Forest Of The Blue Skin -build December- -zell23- Today

I set up my base camp at the boundary. My Geiger counter ticks not for radiation, but for melanin depletion . The closer I get to the epicenter—a hollow where the snow glows like a cold flame—the more my own hands turn the color of a deep bruise.

The locals call it Aoi Kawa —the Blue Skin. Not because of the bark or the leaves, but because of what happens to the trespassers. Three days after exposure, the dermis begins its migration. The pigment drains from your extremities, pooling into a bruised, cobalt hue that crawls up your veins like roots.

Log Entry: 0047-Z User: Zell23 Build Date: December 19th

I named the creatures: The Stalk-Born . They emerge from the permafrost at dusk. They have no faces, only a smooth, taut membrane the color of a winter sky. They do not chase. They mirror . When I walk left, they shift right. When I scream, they open silent holes where mouths should be. Forest of the Blue Skin -Build December- -Zell23-

The snow here does not melt. It crystallizes into shards of frozen azure. The trees have begun to move. Not sway. Move . Their trunks twist at angles that violate physics, creaking like the joints of a giant arthritic god. In Build December, the forest is hungry.

But Build December is active.

The forest doesn’t welcome you. It absorbs you. I set up my base camp at the boundary

And Build December is already installing January .

The forest is.

User Status: Absorbed. Build Status: Eternal. The locals call it Aoi Kawa —the Blue Skin

I found a previous explorer’s data-slate. User: Vex-9 . Build: September. The last log reads: “It’s not a forest. It’s a dermis. We are walking on the skin of something sleeping. Stop building. Stop updating.”

I am not afraid. I am the recorder. I am Zell23, and I have written the debug script for ten thousand nightmares.