The trunk of the trees were as white as sun-bleached bones, and the scarlet leaves shuddered without the sway of any wind, moving of its own accord like the subtle rise and fall of a person breathing. Pyrik, curiously, stepped on a loose stitch of root sticking out from the ground. The arboreous artery had a rhythmic throb, though while crushed under her boot, the throbbing ceased as fluid began to balloon at one end. The root struggled for a futile moment before the oppressive sole could not be handled no more. It burst, and a brackish fluid splattered all over the ground as though shot with a pistol. Absentmindedly, she kicked off the slime from her boot. The Red Forest was calling to her.

“The locals think that when Judgement came,” Haldane said, reining in her senses as he swept a hand across the red forest. Tree stumps dotted the border, some stil oozing sap from getting felled by axes. Not long ago Pyrik saw Hospitallers hauling felled trees on their wagons. “The previous inhabitants on this land were convicted to become the flora that you see today. All twisted and… and still alive.” He strode over to a drooping tree and plunged his bayonet into the old, cracked bark. The red canopy shook violently as if rattled from its roots as he jammed the blade further in, before prying off a strip of bark like removing a scab. The wound oozed out the same brackish fluid that had burst from the root she stepped on. “This entire area, this red forest, has a mind of its own. Fascinating, don't you think? All the other forests I've studied have never displayed this much sentience. Passive too as far as I can tell though I can't be totally certain. It's only an assumption. So far, the only danger that appears to come out of the ruffage are the insect-like beasts that have been attacking this settlement.”

“I take it that you don’t want to risk provoking it?” Pyrik asked.

Haldane nodded. “My captain wants to simply burn every last twig to ash, and be done with this whole mess. The forest may not fight back I think, but there’s no guarantee the fire would take out the beasts and not unleash them all onto the settlement.”

“And potentially spread the illness.”

“Precisely. That’s the risk I’ve been trying to tell my captain, yet I get rebuffed each and every time. But perhaps, with your expertise as a Jaeger, maybe you could convince him to stay the fire for now. Think of another way.”

Pyrik stared into the broad horizon of red and white foliage. There could be a dozen, or a hundred beasts lurking in the forest. The way to truly find out would be to venture inside. “How far have you gone into the forest?”

“Not too far before needing to be pulled out.”

“How… so?”

Haldane blinked, looking unenthusiastic as he turned to one of his men and ordered, “Potash, bring me the rope.”

Potash, a man with olive skin and ocean green eyes who wore his visor up, shot Haldane with a wary look. “Are you sure?”

“It’d be easier than explaining it to her.”

“Alright,” Potash said, walking to the cart with a weighty gait as though the rope was for a noose. He handed the bundle to Haldane, and then to Pyrik a piece of advice: “try not to puke.”

Pyrik furrowed her brow at Haldane, expecting an explanation. His lips were pressed tight as he tied the rope around her waist.

“About thirty paces should do.” Haldane tugged on the knot several times to check that it was secure. “Pull on the rope when you want to get out.”

She glanced at the rest of the Hospitallers standing by the cart, one of them gave her an ambiguous salute.

The confidence is absolutely inspiring. Pyrik thought as she took her first step into the red forest.

Asides from the unusual megaflora that populated the area, Pyrik could have mistaken the forest like any other she had traveled through. Dead leaves littered the forest floor; they crunched beneath her boots. The canopy above shimmered in a brilliant display of red against the light of the setting sun. And the quiet was the sort of sublime that she savoured like the last bite of honey cake, even sedating the voice inside her. However, there was an observation that could not be ignored—so far she had not seen or heard any animals yet. Not a single squirrel scurried up a tree, or a bird song filled the silence. This quiet, this stillness, was the kind that presided over a field of freshly slain after a battle. It was serenity.

The forest felt quite homely too. It reminded her of the cool mornings, the logs fed into the fireplace to warm up the cabin. Whether it was rain, snow or sweltering summer, Darius would take Pyrik into the woods after breakfast to train in the ways of using guns and blades. The clanging of steel, the crack of firearms, the symphony would last from sunrise to noon before breaking for lunch. It was during those moments when her ears stopped ringing that she lied on the grass. Eyes closed. She listened for the birds, the bend of the branches, taking in as much of it in before she had to train once more. She only sampled the memory for a moment, for a while it was sweet, before inevitably turning sour.

Pyrik was nearly fooled into thinking she was alone in the red forest, like when she was in the forest near her home, until a few leaves started drifting down from above. She peered up and saw a crow perched upon a branch, observing her with an uncanny fixation.

The crow tilted its head to one side. Hello there, little one. You’ve finally come.

Pyrik blinked, stunned to say the least. Before she could think anything of it though, the sharp snap of a twig had her immediately twisting toward the noise, gun in hand, prepared to fire until she saw it was only Haldane.

“Oh, good,” he said, relieved, while steadying himself against a tree. A knife in hand. “I thought you might have fainted.”

“Why would you think I’d faint?”

Haldane opened his mouth to respond, yet he only wretched out the contents of his stomach rather than any intelligible words. She hurried toward him before he toppled over, looking gravely pale.

The red forest has an effect on people it seems, leaving them completely disoriented and senseless. Except for her, somehow. Or at least not yet, anyways. She would rather not wait to find out. When Haldane could not put one foot after the other and devolved to crawling on his hands and knees, Pyrik carried him over her shoulder like a large sack of flour. He groaned, mumbled, and occasionally punctuated the trudge out of the forest with loud dry-heaving that made her cringe each time. Pyrik and her coat could not be more relieved when the red-and-white coalesced into a comforting green. Haldane certainly seemed to think so as he grabbed fistfuls of grass after she lowered him to the ground.

Potash was holding the other end of her rope, and his brow perked up at Pyrik with a profound surprise. “And here I thought he was the one who’d come out with the rescue. Who knew the forest would make a moron out of him a second time.”

“I’m amazed it didn’t make a mess out of you like it did to me,” Haldane said after a moment on the grass. “I had to get Potash to drag me out when I first stumbled in there.”

“Covered in vomit too,” Potash added.

“That’s why none of our scouts could be sent in to properly assess the situation. They’d only get confused and lost in there. Nobody managed to hold their constitution other than… well... you.”

Pyrik untied the rope from her waist and threw it down. “That’s not true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw a crow. In the forest.”

“A crow?” Haldane sat up, renewed by the information. “All the other animals I’ve sent in never returned… Are you sure?”

“Positively.”

With some assistance from Potash, Haldane staggered up to his feet. “I think it’s time to meet the captain.”

Pyrik glanced at the Red Forest, uncertain as to whether she should leave. Yet the glow of remaining daylight filtered through the red canopy dissuaded any thought of returning in. The day was drawing to an end, and a forest at night was a dangerous place to be in. Her answers simply had to wait. She followed the Hospitallers to the settlement, satisfaction delayed though hopefully for not much longer.