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The Cursed Garden begins with a quiet task—another routine patrol under a moonlit sky. You move through gates you’ve locked countless times, hear insects you’ve long tuned out, and feel the grass beneath your boots as always. But something is wrong. The night no longer rests. Every corner holds stillness that feels too controlled. The trees seem taller. The air is heavy. There are no sounds of birds. Only your footsteps remain.
Symbols begin to appear on trees you’ve passed before. Their meaning is unclear, but they’re not natural. They’re arranged with purpose—perfect lines, symmetrical spacing, scorched bark. The flashlight barely cuts through the thick air, and even when it does, it seems to show more than what should be there. You come across stones stacked deliberately in circles, candles long since burned out, and deep grooves in the ground that lead nowhere.
The game reveals its true nature in fragments. Notes pinned to fence posts. Small figures placed at precise points. Whispers that rise and stop without warning. Something has claimed this place, and you are walking through its design. There’s no direct confrontation. No monsters to chase you. Only space closing in, light becoming unreliable, and paths turning unfamiliar. Whatever was started here is not over. You’re in the middle of it now, and there’s no guide to help you through.
There’s no map, no objective marker. Only your instincts and a failing sense of direction. You move forward, or maybe in circles—it’s hard to say. You catch glimpses of something moving at the edge of the trees, but when you shine the light, there’s nothing. Your pace increases without thinking. You start running, even when you’re not sure what from. The garden doesn’t trap you. It convinces you to stay.
The Cursed Garden does not attack. It waits. It uses what’s familiar against you. The stone benches, the wooden fences, the neatly trimmed hedges—all things you’ve maintained—now belong to something else. The ritual may be incomplete, but the land has already changed. You came here to keep order. But as the symbols multiply and the shadows stretch, it becomes clear: you were never in control. You were just allowed to believe you were.