consumed with a single, primal hunger she couldn’t name.

Stumbling toward the creek, she felt the earth tilt beneath her. The water hissed around her boots. The chain broke, the pendant slipping from her fingers into the current. It sank slowly, the glow dimming as the silt swallowed it. Nora collapsed on the bank. Her breathing slowed. The forest closed in.

Weeks later, the rain had long passed, but the woods still held their damp weight. Two hikers Kael and Mira followed the same trail, speaking in quiet tones about where they might make camp before the next storm. At a bend in the creek, Kael stopped.

“You see that?”

Mira followed his gaze. Beneath the water, caught between two stones, a faint glimmer pulsed. She reached in, fingers brushing something warm despite the chill. It came free with little resistance: a gold pendant, its surface traced with runes that seemed to rearrange themselves under her gaze.

“It’s warm,”

She said, glancing up at him. Kael touched it, his brow furrowing.

“Feels… alive.”

The drizzle returned, soft at first, then heavier, drumming on the creek’s surface. Neither of them noticed the sudden stillness in the woods. Deep below, under layers of silt and time, something stirred. The cycle waited, patient and certain. It had all the time in the world.