Entering the shady pergola path, I keep a watchful eye on both the fallen hedge to my front and an occasional glance to the path behind me; the standing hedges were thick and bulky enough that I didn’t believe something could lunge through them without making enough noise to alert me to an assailant.

The distance between me and the collapsed hedge grew smaller, my steps becoming quieter and slower as I closed in. Once I reached the fallen hedge, I inspected my surroundings. The hedge had collapsed in such a fashion that I would need to physically crawl underneath to get past it, not exactly something I was overly keen on doing.

I look around to find where the surrounding hedgerows this fallen piece could have originated from, but to my dismay, there were no gaps in the deep green walls all around, not even directly above me. I tried to run my hand along with the thick tangles of leaves; I must have suspected that there was some illusion going on, and there was, in fact, a gap somewhere for me to use. To my dismay, there were no gaps or holes for me to exploit; it appeared almost as if the fallen hedge had just manifested itself from thin air to block this path in particular.

I really didn’t want to crawl under this thing; I wouldn’t be able to retreat or even attempt to protect myself while pinned underneath. This assumed that I could outrun or outmatch the kind of things that I assumed a place like this could conjure up on a whim. But it was apparent that I wouldn’t have a say in this matter; if I wanted to get to the bottom of the mysterious scratches and why I woke up by the obelisk, I would have to bite the bullet and claw my way underneath.

I get down on all fours by the bush and inspect the space underneath, a few branches and clusters of leaves contacted the pavement, but there was more than enough room for me to crawl through. I sighed painfully, reach a hand under to grasp one of the branches and pulled myself forward, my head on a constant swivel sweeping for any movement around me.

The internals of the hedge surrounded me. From this peculiar position, I could see just how bizarre these plants truly were; I could see how the main stem jutted and jagged around wildly with an equal disregard to organic designs in nature. In my mind, there was no doubt that these things must have been some kind of engineered flora rather than naturally formed plants.

Interestingly it appeared that the scratches continued under the hedge with me; coincidentally, they made for decent grips to help hasten my travel through this claustrophobic space.

The geometric leaves on this fallen hedge were surprisingly well maintained, just like the foliage of the living and intact hedges around the rest of the garden. It was rather confusing to see that this thing had collapsed seemingly out of nowhere only to remain in absolutely perfect condition just like the rest of the plants, was this bush supposed to be collapsed like this?

I manage to pull myself to the other side of the fallen hedge, somehow failing to receive any scratches or cuts from the bevelled leaves all around. How precisely I managed this is beyond my comprehension, but I hoped that this kind of luck would continue for the rest of the night.

Climbing to my feet, I could smell sweet woody and pollen-laden air faintly all around me as if I was slowly entering the outermost edges of a vast, untamed forest deep in the wilderness. I could even ever so distantly hear the song of those bizarre pipe organ sounding birds again from several nights ago, very quietly though, so they must have been some considerable distance away.

Much to my dismay, there appeared to be no sign of an end to this pergola passage in sight; instead, the path bent sharply to the left and seemed to descend gradually. Thankfully the scratches continued along the path, so at the very least, I knew that the passage before me was indeed the correct way. With nowhere else to go other than forward, I followed the curved path, bringing me deeper into the shade.

Around a minute or two later, the path stopped bending to the left and instead started to curve, twist, climb and descend in an entirely random and sporadic fashion, all the more disorientating as the light grew yet more obscured. I must have been walking that path for at least five minutes by the time I witness the tell-tale sign of natural light in the distance, the very recognition of said illumination prompting me to hasten forth, wanting nothing more than to leave the twisting tunnel. The smell of wood and pollen was getting stronger, and the bird songs got louder and closer.

I surged forward around the final bend in the path. I could see before me the very end of the pergola passageway, the final arch opening the covered pavement to the seemingly untamed wilderness before me. A thick fog rolled in from this opening; even a good thirty or so feet from the arch, the fog was up to my ankles and clinging to my shoes.

Walking through the fog which, by the time I reached the final arch, was halfway up my shins and was so thick that the pale screen completely obscured my feet, I exit the pergola and gasp in amazement at what I was witnessing.

I could see hundreds, no, thousands of the sail-trees stretching out for what seemed like miles before me, far larger than the ones in the memorial garden or the segment adjacent to it. Their stems were easily at least eight feet in diameter at their base while the trunk stretched high above. If I had to guess, they were easily three or four times the height of the previous trees I saw. Their sail leaves blustered and waved above, the gentle creaking of the intricate webs of their seemingly prehensile branches shifting and rotating with the wind clicked out intermittently. Interestingly it appeared that some of the trees had overlapping branches and leaves. However, the prehensile branches were able to untangle themselves slowly with ease.

From this far below the constantly mobile canopy, I noticed that the branches appeared to extrude a pulsing crimson sap from the bases of the leaves; the sap stuck closely to the branches and travelled their lengths towards the stem where it disappeared into the tree at large. The more I watched, the more trees I noticed doing this; perhaps it was some kind of unusual method of transporting sugar created in the leaves to the rest of the plant?

I could also see some faint red mist-like clouds in the distance reaching down from the branches high above. It was challenging to tell exactly what was causing it, but it appeared that the branches would occasionally release small clouds of the crimson sap. These dust, or sap clouds, appeared to be rather thick and difficult to miss around the trunks of the trees but further out, they became thinner. Perhaps this stuff acted like a natural fertilizer that nourished the rest of the flora here?

Clumped up tightly around the bases of these magnificent trees were a veritable vibrant carpet of flowers, bushes and an assortment of other plants all matted together. Judging by their proximity, I assumed that the tree must provide some kind of nutrient or material that the plants needed; there were very few of them far from the trees, and those that were away from the trunks were smaller and less vibrant, supporting my theory that the crimson sap was some kind of fertilizer. The colours were so lively, and the light they emitted was so bright that, after being in the shaded passage for a good five minutes or so, my eyes burned when I looked upon them for the first time, though thankfully this would pass in a few minutes.

Close to me, I could see excessively tall neon grass all around, and it must easily reach up to just below my knees, in a multicoloured layer covering the ground in its entirety. While the fog concealed the dirt, the grass almost entirely obscured the fog; only a few rogue droplets of water and the occasional droplet of the crimson sap littered the immaculate fields of greens, blues, orange and purple grasses.

Whether it was that this place was simply wilder than the gardens or if the crimson sap was making such a massive difference was something I couldn’t tell, but it was clear that this place was so much more “alive”, so to say compared to the gardens; the sheer walls of bright colours and sweet smells in the air was truly incredible to behold.

I hear the sound of something squawking above and behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I spot something travelling rather slowly through the air, almost as if it was floating rather than flying. The vibrant mass turned out to be some kind of four-winged bird, its feathers being so colourful clashed tremendously with its bone-like beak and talons.

The bird’s wings were exceptionally long for something its size. They were a mixture of feathered and membranous, structurally akin to bats wings with thicker “fingers” covered in feathers and a thin membrane of skin stretched between them. One pair of wings reached far to the birds' sides while the other pair trailed behind, almost as if the first pair were purely for elevation while the other for propulsion. However, when the bird approached one of the trees, its wings appeared to flap circularly, as if its shoulders were able to dislocate and flap both the sets as one.

The bird's twin wings flapped in opposing yet mesmerizing patterns as it drifted mindlessly through the air. Occasionally it would call out with its oddly soothing song, its body somehow producing sounds akin to a church organ. Far off in the distance, I could hear several other birds call back, that or it was simply the echo of the first call; it was hard to tell at this stage.

An out of focus monochrome blob flies past me at pace, followed by several other rough blobs. I turn to follow the blobs and identify them as those strange Ashen Bees from previous nights. Following their clumsy flight, I watch them fly back to a large bulbous orange mass underneath one of the sail-tree branches. The mass must have been a truly massive hive for the bees, apparently made from some kind of orange clay considering the texture, though it could be dirt mixed with the crimson tree sap.

While I stood there watching the bees, I saw many larger bees leaving the hive and flying down to the grass. They appeared to be cutting a few inches off the tallest blades of grass and bringing them back to the hive. I wondered if these bees could grow their own food like leafcutter ants in the real world do; perhaps the nest housed a fungal garden which could feed the bees, though, for creatures of their size, I doubted that conventional fungus alone could keep them satiated.

Whatever they were doing, I would presumably have more than ample time to investigate this matter further at a later date; I had far more pressing queries to chase at this time.

I turn my attention back to the pavement by the pergola I had just exited and briefly checked the slabs. I could see that the path continued for around twenty feet from the archway. However, the path was slowly overtaken by dirt for a further ten feet leaving only a rough dirt path in its place. The dirt path was also eventually consumed by the lively grass; the road simply melted away into the wilderness in its entirety. Whatever or whoever built this road did so a long time ago, that or they simply didn’t perform any kind of maintenance and nature reclaimed it for its own. Was this place abandoned? Or was it simply a designated wilderness space that became consumed by nature?

I could see that the scratches exited the passageway and followed the pavement a few meters before me, only to disappear a few feet short of the overgrown slabs completely…

As one can imagine, this posed a rather serious conundrum; either whatever had created the scratches and potentially dragged me to the obelisk was either something I’ve not encountered yet that can disappear or float above the ground, or The Statue can levitate or cease to exist at will, especially concerning since that thing was more than capable of attacking me and causing actual problems outside of my dreams.

As one can also imagine, neither of these possibilities were exactly ideal or favourable in any way, shape or form...

With nowhere else to go other than to wander blindly, in a cartographic sense that is, into the woods, I set off to see if the path eventually emerges from the soil or to find something of relative importance among the bushes and trees.

I walked off of the path and into the endless fields of bright grass; I could taste iron in the air from the crimson sap dust drifting all around me while the grass rustled in the gentle breeze. High above me, the sail-trees continued to roar and bellow, loud groans erupting as their trunks and branches repositioned slightly as the air-flow changed ever so slightly.

I could barely see anything below my knees while walking through the thick layers of grass, and I could feel the texture and general feel of the grass change with the colour; the deep purple and blueish grasses were surprisingly difficult to walk through while the orangeish grass was so light I could barely feel it while moving through it.

I must have been walking aimlessly for a good twenty minutes before something caught my eye, something pale and dull slumped up against the base of an especially large sail-tree, something which was not surrounded by plants but rather isolated from the rest of the flora. The bleached look and the desiccated silhouette was unmistakable. Even at this distance, it was blindingly apparent what I was looking at. It appeared that I had stumbled across the remains of someone far less fortunate than I was, the parched skeleton laid against the tree trunk almost as if they were resting against it and never moved again.

Approaching the skeleton, I could see that its rib cage had a rather bizarre property. Its ribs appeared to be fused into three separate plates. One down the middle and around the neck and one either side going under the shoulders, a rather unusual configuration that one must assume would be deeply unpleasant to live with, perhaps a mutation brought about by the warping effects of this alien place?

Getting closer to the remains, I notice something rather strange protruding from the ground beside the cadaver, something stout and roughly oval in shape. It appeared to be the handle of something embedded in the dirt. The material was extraordinary and looked like compacted dust or ash, judging by blotchy shades of grey and white all over it. Upon closer inspection and noticing particles of dirt around the entire object, it must have been there for a long time. Maybe the individual who died here owned whatever it was in the ground.

Curious about what precisely this object was, I approach the skeleton and pause for a moment; whether it was out of respect for the deceased or paranoia, I could not say, but I felt compelled to stop for a moment. The empty sockets in the skull pierced by gaze; it was almost as if I could feel the long-dead staring back up at me, watching this new stranger approaching and gawking at them.

After paying my respects to the dead, whether or not it ultimately mattered in this place, I crouch down and grasp the mysterious handle firmly. I attempted to pull the item free from the dirt to no avail. Whatever it was, it was firmly stuck in the ground. With another, far more determined, yank, I send myself toppling onto my back with the handle held tightly in my grasp.

Now that I had the object in my possession, I could have a much closer look at just what precisely it was. The object appeared to be a large dagger of some kind; from the base of the handle to the blade's tip, it must have been only one and a half feet or so in length. But what made this thing so strange was its shape; normally, daggers were designed as either a tool to bypass an opponents armour or a last-stand weapon of sorts. However, this thing’s blade and shape hinted at a different function entirely. The blade was rather thick, by dagger standards, and had a tip offset by around thirty degrees leading me to believe that this thing was meant to be swung like a machete.

The dagger was entirely without a guard and, due to its design, made me question what precisely it was meant to do; since I was studying medieval history, I was no stranger to swords and all sorts of weapons of this kind, but this thing completely threw me. The only conclusion I could draw that made sense was that this was meant to be a primary weapon while another “dagger” existed at some point. That or the culture that made this thing, for some reason, had a reason to stylize their weapons like this.

My rampant thoughts about what precisely I was looking at and how many separate, basic rules of “small, one-handed melee weapon design philosophy 101” were being utterly disregarded by this thing was cut short, however by something that would surpass any of my prior concerns about this thing.

The weapon began to vibrate in my hand, and I could feel vibrations coming from inside the handle, which suggested something was happening to it. I could feel it writhing against my hand, attempting to free itself...