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FOLLOW SUNSET
The way is hardgoing. Often, your foot plunges through the mossy substrate into watter-filled holes. Eventually you find stability by stepping from exposed root to exposed root. Your lungs feel better too, less heavy. Perhaps you have become accustomed to the air.
It has only just registered with you how quiet and still everything is. There is no breeze. The water has no current. No birds sing, no wildlife stirs. No footprints, except yours. No leaves have fallen from the trees.
In fact, every spot on all the trees appears healthy and unnervengly so. There is no sign of disease, nor has a tree fallen from its age. Carefully, you reach out to touch the trunk of the nearest tree. As your fingers brush its polished surface, you jerk back, yelling, for the tree is unnaturally hot. A moment later, you hear a deep rumbling within the trunk, the sound lengthening and becoming altered until you can hear a voice. Someone in pain, no, or merely the tree groaning.
Behind you, there is a splash.
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