Fire and Old Bones!

Read part 1 here.

Now… pull your chair closer to the fire.
Let the dark lean in.
Let the pines silence themselves.
I’ll tell you what happened on that mountain long ago

The part the rangers never wrote down the second time around.

🔥 For the forest remembers.
It doesn’t forgive.
It only waits.

🔥 Part 2 - The Unearthing.

They came with shovels, greed and carefree laughter.
Eight new campers, between young and older, only louder.

They were chasing rumors of treasures, of gold buried beneath the old mounds.

They set up camp, and prepared the makings of a campfire.

They said the land was “just old history.” They said the stories were “just myths.”
And so they dug.

By dusk, the ground was bleeding dust.
The air tasted metallic, like the breath of something ancient waking.
And when they struck bone—smooth, ancient, human—the wind stopped. They did not.

For they had found not just bones, but treasures too...treasures a museum would pay top dollars for. Old bones with old runes...bones everyone would flock to see.

They dug, they ate, they sang, they defiled the bushes and celebrated into the night.

🔥 The Return

But the fire that night wouldn’t burn steady.
It hissed, spat, and twisted every which way...refusing to light the earth they’d wounded.
Then came the chanting - low, rhythmic, not from mouths but from the soil itself.

Hey‑ya‑ho… hey‑ya‑ho…

Hey‑ya‑hey‑ya‑ho‑ho‑hey…

Ash breath, fire bone,

Earth remember, flesh atone.

Shapes rose from the smoke.
The same spirits who had circled the last campers stepped forward again, their beadwork glinting like stars caught in ash.
Feathers trembled.
Drums pulsed.
The deer appeared behind them, its eyes glowing like twin moons, its body formed from mist and shadow.

The spirits mourned.
But their chants were lamentations, not rage—songs for the broken covenant between earth and flesh.

But the deer’s gaze was judgment.

🔥 There had to be a Reckoning

One by one, the campers felt the ground shift beneath them.
Roots coiled around their ankles, pulling them toward the mounds they had violated and defiled.
The fire dimmed until only the deer’s eyes remained, twin lanterns in the dark.

The spirits circled, their voices rising in a language the campers did not understand.
The deer stepped forward, its hooves silent, its breath cold enough to frost the air.

It lowered its head, antlers gleaming like the bones of the dishonored dead.
And when it exhaled, the campers saw what lay beneath the soil...
the faces of the first eight, still watching, still waiting...mouths open to scream...but only the silence heard their agony.

🔥 The Ending...Never To Be Dug Up again

At dawn, the forest was quiet again.
The mounds were untouched, smooth as if no shovel had ever broken them.
The treasure hunters were gone.
Only their tools remained, partially buried, rusting in the dew.

And if you listen at night, when the wind moves through the pines,
you can hear the deer’s hooves pacing the perimeter—
guarding the graves, guarding the story,
waiting for the next fool, who disregards the chants...

who mistakes silence for permission.

🔥 The Chant of the Returning Spirits

Hey‑ya‑ho… hey‑ya‑ho…  
Hey‑ya‑hey‑ya‑ho‑ho‑hey…  

Ash breath, fire bone,  
Earth remember, flesh atone.  
Hey‑ya‑ho… hey‑ya‑ho…  

Deer of silence, eyes of night,  
Guard the mound, guard the light.  
Hey‑ya‑hey‑ya‑ho‑ho‑hey…  

Smoke rise, spirit call,  
We are the wind, we are the wall.  
Hey‑ya‑ho… hey‑ya‑ho…  

Blood to soil, song to sky,  
No one leaves, no one dies.  
Hey‑ya‑hey‑ya‑ho‑ho‑hey…  

But if the wise listen carefully...they can still hear the rhythm building from afar—drums pulsing like thunder under the ground, rattles shaking in time with the fire’s breathing.
Each “hey‑ya‑ho” would spiral upward, carrying the chant into the trees until the forest itself began to hum.

.................

RMS' prompt.