Lise simply nodded.

The Briars were never still. They were always moving, slithering, reaching for you out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes, if you listened just right, you could almost hear them whisper your name. Deep within the tangled darkness, twigs snapped and branches rustled as things moved through the brambles. They never got a clear look, just glimpsed dark shapes shuffling away into the undergrowth. The Briars went on, an endless maze of twisted thorns and gnarled branches, shifting, creaking and reaching out for them. As they ventured ever deeper, doors, frames and archways began appearing at odd intervals in completely random places. A faded red door hung perilously from an overhead branch, a tarnished 216 glimmering in the dim light. A filthy restroom stall, cracked and shedding green paint, stood near the edge of the path, so wrapped in thorns that it would be impossible to push the door open. Something lean and black slithered across their path and vanished through an open closet. As it creaked shut, there was a glimpse of a child's bedroom through the frame, and a crib outlined in moonlight, before thorny vines curled around the door and pulled it back into the Briars.

She stays quiet the whole time.

She glanced around and the shifting trods and such, but continued walking.

Grimalkin never hesitated, leading them on without a backward glance, passing gates and doors and strange, random things stuck in the tangled web of thorns. A mirror, a doll and an empty golf bag dangled from the branches as they walked by, as well as the countless bones and sometimes full skeletons that littered the trail. Strange creatures watched them from the shadows, mostly unseen, just their eyes glowing in the dark. Black birds with human faces perched in the branches, observing them silently as they passed, like waiting vultures. At one point, Grimalkin pulled them all into a side tunnel, hissing at them to be quiet and not move. Moments later, a massive spider, easily the size of a car, crawled over the brambles directly overhead. Huge and shiny, with a splash of red across its bloated abdomen, it paused a moment, as if sensing warm blood and fluids were very close, waiting for the slightest tremor to betray its quarry.

She stared up at it, not yet noticing she was holding her breath trying to be quiet as possible.

She stays still and silent.

For several heart-pounding seconds, they crouched in the tunnel. Above them, the spider sat perfectly still as well, patiently waiting for its prey to grow bored, to assume it was safe and make the first move that would be its last. Eventually, something rustled in the branches ahead, and it darted away, frighteningly quick for something that huge. The scream of some unfortunate creature pierced the air, and then silence.

she flinched slightly, but still stayed entire silent. Just in case.

She stays silent.