“Oh shit!” another soldier says and jumps back as the bone hedge in front of him begins to move. There are sounds of guns cocking as the men aim their weapons at the shaking patch.

“Wait,” Hemslock says suddenly.

He smashes the butt of his gun against the bramble, sending up more fragments into the air. Like the balete, the strange formations are hollow. And within—

A hand, surprisingly human, flesh instead of bark, pushes its way out of the hole that Hemslock created. It grabs at his hand.

“He’s alive!” Hemslock shouts. “Get him out!”

It’s Goatee. He is naked and shivering and as pale as the smooth limestone around them, but he’s alive and blubbering. They all get to work, frantically trying to break through the brambles to free Goatee, but with little effect.

“No,” Goatee rattles. “No!”

“Save your breath,” one of the bodyguards tells him. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“Shit,” Straw Hat says.

“There!” one of the soldiers shouts. “Above us!”

We see it. We see a creature manifesting on the ceiling, branches and roots twisting and molding themselves into a grotesque human shape. Limbs emerge from that abstract of dead forestry, followed by a blank face, a mess of twig-hair and makahiya, its twisted mouth lined with thorn-teeth.

“It’s on top of you, you assholes!” Straw Hat yells into the radio, though it seems no one can hear him. “Look up! Look up!”

Hemslock himself has already frozen, but his attention is not on the danger above them. The camera slides away from Goatee toward another figure that stares back from the darkness.

The face, or at least what face we can see of it in the dark, looks familiar. It’s a woman with long yellow hair, carefully combed and parted down in the middle, though it hides much of her face. She’s wearing a white cocktail dress. What we can see of her eyes is on Hemslock. What we see of her mouth is cruel.

“What’s Hemslock doing?” Leo Gries asks frantically. He doesn’t seem to see her. Neither do the others. But I do.

“You fucking bitch,” we hear Hemslock snarl. “I knew it.”

“I didn’t want to,” the strange girl says in a calm, clear voice. None of the other soldiers seem to see her either, even as she walks toward Hemslock. “You know I didn’t want to.”

“Shut up,” Hemslock says. “You could have had everything with me. All you needed to do was shut the fuck up.”

“Sir?” One of the soldiers asks.

Hemslock doesn’t bother with a reply. He trains the gun on the woman, the tactical light mounted on the weapon briefly highlighting her pretty features, and pulls the trigger.

The shot is loud, echoing in the cavern. A red stain spreads across the woman’s chest. She collapses.

“Sir!” An arm appears on the camera, grabbing Hemslock’s wrist while another bodyguard attempts to calm him. “Sir, what are you doing—”

Those are the last words we hear. Suddenly, the man’s head lurches forward, slamming into the camera lens. We have only a glimpse of his startled face, his bulging eyes, before he is viciously yanked back.