The forest was not spectacular or lackluster. It didn't not dazzle or gleam with brilliance, it simply existed. No greetings or hostility in its presence. If anything it seemed aloof.
Pluto stood where his apartment had dissolved in mist. The fog swirled around him as if adjusting to his shape. The air was humid and cool, and pleasantly so. It smelled of wet bark, earth that had basked in darkness for years and a thin metallic scent that only blood could give.
The tall were comical tall, spiralling upwards out of sight. Their trunks and branches lacked uniformity, some twisted slightly, others stood at unnatural angles, exposed roots resembling grasping fingers before sinking back into the soil that looked too dark to be ordinary dirt.
He blinked curiously.
The light here was odd. It broke through the mist in thin rays that never fully vanquished the darkness. The mist absorbed brightness greedily, swallowing definition. Even the air seemed to lack its invisible texture, almost becoming a vacuum.
Nothing moved. Silence was sovereign. And yet something watched. Maybe it was paranoia, or the crooked canopy of trees, or something else entirely.
The eel painting rested soothingly against his forearm, fully formed now. The paint was darker and glossier than before, swallowing light instead of reflecting it. Its gills carried depth that was supposed to be impossible for its dimension. The lines were like tiny overlapping plates rather than joined dots. When he moved his hand, the coils shifted with it, trying to find balance. He swallowed hard.
The companion held a certain familiarity he couldn't name. It was incredibly detailed, description existing down to the smallest slit of darkness. It wasn't foreign, just as much as a part of him as his lungs were.
Then a breeze moved through the trees. Or something that seemed like wind. The mist shifted with intention. It parted slightly and hung low, flowing around obstacles too subtle to notice. The movement was slow, so slow that only patience could see it.
He took a step forward, carefully. The forest floor was soft and stable, thick layered moss intertwined by complex root systems that coiled just beneath the surface. When his shoes pressed down, the earth seemed to give out for a moment before strengthening again. Like a deflated bounce castle.
Silence deepened as he walked. He didn't know what direction he was moving in. There was no sun to follow, no landmarks to remember. At first glance everything seemed similar, but the subtle differences came after he focused long enough. Texture differences, scars along barks, curves in structure, patches of moss. He tried to memorize them even when it seemed impossible.
'Ten steps from the Sam tree, twelve remaining to the swamp puddle'.
The air shifted in temperature. Not dramatically. Just enough to register.
His breath slowed. His gaze sharpened. He didn't know the importance of the temperature shift, he only knew that it mattered. The eel along his arm tightened imperceptibly, its body growing closer to his skin. Not constricting. Anchoring.
Subconsciously he turned left by a few angles without knowing why. Walked forward again. The breeze was back, but stronger. It came as a rustle echoing somewhere in the nearby distance. He froze. It wasn't far, not like it had been a moment ago.
It sounded heavy with mass and uneven in shape. Like something crashing through the foliage without a care.
Another rustle. Then again.
And then–
Footsteps. Rapid and panicked. The sounds cut through the forest like a blade. Pluto's head turned sharply towards the sound as soon as he ascertained the location. He tightened up.
A figure burst through the mist filling the spaces in-between the trees. It was a girl. Seventeen, maybe younger. Her hair was messy, tangled against her face and draped in sweat. Her breaths were sharp and coming in desperation gags. Her clothes were streaked with dirt and torn in multiple places.
She didn't see him at first. Her gaze was focused on what was hungrily trailing her.
"Run!" She shouted the moment her eyes caught his. Her voice cracked with urgency.
Pluto didn't question her. He didn't show scepticism or hesitation. There wasn't time for that.
Behind her, the forest moved. Not like wind or branches. It moved in sections. With ferociousness in its motion along with a strange intelligence.
Trunks bent and snapped close by. Leaves shivered and soil slid without reasonable cause. The rustling intensified, low and dense, skidding like something large, capable of displacing vegetations by passing by.
The girl reached him, grabbing his wrist without slowing down. Her hand was chilling.
"It's coming" she said bluntly.
His brain had barely accepted the words when he began to run. The forest swallowed their footsteps, drowning it in its definition destroying presence.
The forest blurred into a hue of green and grey. Branches scraped against his jacket. Roots shifted underfoot. The mist sung behind them, following them in soft waves.
Behind them, something crashed frantically. Not fast as he expected, but relentless. It displaced weight as it impacted trees with its coarse body.
Pluto's chest tightened, but this time it was of his own will. They dashed between trees that seemed like gates to places of no return. The girl pulled him right, then forward, then to a sharp left in a clanky random motion.
The forest ahead of them shifted with style. Roots rising and dipping with the ground that flowed almost like a river bank.
He felt it before he saw it. A slight drag along his arm. The eel coiled purposefully, adjusting its position.
Abruptly, Pluto veered right.
"Where are you going?!" the girl hissed.
"Trust me", he replied, unsure of how to explain the feeling to her. He had no idea was he had chosen where he did. It just felt less obscure, less wrong. Warmth filtered in from ahead.
Behind them, the crashing grew louder. A low growl followed, as though granite scraped against granite to produce the sound.
They leapt over a fallen tree, the cut looking so clean that he couldn't help but wonder what had made it. But that wasn't the concerning part. He was almost certain that it hadn't been there a heartbeat ago. The mist clothed them as they ran, thick and rolling.
He took another sharp turn, the decision devoid of conscious thought. He just moved.
The eel's body tightened along his arm again as it angled its head forward to taste the air.
It angled towards the cooler atmosphere. The ground there gave in less. He didn't know that until his foot landed there and held steady.
Behind them the crashing mass slowed. Not stopping, but pausing. They too slowed instinctively.
Just then a tree a few yards away bent sideways at an angle that was supposed to have snapped it. Its trunk rippled abnormally, its bark demarcating along invisible seams. It seemed to refract like light.
Pluto saw it clearly now. Vines coursed through bulky trunks, thicker than ropes. They bulged beneath bark, sliding through wood like lean muscles rolling under strain.
It wasn't a tree, just something wearing one. It lunged forward without moving from its base with speed that didn't match its size. Vines whipped outwards.
Pluto grabbed the girl's arm and yanked her down. A silk vine sliced through the air just were her head had been.
They lost footing and rolled.
The forest floor sunk unexpectedly as they tumbled down a shallow incline that had been curtained by the mist. He could barely registered how fortunate that dip was.
They hit a low clearing with less roots and mist that thinned upon entering.
The pursuer crashed into things above them, but it didn't follow them. It stopped at the ridge.
Through the mist, pluto saw its abominable shape. Like a hound twice the size of anything he had seen. In its maw laid the vine that had swiped at them.
Slowly, it retreated back into the forest. Everywhere remained still, silent and watching.
Pluto and the girl remained on the forest floor, breathing hard but shallow enough not to make noise.
Neither of them spoke as the sounds above them faded into memory and distance.
Only after the silence had completely settled did he sit up.
The girl pushed herself up to her feet first, dusting the dirt off herself.
"What... What was that?" she whispered. Pluto looked towards the ridge, a bit confused on why she asked him the question. Given, it should have been the other way around.
"It's a part of this place, I guess" he said quietly. She studied him in a way that made him uncomfortable.
"You're not from here either". It wasn't a question, but a simple fact placed between.
He rolled his eyes ever so slightly. The question was too stupid to keep a straight face.
"No".
"How long since...?" She asked.
"Not long".
She nodded as though the answer had provided enough. Pluto had designed it well enough not too.
He looked above the ridge, becoming aware of something that he couldn't fit into any of his five senses.
A shift.
The forest's temperature had changed slightly. Cooler behind them, and warmer further ahead.
'Forward'.
He stood too.
"We shouldn't stay here".
She nodded. " Do you know where to go?". He hesitated.
"No, but we have to move anyway".
He turned away and began to climb out. She followed shortly after.
Neither of them noticed the way the path ahead seemed free, scare of the usual obstacles. The roots there bowed, and the mist unveiled a few layers of itself, fueling better visibility. The footing was better too.
They moved deeper, not because a direction had been chosen, but because something quiet and extraordinary along his arm preferred it.
The forest shifted faintly with every heartbeat. And somewhere far away, something counted...and dropped in number.