The forest was quiet, but it wasn’t silent.
It was the kind
of quiet that had a heartbeat, subtle but steady. The soft
rustle of leaves underfoot, the chirp of crickets in the
distance, the occasional drip of water from a fern as the
last remnants of dew fell away. The trees stood like
ancient sentinels, their branches reaching toward each
other, weaving a canopy that filtered the sunlight into
beams that danced on the forest floor. It was the kind of
place that felt both timeless and fleeting, as though the
world itself was holding its breath.
A woman walked along the narrow path, her steps light
but deliberate, the soles of her boots barely making a
sound as they pressed into the soft earth. She wore a
long coat, dark green, nearly blending in with the moss-
covered rocks that dotted the trail. Her hair was tied
back in a loose braid, a few strands escaping to frame
her face as she moved with purpose but without haste.
She had been walking for hours, maybe longer, but time
seemed irrelevant here. The forest had a way of
distorting it, stretching minutes into hours, hours into
moments. She wasn’t lost, not exactly. But she had
wandered far from where she had started, and the
landscape around her was unfamiliar, even if it all
looked the same: towering trees, tangled vines, and a
thick underbrush that seemed to swallow the path
whole.
But she wasn’t worried. She knew this place. Or, at
least, she had once known it. The memory of it had
been a dream she could almost touch—familiar yet
distant, like a song she could remember hearing long
ago, but not quite the lyrics.
The air grew cooler as she moved deeper into the forest,
the trees closing in around her like walls of green. The
path ahead twisted and turned, disappearing around
corners, vanishing into shadows. She felt a stirring,
something deep within her that urged her forward. She
had come here for a reason, even if she couldn't quite
recall what that reason was. Something was waiting for
her, something she needed to find.
The sound of water reached her ears then—gentle,
almost soothing. She quickened her pace, the promise
of a stream or river pushing her onward. The path
narrowed, and she had to duck under low-hanging
branches, her coat brushing against the damp ground.
The trees opened up at last, revealing a small clearing.
In the center, a crystal-clear stream wound its way
through the rocks, catching the sunlight in a thousand
sparkling ripples.
She stopped at the edge of the water, watching the flow
of it, the way the current danced around the stones,
never halting, always moving forward. And for a
moment, she simply stood there, letting the peace of it
wash over her.
But then, something caught her eye. A shape in the
water, half-hidden among the shadows of the rocks. She
crouched down, her fingers brushing the surface of the
stream, and pulled out a small, smooth stone. It was
unlike any stone she had ever seen—black as night with
veins of silver running through it, almost as if it had
been forged by something beyond this world.
Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know why, but she
knew that stone was important. And somewhere deep
inside, she understood that her journey was far from
over. The forest was leading her somewhere, and this
stone, this strange artifact, was the key.
She stood, holding the stone in her hand, and the forest
seemed to hold its breath with her.
