Over time, Verdian climbed onto a tree branch and surveyed his surroundings. Amidst the marshy bog and dense forests, here and there, bizarre pink flowers bloomed like lotuses. A small thing, but still, it was pleasant to see some variety.
'And how am I supposed to move around here?'
The reason Verd hadn't moved from his spot was the bottomless depth of the swamp. Before climbing the tree, he had lowered his hand into the water, but even stretching as far as he could, he never touched the bottom.
Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped by now, and his leg only responded with a dull ache when he moved.
The longer Verd spent in this place, the more he noticed small, previously elusive details. For instance, on every tree there were two small indentations, like closed eyelids. Every thirteen seconds, a sound came from close by, as if a gigantic creature was breathing heavily nearby. Yet nothing suspicious was visible within his line of sight.
'To be honest, this place is far scarier than that island. Back there, at least I was floating in the air, relatively safe. Here, anything can reach me'
After another sound and a gust of scattered air, a long, thick vine swayed near Verd. Seeing it, he remembered how he had climbed onto the branch using an identical one.
Grabbing it with his hand, he tugged several times, and his face lit up with a smile. The solution to his movement problem had been right before his eyes all along.
'How careless of me' he thought, carefully wrapping it around his arm. 'I hope my arm can handle this'
All that remained was to try. As terrifying as it was, the vine, as thick as a wrist and covered in rough bark, seemed quite reliable.
'If not by land, then through the air'
The first step, or rather, the first jump, came with difficulty. The wound on his leg responded with a sharp pain, and his weakened body trembled with exertion. But staying in place meant death.
He swung and pushed off.
Branches flashed rapidly before his eyes, wind whistled in his ears. For a moment, it seemed he would crash into a trunk, but it turned out fine. He landed heavily on a wide branch, nearly slipping off the edge.
'It worked!' he thought joyfully. 'Lucky these trees are so enormous. If they were smaller, I'd have drowned in that black sludge by now.'
From that moment began his grueling, slow journey. Verd moved from tree to tree, using vines like ropes. Sometimes they tore under his weight, and he barely managed to grab a random branch. His arm quickly tired, his back ached, and the wound on his leg kept reminding him with a searing pain. But he didn't stop.
The forest below him lived its own life. Bubbles occasionally appeared in the black swamp mire, and sometimes something large and dark would surface, only to sink back into the depths. The air was thick, humid, smelling of decay and flowers. A strange, cloying fragrance that made his head spin slightly. The pink lotuses, floating among the mossy roots, seemed the only bright spot in this gloomy landscape.
Verd had already covered several hundred meters this way when he noticed something strange. After sunset, the eyes carved into the trees—the very same ones he'd seen on the first tree—began to change expression.
'Surely I just imagined it?' Verd thought, staring at a tree.
Where there had once been mere slits, he now discerned a squint, and in some places, even the semblance of a gaze. And they were watching him. Not all at once, but one by one, as if the forest was waking up and taking notice of an uninvited guest.
The breathing sound he'd heard earlier had completely vanished. After such abrupt changes and rising paranoia, Verd quickened his pace, barely looking where he was going, grabbing vines and swinging from tree to tree. The wound on his leg throbbed so badly he could hardly ignore it. But he couldn't afford to stop.
Yet the forest would not let him go. Suddenly, the vine he grabbed didn't just snap—it was as if someone had yanked it from below. Verd plummeted downward but managed to catch the edge of a massive hollow in a trunk. Hanging by one arm, he saw something enormous slowly rising from the swamp.
Mustering his last strength, he braced himself against the trunk and climbed inside the hollow, freezing in anticipation. First, a protrusion on its back emerged from the water, black as the very heart of the swamp. Then came a long, pointed head with burning red eyes. The creature rose slowly, its appearance accompanied by the crack of splintering wood and the squelch of mud.
Verd held his breath, trying not to betray himself with any unnecessary movement.
'This monster is enormous... maybe three times bigger than that bird. It probably doesn't have the same weakness as blindness' flashed through his mind.
He pressed his back against the damp, warm wood of the hollow, feeling its surface faintly pulse beneath his fingers, as if the tree itself were breathing. His heart pounded so violently that it seemed even the low hum of the swamp might not drown out its beat. He forced himself to breathe slower, deeper, remembering how he'd done this as a child in the mines, hiding from overseers. His thoughts raced like mad things, clutching at the tiniest details, trying to find some foothold in this primal panic.
'What luck that I jumped to this particular tree. The hollow is roomy enough, but as long as they don't see me point-blank, I have a chance.'
Finally, the creature fully emerged from the mire. Its body resembled a giant fish, each segment crowned with sharp spines. Its red eyes, lacking eyelids, burned with a cold, merciless light. It slowly turned its head, and a beam of that light swept across the trunks, briefly illuminating Verd's dark refuge.
'Don't move. Become part of the tree. Let this freak pass me by' he commanded himself.
The creature emitted a low, gurgling sound, like a giant bubble of air bursting from the swamp's depths. It shifted its front section, and Verd tensed, expecting the mighty jaws—woven from roots and stone—to close upon his hiding place at any moment.
But that didn't happen.
The monster slowly, almost reluctantly, turned its head the other way. Its attention was drawn by something else—perhaps movement on the water, or maybe some scent.
The creature moved. It didn't swim but rather crawled, twisting its entire body, breaking young trees and sending up fountains of mud. It moved deeper into the forest, toward where the rhythmic sound of breathing had come from—now amplified, commanding. The ground beneath the tree shuddered from colossal weight, and dust fell from the hollow. Verd closed his eyes, feeling the vibration pierce his entire body.
He waited. One minute. Two. Five. Silence returned to the forest, broken only by the familiar breathing of the swamp and the rustle of leaves. Even the eyes on the trees seemed to close again, reverting to rough cuts in the bark.
Only then did he allow himself to exhale. The air escaped his lungs in a hoarse, suppressed sound. His body, locked in unnatural tension, went limp, and he was seized by a fine, uncontrollable tremor. He slid down the hollow's wall and, curling into a ball, pressed his forehead to his knees. A weak arm wrapped around his head.
'I'm still alive...'
The words echoed in his mind, bringing neither relief nor joy. Another day. Another monster he had managed to evade. Chance? Or something more?
He sat in the hollow until the trembling subsided, replaced by an icy, penetrating exhaustion. Darkness thickened, turning the forest into a sea of vague silhouettes and mysterious sounds. And somewhere in the distance, his coughs echoed from within the hollow.
After such an exhausting day, trusting this refuge, Verd closed his eyes. Feeling his consciousness slowly drift away, he sank into sleep.
***
By morning, he felt transformed. Stretching, he felt the familiar pain in his body, but... it was different. Less sharp. The wound on his leg pulsed but no longer shot with pain. He took a deep breath. The air in the hollow was stale but clean, with the scent of tree resin and the faint, subtle fragrance of those pink lotuses.
'I wonder... can I eat those flowers?'
He cautiously peered out of the hollow. The forest appeared before him in all its morning beauty. The gray shadows of night had retreated, yielding to golden-green rays piercing the foliage. The swamp below, just recently black and ominous, now shimmered in the sunlight like a dark emerald expanse enlivened by the soft pink glow of lotuses, like a shy blush.
Verd emerged from his shelter, inhaling deeply the damp, intoxicating air. Hunger twisted his stomach, reminding him with a sharp pang. Eat the flowers? The thought seemed insane, but in this distorted world, absurdity had long since become reality. He decided to return to that idea if he found nothing more edible.
Finding a sturdy vine, Verd swung and jumped. The movement, almost habitual by now, still echoed with pain in his muscles and a dull heaviness in his injured leg. But he no longer thought about it; his body acted on its own, like a well-oiled mechanism, casting him from vine to vine, from tree to tree.
With every meter he covered, the forest changed inexorably. The trees rose ever higher, their trunks growing mightier, their bark covered in ever more bizarre, mesmerizing patterns.
'I still feel like these trees are watching me. Maybe I really am going mad.'
He had advanced another hundred meters or so, completely focused on finding his next foothold, when suddenly the vine he'd just grabbed snapped with a crack. For an instant, he hung in the air like a marionette, and then he plummeted downward.
The fall was swift and deafening. He managed only to tuck his knees to his chest before striking the water's surface with force. The impact wasn't as hard as hitting ground, but the icy shock of penetrating cold literally knocked the air from his lungs. He sank into a murky, green depths.
The water wasn't as deep as he'd expected. Three meters, maybe four. But it was thick, like jelly, and mysteriously dark. Pushing off from the bottom, covered in slippery silt, he surfaced, gasping desperately for air.
'Good thing it's not so deep here,' he thought with relief.
Swimming a bit further, Verd reached shallow water where he could walk. Earlier, high up in the trees, he hadn't noticed this, but now that he was down below, he was struck by how utterly small he seemed.
'Damn, they're much bigger than I expected. It's terrifying to think how enormous that monster really is'
After walking half a kilometer, the light began to break through more strongly, and in the distance, he could see an open space free of trees. Carefully peeking out from behind a trunk, he spotted a small island. And at its center, like a sacrifice, lay the corpse of the bird that had brought him here.