There’s a moment of weightlessness. Even the child in my arms feels like she’s made of air.

The space around us feels…empty, like there’s nothing there. Not even us. All that exists is a shifting blackness that is both never-ending and immediately final.

There’s a strange familiarity that tingles in my mind. And I wonder…if I’ve been here before.

I try to grab the thought but the space shifts and the next second I’m stumbling out of the liquid door onto solid ground.

My eyes dart around immediately. There’s grass beneath my feet. Enormous trees and arcing roots twist all around me. Vines and moss clot the areas in between and my brain supplies a word for this place. Jungle.

It doesn’t fit perfectly with the image that follows. The trees after are all are not the brown I’m expecting but rather a bark version of the purple planks of the city walls. The same large lavender blossoms dot the trees and even stretch across the jungle floor. The leaves overhead are sharp triangles and the canopy is so thick that it blots out the sky. Still, the trees give off a faint glow.

A rustle catches my attention and I watch as Wail rolls out from behind a tree, popping to its feet to look at me.

“Wail… where are we?”

The boulder makes a noise, like a gravelly hum. “My shriends here. Protect us.”

“Friends?” Not for the first time I wonder if I’m about to meet a colony of boulders. My gaze flutters around the space. I don’t see anyone. “Here Wail?”

“Close.” And with that Wail starts wobbling off on its stubby legs.

It’s even slower than when we met, considering it trips over every root it comes across. I consider following after it, but my arms are ready to give. “Wail, wait.”

The boulder turns, its grey eyes blinking.

“Can we…I mean, are we safe here? Will they follow?”

“Palgeer not knou uhere ue are.”

“They don’t know where we are. So we can rest?”

The boulder blinks again and finally bobs in a nod. I release a sigh of relief and slump to the ground, gently laying Lorraine on the mossy floor. My arms ache and I flop back on my back, resting them against the earth. “Thank you,” I whisper, not sure if Wail has even heard me.

My eyes droop, and I feel myself start to drift. I immediately peel open my eyes and try to find something to focus on, something that’ll keep me from falling asleep in a random jungle. Ah, sleep. Wouldn’t that be nice? And a bed.

I try to picture one in my mind. It takes a moment to find one not lying in fragments, considering my run through the city. When I do find a bed in tact I tug at that memory a bit, focusing on the sensations that come with it. Soft, that’s the biggest one. Pliable. Cool. I imagine it against my skin and beneath my aching arms.

Yeah. A bed would be nice.

The thought has my eyes drooping again and I force them open, focusing on a shape I find hovering at the top of my vision. It’s the liquid door. This side though, is very different from the city version. There’s still a circle, but the frame is made entirely of twisting tree roots.

“Are you sure they won’t come after us Wail?”

My buddy’s voice is muffled when I hear it. “Uon’t come.”

There’s a slight ripple in the liquid door, and as much as I want to stay on the ground, I’m not sure how reliable Wail’s statement is. I sit up with a groan, feeling an ache in my arms just from lifting them off the ground, but I still roll to my knees and pick up Lorraine. A quick inspection shows that she’s still breathing, but she hasn’t regained consciousness since she ate the grain of sand. Does she need more?

“Ready?” Wail calls.

“I suppose.” I push to my feet, adjusting the child until she’s half propped against my shoulder. The fatigue is immediately apparent. “Are your friends close Wail?”

“Close. Close.” The slow wobble resumes and I wearily follow after it.

The trek through the roots is difficult, very difficult. It would’ve been difficult at full strength, and I’m certainly not at that. Holding Lorraine makes it even harder.

The path we follow is barely a path. I don’t even realize it is a path at first as most of it is covered in roots. Some of them cover the entire width of the trail, requiring me to gently pass Lorraine to Wail, a task the boulder barely pulls off, before I climb over myself. The roots themselves are majestic, twisted in beautiful curls. In fact, there’s beauty throughout our trek. It’s in the swirling formations of trees, plants that I’ve never seen before, sparkling particles that hover in the air. But I don’t really take them in. My mind focuses on the slog through trees. One foot in front of the other. My breathing is getting heavier and I’m wondering how much longer I can continue. “Wail…I thought…you said they were…close.”

“Close. Close.”

By what standard?! Clearly not one I can cope with! “How close...exactly?”

“Close,” Wail says again.

I sigh, resigning myself to an endless journey through the jungle.

At one point I lean back against a tree, resting a portion of Lorraine’s weight on the trunk, and I look up. These trees are...massive, and they look like they’re getting taller. I try to pull a memory, since these are the first trees I’ve seen since awakening. I focus on the ones that came to mind when studying the wooden plants of the city houses. The thread unravels a bit in my mind and I grab it, filtering through a myriad of images. Most of the trees from memory are much smaller than these. There’s one that at least compares, a... a giant sequoia?

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Yes. If I had to guess looking up, these trees are nearly twice as tall as the sequoias, though it’s hard to tell from this angle. Instead, I twist to look at the trunk opposite me, attempting to determine the width.

Hmm... If I stood against it and stretched my arms wide I imagine it’d be nine...maybe ten sections wide?

Ugh… just imagine holding my arms up more than necessary is hard to stomach, so I settle for guessing.

“Close. Close,” Wail calls, just on the other side of a twisting root. It’s a large root, definitely bigger than the ones near the door, and I wonder why so many of them are obnoxiously above ground. Must be a characteristic of the type of tree, but more than anything – it's just annoying.

“Uh huh….be right there...” I wobble after the boulder, finding that I’m now matching its slow pace.

Time passes. The trees get a little taller. The trunks stretch a little wider… and my arms feel like they’ll fall.

“We need to stop Wail. Please.”

“Close. Close.”

“I really don’t think we are.”

The boulder slows and spins to look at me. I take the opportunity to drop to one knee and slowly lower Lorraine onto a soft patch of moss. Wail watches the movement and after a moment bobs into one of its nods. I heave a sigh of relief and flop back to sit, cradling my arms in my lap. The boulder, meanwhile, spins to the left and wobbles towards one of the trees. I watch it quietly, too exhausted to speak.

It takes him a minute of maneuvering, wobbling and rolling, until he’s circumnavigated the largest roots and is standing next to the trunk. One of its stone hands reaches into its mouth, and a puff of smoke shoots into the air. The hand withdrawals, glowing red hot, and touches the trunk of the tree.

A sizzling sound catches in my ears and I watch more smoke gather where Wail’s hand is touching the bark. Several seconds pass, and Wail retracts its arm.

The spot left on the tree blackened and after a moment, shiny. The boulder bobs, tipping back and forth on its feet. The glossiness expands and Wail swipes its hand over the spot. It then turns to me and for the first time its hexagonal mouth opens in a way that strongly resembles a human expression.

Is it...smiling at me?

Its eyes are wide and the grey flickers in sporadic bursts of light. The hobbling resumes, this time toward me, and it finally slows to a halt a foot away, its hand outstretched. On the tip is a goopy purple substance.

I grimace.

It looks...gross.

The smile remains and Wail reaches closer.

“No. No thank you. I’m good. Really.” I flash back to the ember rock it offered me back in the city. That thing tasted worse than blue sand, something I didn’t think was even possible. Who knows what this is?

“Good. Sheel better.”

“I’d rather not.”

The smile encloses slightly, until there’s just a hexagonal opening. I feel air suddenly being sucked past me, towards Wail’s open mouth. Its body expands, hexagons stretching apart and grey veins turning into a complex geometrical pattern along its body. Then it blows out.

The breath released is hot, hot enough that my face stings, and with it comes a sweet smelling smoke that I reflexively inhale.

It’s...wonderful actually. It’s really wonderful, and I take in another breath. The scent feels like liquid in my lungs and it pools in my chest, abruptly dispersing as a cozy heat that flows through my limbs. My face doesn’t hurt. My legs don’t hurt. My arms don’t hurt.

“What...what’s happening?”

Wail does it again, a long inhale into a blast of hot air, and I focus enough to see some purple goop dissipate into the smoke. A couple more inhales and I feel like I’ve had the best sleep of my life. All the fatigue and pain has melted away. It’s amazing.

“What is this stuff Wail?”

“Neshutheel uork.”

So... I guess I’ll never know. “Are there side effects?”

Wail’s body tilts and I take the movement to be inquisitive.

“Will something bad happen if I keep using this?”

“Bad....maybe.”

Hmm... still. Now that I feel revived I move Lorraine into a more comfortable position and walk to the tree Wail touched. I can see that more of the purple goop is leaking out, beginning to trail down the bark. The survivalist in me decides to treat this like blue sand... seldom used and only in necessary doses. Whether it actually healed me or simply worked as a sort of adrenaline shot remains to be seen, but either way it could come in handy.

There’s a moment of consideration as I puzzle out how I’m going to store this. Any useful container has disappeared into my bag and while it would be smart to have some of this disappear as well, assuming it’ll come back, it would also be ideal to have some on hand. If the mouthless creeps came through the portal and resumed their chase we’d need every advantage we can get.

For now, I shrug the satchel off my shoulder and open the flap, carefully situating the bag against the tree. It takes a minute for the trail of fluid to reach the lip of the flap. Some more maneuvering takes place before the goop actually slips over the lip and into the empty satchel. Once that’s in place I slide off the roots and toward my two… umm, acquired children.

“I need a container Wail, something to hold the uh...the sap in. Do you have any ideas?”

My little friend does a spin, which I’m energetic enough to consider cute again, and ambles off toward a nearby tree. This one has a large lavender blossom sprouting near the ground. Wail wobbles between its roots and points up with a stubby hand. Then it looks back at me and the hexagons pull apart into the same quirky smile.

“The petals?”

Wail’s body bobs and I approach in consideration. “It’s not poisonous, is it?” The body shakes back and forth, a very interesting motion on its stubby feet. “Okay then.”

I reach out and touch the nearest petal. It feels like...like...hmm. Like velvet. I rub a bit between my thumb and finger, relishing the softness.

It only takes a quick tug to pull the petal from its perch and I watch the flower warily in case there’s retaliation. Thankfully, nothing happens.

With that settled I return to the leaking tree and pool a bit of sap into the petal. A careful set of folds has it curled into the shape of a pouch and I tuck it into the clothes wrapped around my waist. I really need a better system. A belt would be nice.

I watch the sap drip into my satchel for a bit longer before Wail starts tipping back and forth on its feet looking at me in a way I decide means “expectant.”

“You want to go Wail?”

“Go. Close. Close.”

I sigh. “Yeah...close.”

I retrieve the satchel, throwing it back over my shoulders and pick up Lorraine.

With my new energy, the little girl feels light. If anything, my satchel, which has maintained the same weight no matter what I’ve put in it, feels heavier by comparison. The frigid cold seeping from Lorrain’s form isn’t as comforting as it was when I was tired, but it reassures me that she’s alive and well. Or...is she? I assumed that she was supposed to be cold, but now that I think about it, I’m not actually sure.

“Wail. Is Lorraine supposed to be cold?”

The boulder flops over a root in an adorable tripping motion. “Yes, yes.”

“I see.” I look down at my charge, watching the little puffs of cloud that come with every breath. “Why do you think she’s still unconscious?”

“Not knou. Pullelman maybe. Yes, likely.”

“So...I should give her more sa—”

My words are cut off by Wail’s cry of, “Here!” Its voice is an excited chirp, and I look up to see what’s caught its attention.

There are trees...and roots... and moss…. “Wail…what am I not seeing?”

“Everything,” a voice hisses.

I whip around to find a white spear tip inches from my throat. Holding it aloft is a humanoid, skin pale green, hair a vibrant lavender, and clothes patterned to match the foliage around us. Pointed ears stick out from its head.

“Friends!” Wail yells.

By what standard?!