Yan Liu opened her eyes.

The sky was drab and grey. The air smelled of ozone and dampness, as if it had rained recently. The sharp pricks of dry leaves poked Liu's back.

With a groan, she raised herself onto her elbows. Fog rippled around her, obscuring the black trunks of the trees. The ground was littered with moss and discarded needles. There was no sound, no wind, no motion.

Liu was staggering with confusion. She could not imagine any series of events that could have led to her lying in this forest. There was the vague memory of a great interstellar voyage, the establishment of Eridu, even the Iapetus expedition. Now she was in a temperate woodland. Gravity seemed to have returned to what it was on Earth, and was now much softer. She rose to her feet with incredible, beautiful ease.

Perhaps Gaea had been nothing more than a vivid dream? The prospect frightened Liu; the grand foreignness of the planet may have been nothing but a figment of her imagination. All of it. For the moment, it was the most viable explanation, though not a happy one.

But there were more pressing matters to attend to. There were no obvious signs of civilization in sight, and wild forests were not generally the most hospitable of areas. She attempted to connect to the global emergency network, but found nothing. She couldn't even connect to a positioning satellite. The trees might still tell her something.

Liu approached a nearby tree and tentatively identified its needles and cones as those of a Scots pine. The tree was one of the more common ones in the world, and its presence only confirmed that she was somewhere in northern Eurasia. Or she might have it all wrong. She could just as easily be in the Americas. She decided it didn't really matter. No matter where she was, there would be a town or a railroad or something soon enough. Liu picked a direction and began walking.

The light level climbed, and a phantom spot of milky light appeared above the invisible horizon. The fog never seemed to lift, even as the sun rose. Hours of continual travel offered no deviation in either terrain or weather conditions. She eventually found a large stone, shrouded in moss and lichen, that sat between two tree trunks.

Liu began to worry; why was the global comm network unavailable? It was supposed to extend to every corner of the planet. She sat at the base of the rock and stared at the pale green crowns of the twin pines above. Liu realized that she had yet to find an edible plant.

It was then that she noticed a bird perching in the branches. It was almost perfectly camouflaged, colored grey with spots of black. The bird was nearly half a meter tall. It sat motionless in the tree, mirroring the perfect quiet of the forest.

The bird, apparently realizing that it was being watched, fluidly rotated its head to face downward. Liu was met with two circular yellow orbs nestled in twin rings of black feathers. The owl then spread its wings, all two meters of them, and silently took to the air.

The owl was a Great gray, and an exceedingly large one at that. It was found only in the Siberian taiga, one of the few places that still supported the expanses of frigid woodland that it needed to feed itself. The forests were several thousand kilometers across, but at least Liu now had her position narrowed to a continent.

Seeing another living animal heartened Liu slightly. She got up and began heading west, judging by the position of the sun. If she really was in Siberia, west would eventually lead her to Europe. Whether she would survive that long was questionable.

The sun arced across the sky. At no point did the fog burn off, despite the mounting heat. The combination of hot, humid air took its toll on Liu, and she made pitifully little headway as the day progressed. Annoyingly, there had been absolutely nothing of interest since the owl and the stone, nothing but more identical trees. The sun began to set, and Liu decided to settle for the night.

With some difficulty, she managed to remove some of lower branches of nearby pine and break them into kindling. The dead leaves that made up the groundcover served as tinder, and two stones she deemed useful as flint. By the time sparks began to spread through the dry leaves, the sun had set, and with it went Liu's remaining warmth. She shivered quietly as the fire sluggishly began to burn, casting an eerie orange glow on the screen of fog around it.

The night was uneventful. Liu heard a distant wolf howling, followed by the haunting call of the Great gray owl. Otherwise the darkness was silent. She managed to tend the fire for several hours before slipping into oblivion.

In the morning, Liu was stiff with cold. A thin crust of frost covered the refuse of the forest, and crowned the pines in glittering blue caps. The mist seemed to have abated slightly, having frozen in the night.

Liu began traveling again, shivering as she walked. The sun began to crest the tops of the trees, filtering through the needles and fog. It speared her eyes with shafts of pale yellow light. The frost began to melt as the temperature recovered, until the forest floor was just as dry as it had been the day before. It struck Liu as she traveled that the absolute uniformity of the forest was quite unusual. There should have been a hill or a ravine by now, even in the taiga.

Realizing the futility of her headlong trek into the wilderness, Liu decided to climb one of the trees and get a bearing of her surroundings. She found a young sapling growing beside its mother and used it to reach the crown of the larger tree. The leaves poked her as she climbed, and the bark tore at her hands until they were raw and bloody. When she reached the top, the wind bit at her exposed skin, carrying with it wisps of fog. The trees continued as far as she could see, islands in an ocean of mist. Liu surveyed the surrounding land in all directions: the only topographical feature in sight was a large, solitary mountain far to the south. The trees covered its lower reaches, turning to alpine shrubland and tundra, before finally giving way to bare rock and snow near the summit. A lenticular cloud hovered above the peak.

Liu silently made her way back down the pine, and began walking south. She reasoned that there was likely some outpost at the base of the mountain, and that it represented her best chance for rescue. The aura of the forest was starting to worry Liu. The lack of sound or motion put her on edge.

The sun set alarmingly quickly, and had already disappeared below the horizon by the time Liu could gather her kindling. The fire brought little warmth, and sleep was a welcome distraction from the cold.

Liu woke to the sound of crackling frost. The sun was a smudge of orange in the cloudless sky. The fog had finally disappeared leaving the air crisp and dry. There was another sound behind her. Her heart began to race as she slowly sat up.

To Liu's great relief, it was just a reindeer. It exhaled sharply as it approached, moving slowly. Liu got up and rubbed her hands together, staring at the animal. It stared at her warily, and Liu began to wonder if she was too close for comfort. Then, the reindeer turned to present its flank.

The side of the animal was heavily lacerated, and still dripped blood. Drapes of flesh hung from the exposed ribs. Liu gasped and hurried to leave the charred remains of her fire. The reindeer followed her in its gaze, staring without emotion. The wind made its presence known for the first time, shaking the trees out of their long silence.

Another full day was described by the assured motion of the sun. The wind grew stronger with every passing hour, shaking the trees into an ever-greater frenzy. By the time Liu decided to start a fire, the pines were bowing before the might of the gale. All attempts at sparking a flame were quickly extinguished, and Liu was forced to lay on the forest floor and wait for night to end. As she lay in the leaves, Liu noticed she hadn't eaten anything in two days.

The stars wheeled merrily in the sky. Polaris sat almost directly above, staring down from the zenith with an air of either pity or contempt. The fog eventually rolled in from the north, obscuring its gaze. The wind began to subside, and the eternal silence reasserted itself. The sun didn't rise that morning.

Liu began stumbling through the black. Phantom eyes stared from behind the invisible tree trunks. The howls of wolves drifted on the still air, growing closer with each hour. Liu was disoriented by the cacophony, her mind bowing before the sheer number of monstrous voices making themselves known. The fog continued to smother reality beneath its hazy sheets, amplifying the howls.

Hours trickled by, and still the sun hadn't shown its face. Plagued by the endless howling, Liu collapsed on the frosty ground, and looked up. In her confusion, she had failed to notice that the fog had dissipated. In its place, the majesty of the naked Milky Way splayed across the sky, as it did at every vantage point in the human universe. Green and purple ribbons of light slid across the band of stars, mirroring its bent, sweeping shape. The aurora cast a faint but soothing light, illuminating the snow. It had been about twenty hours since the sun had last interrupted the night.

The slow, assured dance of the aurora helped settle Liu's mind, and she soon mustered the strength to rise once more and trudge south. The howls grew fainter as she moved toward the mountain, and the forest was again blissfully quiet.

The days that followed were largely uneventful. Liu noticed the terrain become rougher as she neared the foothills of the mountain. The trees became sparser and shorter, eventually giving way to a grassy shrubland. The light of the aurora guided her as she went, and she found herself becoming accustomed to the darkness.

One morning, as she rested before the day's trek, she found that she was high enough above the surrounding taiga to see the wide plain of trees. It was remarkably flat and uniform, betraying no variation in altitude. A tiny flock of grey owls floated far above the horizon, visible only as a deeper shadow within the blue-black of the sky.

Liu resumed her climb. The vegetation continued to thin, and the air found ways to get even colder. The aurora far above began to dance and twist with greater intensity. Its light flickered across Liu's tired face, casting a faded, blue-green shadow on the barren ground. The shrubs and grasses gave way to only dry lichen, and then naked stone. As Liu neared the summit, snow began to appear in dirty piles, slumped against the sides of the mountain. The cold was ravenous now, consuming every sensation, every emotion, every thought. Even the aurora seemed to freeze in the inky darkness, solidifying into a wall of soft blue that hung above the crags.

Infinite time had passed before Liu arrived at the peak. Ice had crystallized on her skin and hair, surrounding her with a pale halo of cold. It crackled as she finally crested the summit. The sky was obscured by the lenticular cloud that capped the mountain, but the ground several kilometers below was visible with astonishing clarity, with no atmospheric haze to muddy the view. The trees from this distance were not individually distinguishable. Instead, they rolled together into an ocean of black needles, betraying nothing of what lay within. The tiniest glimmer of stars could be seen between the roiling edge of the cloud and the horizon. Liu shivered silently as she looked.

Liu noticed with some surprise that the forest was not entirely black. Far in the distance, almost at the horizon, there was a faint orange light. It seemed to flicker gently in the wind. The cold had long since rendered her extremities numb, and was slowly dissolving her sense of reason. It drove her to seek the light, the solitary warmth in this waste.

The descent was much faster than the climb. Liu barely felt the impact of the ground as she fell, and she watched the mountain rise at a pleasant pace.

When Liu regained consciousness, it was to a beautiful warmth. She opened her eyes to find the forest alight with orange, the black trees suddenly not as menacing as they once were. Liu rolled onto her side to see the flames only a few meters away, crackling softly against the side of a tree. For a dazed moment, she smiled into the fire, felt the waves of glorious heat, and basked in its soft light. Then, the tree toppled.

With a jarring, shattering sound, the pine fell, nearly hitting Liu as she lay on the forest floor. It was only then that Liu noticed the horde of small animals scurrying frantically away from the fire, and the odd, brown hue of the sky, or the ocean of floating sparks that covered the ground near her, smoldering.

Liu quickly got to her feet and followed the fauna to escape. The wildfire roared mightily behind her, burning her back and dipping every tree and needle in blinding orange light. The smell of smoke began to take its hold on Liu's already delirious mind.

Among the mice and rabbits, wolves and elk fled, giants lumbering vainly away from the swift flames. The baying of a hundred wolves formed a terrifying discord that rippled through Liu's head like a tide. The last of the owls flew above the flaming treetops, barely escaping the carnage below. The aurora mirrored the hypnotizing sway and ebb of the fire.

The animals, confined to the burning ground, made futile attempts to flee from the heat and sound and light.

Liu stumbled into the smoldering needles, burned her exposed arms, her hair singed.

A flickering spark leaped from the kindling below her. It looked like a star.