Seth guided the drone over the treeline, thumbs working the controller. Up here, three hundred feet above the woods behind his new house, nobody could touch him. Nobody could shove him into lockers or mimic his Yorkshire accent or ask if his mum dressed him in the dark.
The screen showed nothing but green canopy stretching towards the horizon. He pushed the drone deeper, beyond the walking trails, beyond the bits mapped on his phone. The battery indicator flashed amber. Five minutes left, maybe less.
Then he saw it.
A clearing opened up below, a perfect circle of moss and wildflowers. Figures moved in the centre. Seth brought the drone lower, heart quickening. They were dancing, he thought. Or playing some game. Their movements were fluid, graceful. Beautiful.
One of them looked up.
Seth’s breath caught. The face that filled his screen was delicate, luminous even. High cheekbones. Eyes that caught the dappled sunlight. A smile spread across those fine features, warm and welcoming, and Seth felt something loosen in his chest. Something that had been tight since the move, since starting at Moorfield Academy, since becoming the boy nobody wanted to sit with.
The figure raised a hand. Beckoning.
The others turned, their faces just as lovely, just as inviting. They all smiled up at the camera. At him. Their hands lifted in gentle waves, movements that said: Come down. Join us. You’re welcome here.
The battery died. The screen went black.
Seth stood in his back garden for a long moment, controller slack in his hands, staring at the dark display.
He went back the next day. And the day after. Each time, they were there. Each time, they waved and danced and smiled those perfect smiles, delighted to see the drone. Seth watched the footage late into the night, headphones on so his parents wouldn’t hear. The way they moved was hypnotic. Inhuman, but in the most beautiful way.
At school, Jayden Morrison knocked Seth’s lunch tray from his hands. The contents splattered across the canteen floor while everyone laughed. Seth just smiled and cleaned it up. He had somewhere to be after school. Somewhere he was wanted.
On Thursday, reviewing the latest footage, Seth noticed something odd. In one frame, a shadow fell wrong. In another, when the tallest figure turned its head, the movement continued a fraction too far, the neck bending at an angle that made his stomach flip. He rewound, watched again. No, it was fine. Just the light.
That night, he dreamed of the glade. Of those welcoming faces. Of finally belonging somewhere.
Friday afternoon, Seth told his mum he was going for a walk. Exploring the neighbourhood. She seemed pleased he was getting out of his room for once.
He took his phone. And the drone. Just to show them, he told himself. To prove he’d really come.
The woods were quiet. Birdsong and the crunch of his trainers on the path. He left the trail after ten minutes, pushing through undergrowth. His phone lost signal.
He launched the drone, let it rise above the canopy. On the controller screen, it showed him the way—darting ahead through the trees, leading him deeper. Almost as if it knew where to go. As if something else was flying it.
He didn’t question it. The glade was close now. He could feel it.
The trees opened up and there it was. The perfect circle. The moss. The wildflowers.
They were waiting.
Seth’s heart soared. They were even more beautiful up close, their skin glowing in the filtered sunlight. The tallest one—the first who’d looked up at his drone—stepped forward with that same warm smile.
“We’ve been hoping you’d come,” it said, and its voice was like water over stones.
Seth walked forward, grinning. The drone hovered at the clearing’s edge, its camera trained on the scene, still recording.
The figures formed a circle. Their hands reached out, cool fingers brushing his arms, his face. Welcoming him. Accepting him.
“One of us now,” the tallest one said, and Seth nodded eagerly.
“One of us,” he echoed.
The drone circled closer, lens focused. Seth didn’t wonder why it was moving on its own, why his hands were empty. The thought never formed.
The tallest figure’s smile widened. Too wide. Its fingers tightened on Seth’s shoulders.
“Smile for the camera,” it whispered.
Seth felt his mouth stretch. Felt something shift in his face, bones rearranging, jaw unhinging. His lips split at the corners, kept splitting, the smile growing until it was teeth and darkness and bottomless joy.
The drone’s camera captured it all. The circle of beautiful figures. The boy in the centre, his face transformed—pale skin stretched over sharp bones, that ghastly grin splitting his face from ear to ear, eyes gone black and empty and delighted.
Seth turned his head towards the drone. The movement continued past where it should have stopped, neck bending at that impossible angle. And he smiled. He really smiled.
The feed cut out.
Three days later, Seth’s mum reported him missing. Police searched the woods with dogs and helicopters. They found his phone near an old oak, battery dead, no useful data.
They never found the boy.
Sometimes, hikers report strange lights deep in the forest. Dancing figures in a clearing that doesn’t appear on any map. A drone circling overhead, its camera pointed down, recording something it was never meant to see.
And if you listen carefully on still afternoons, you might hear laughter. Young voices, joyful and bright.
Welcoming.
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