"So, how long have you been here?" Robert asked her to alleviate the tension that had resulted from the silence.

"Just over a year," Jessie answered laconically.

"What brought you here?"

"I was in a dark place in my life, and this place just has a real healing feeling about it, you know?"

Walking through the forest, Robert had to agree. This forest wasn't like the forests one saw in nature documentaries, it was more like a fantastical elven glade. Wrapped around the tree trunks and branches that were so thick they blocked out most of the sun were beautiful flowering vines, all around them ferns and other forms of underbrush grew high and thick, and the only sounds that could be heard were those of the animals that had made the forest their new home.

"Do you guys have some kind of plan for this place or do you just want to protect it?"

"Most of us are just happy being here and helping to protect this place, but Mason, our leader, he's got much bigger plans."

"What kind of plans?"

"He keeps talking about finding a way to harness the power that's fueling the growth here and using it to grow enough food to feed the whole world."

"Is the goat the power that you're talking about?"

In a flash, Jessie spun around and raised her gun to Robert's face.

"Who are you?" She asked with a look of murderous intent on her face.

"He's the Waker, chosen by me to release powerful beings from their slumber, one of which is the goat that is responsible for this forest," the goose stepped forward and said to her.

"What the fuck?! That thing can talk?!"

"A talking animal shouldn't come as much of a surprise to you with what you've witnessed during your time here," the goose said.

"Have you come to take the goose away?"

"I'm afraid so, he has a purpose that he needs to fulfill."

"The forest will be fine, it'll just stop growing."

"It's not just that, without the goat here I don't know if, I don't know..." Jessie said, succumbing to tears.

At that moment the area of forest they were in suddenly became shrouded in mist. They heard the sound of hooves clattering on the ground, and soon the goat was before them, followed closely by the two guards that followed it from its enclosure.

"Is this the goat?" Robert asked the goose.

"Yes, it's been drawn here by the egg."

"What do we do?" Robert asked, unnerved by the expectant way in which the goat was looking up at him with its bright blue eyes.

"Get the egg out."

Robert removed his backpack from his shoulders and set it on the ground, watched closely by the goat and by the three rangers, who were stunned silent by what they were witnessing. The egg, when Robert lifted it out of the bag, was glowing with the same golden iridescence as when he had excreted it. He cradled it in his hand, got down on one knee and held it out before him so the goat could put its snout to the egg. Contact with the egg caused the goat to start glowing white, and while aglow it underwent a transformation that saw it assume the appearance of a regular goat.

"Hello old friend," the goose said to the goat.

"How long has it been?" The goat asked in a deep, sonorous voice.

"Too long, and, as is always the case, we have much work to do."

"Yes, I can feel it, I have never felt anything quite like it before."

The goat was the guardian that was most in tune with the natural world and upon regaining full consciousness it was overcome by the horror of what had transpired during its slumber. The knowledge it acquired in its first brief moments of consciousness caused it great despair, requiring the goose to do what it could to talk it out of its despair.

"There there my friend, remember that we are a beacon of hope that cannot be extinguished."

The goat considered the goose's words and turned its attention to Robert.

"So this is him."

"Yes, this is him," the goose responded.

"He doesn't look like much, but then none of the others did either. Why are you the only one who's here to greet me?"

"Because you are the first one to be awakened; we thought that you could be a diplomatic presence when we awakened the others."

"You're certainly going to need it, I'm feeling physically ill, something I've never felt before, I can't imagine how the others are going to react."

The goose and the goat continued speaking to each other in a language the humans couldn't understand, something ancient sounding, which made the humans too afraid to say anything and interrupt them. The interruption came from the scene being intruded upon by Mason, the leader of the rangers, who had been alerted to the goat's abnormal behavior by the two guards that he had assigned to watch over it. He had followed them using the trackers embedded in their walkie-talkies and arrived at their location not knowing what he would find, thinking only that no matter what he couldn't lose the goat before he had learned its secrets. He had worked five years earlier as a USAID worker in Africa in Niger Delta region, where severe drought caused by climate change combined with decades of exponential overpopulation had produced a humanitarian disaster the likes of which had never been seen. Tens of millions lived in refugee settlements in cheap plastic tents where they subsisted on meager food and water rations provided by developed nations and where dehydration, malnourishment and disease were rife, and if the refugees tried to flee to Europe they'd be shot dead before they ever saw the Mediterranean in accordance with the EU's zero-tolerance migrant policy. Mason realized soon after arriving at one of the camps that there was no hope for any of these people, that they had all been given a death sentence which sooner or later would be carried out by something or other. He returned to his parents' home in St. Louis after three months in Africa and, unable to come to terms with what he had seen and experienced, was mired in a deep depression, recovery from which seemed remote to impossible. Given the problems afflicting the world, it seemed that only a miracle could save it from the mess that it was in, and Mason believed that the forest was that miracle, belief which turned to certainty when he saw the goat with seven tails, golden horns and bright blue eyes. Living in the forest and protecting the goat had given him a sense of purpose and restored his belief that he could do something to change things for the better. When he saw that the goat had lost its deific appearance he felt his spirit draining from his body, believing that because the goats appearance had changed that it had lost its divine power, and that now he would never be able to grow the food necessary to feed and save the world. He slumped to his knees with a look of utter desolation on his face and remained that way until the goat walked over to him.