‘Forests are awful.’ Aris decided, after trekking through the increasingly dark forest for two hours. His feet were caked in sludgy brown mulch, which had wedged itself deep between the crevice of every toe. The scent of damp leaves perfumed the air, dancing between the chirps of crickets and the gentle susurrations of the wind as it flowed through the trees. His surroundings were dimly lit, and Aris had not had luck finding shelter for the evening. The spring he had seen when he was reborn in the meadow was small and largely stagnant, without nearby shelter, food, or anything he could turn into clothing. Aris had discarded it as a candidate, sure he would find a better location. That confidence was waning with the evening light.
Aris’s soul-strands marched around him in a broad circle. The strands that sprouted from his core still slashed through the air, finding the optimal path and collecting any specs of light long before they touched his skin – consequently, Aris had noticed during his walk that the collection of energy in his core had grown significantly. It had started so small he could barely see it, but over the past few hours, it had grown to be about the size of a peach pit. It slowly rotated in his core, growing larger with every speck deposited by his strands directly into his core. Having this ball of light floating somewhere in his stomach was bizarre. If he looked down, Aris could visually gauge its size. Somehow, he could see it floating deep under his skin. However, he also had a mental sense of how much energy he held without needing to look down. There was a satisfying sensation as he picked up more energy flecks, almost like itching a scratch or snacking on some food, so Aris had his more distant strands snap up larger chunks of the golden light as they slowly drifted through space alongside him.
The forest was quickly boring Aris. It was just tree after tree, plant after plant, and varying degrees of decaying undergrowth. It was a treat to find a dry section of ground to walk on. He had tried to entertain himself by running his strands through various tests. He had attempted to pick up rocks and twigs, with no success. Although the wildlife he spotted from a distance couldn’t see his soul-strands, when he tried to interact with them, they clearly felt something. Small threads could pass through the animals without them noticing, but when Aris used larger strands, or a large quantity of them, the animals quickly became uncomfortable, shivering or shaking their bodies, before leaving the area. His attempts did not do any damage, from what he could see, because they quickly resumed whatever he interrupted, but it was quite frustrating. Whenever Aris tried to grab or pick up the animals, he swore he felt something, but it was small and slippery, quickly sliding out of the grasp of his soul-strands. Now, to be clear, His strands didn’t have hands at their tips (he truly was not beating the octopus allegations when he was groping them with soul-tentacles), so actually grasping anything was difficult, but the idea was the same.
Aris sighed, looking at the evening sky through his highest strand. Stars were just beginning to pop out. ‘I wonder if there are people nearby. How will they even know to find me?’ The thought made him melancholy. His eyes in the sky had been looking for indications of life, but he didn’t see lights, fires, or roads. Just rolling hills covered in trees, and far in the distance, possibly some mountains.
Aris trudged on.
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Aris had walked another hour through the forest before he decided to stop. He wasn’t going to find the perfect spot tonight. After that realization, he flicked through the various locations around him and decided to pick one that was good enough. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty, so he didn’t need anything near food or water – not that he had found any food unless you counted mysterious mushrooms. So, he only required shelter out of the wind and any rain.
He hadn’t found any caves during his walk, but he had seen a hill covered in a small cluster of trees. It was elevated in case of rain, protected from above if he slept under the branches, and it butted right up against a rock wall, which helped block some wind. Most importantly, it was nearby, only about a ten-minute walk away. There had been better options, but Aris didn’t want to backtrack.
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His destination selected; Aris resumed his walk. Before, he had been heading roughly towards where the sunrises, but now he turned left, putting the sun on the left side of his face, and began his uphill climb.
Eventually, Aris reached his home for the night. He looked around at the trees. They clustered together like a group of gossiping schoolkids. They looked like pine trees with their droopy skirts of branches and needles. The air was redolent with their perfume, especially as he approached the largest of the group. It was five times his height and so wide his arms couldn’t encircle its trunk. He had inspected it during his journey, singling it out from its peers. Stooping, he pushed aside the branches before shuffling under the cover. The branches closed behind him like the wings of a mother hen.
Aris stood up. The underside of the tree’s branches was dry and empty, covered in piles of dried pine needles. There was plenty of room for him. In fact, it could hold another two people comfortably. Aris grabbed a fallen branch, still full of small branches and needles, and used it as a makeshift broom to sweep away the pine needles. Unfortunately, he was still very nude, and tree needles were not particularly pleasant. He brushed away a portion of the ground for several minutes, distracting himself with his view of the night sky while he worked.
The sun was almost down by this point – earlier than he had initially anticipated – and the night sky was stunning. There were whirls of stars floating distantly, much brighter than he remembered. The sky was clear of clouds and had been the entire day. It didn’t look like rain would come any time soon, which was a relief.
Finally, Aris had the area as clear as he could get it. With the last few bits of sunlight, he picked rocks and stray needles out of the cleaned dirt and cast them to the side. Then, he lay down in the dirt on his back, looking up at the dark silhouettes of the tree’s branches, and reflected on his day.
‘Rebirth, huh? How crazy is that? To think that less than 24 hours ago I was floating in some weird extradimensional box, practically brain-dead, while I watched colors move on the walls. Now, here I am, in a perfect body (other than the mud on my feet and the pine needle sticking into my ass) trying to fall asleep in the middle of a forest.’ Aris reached underneath him, plucked out the annoying pine needle, and flicked it away. Unfortunately, his soul-strands couldn’t see without light, so they couldn’t help him find any other missed irritants.
‘Now, the question is what’s next? Do I keep wandering, looking for food and water, pants, and civilization? Or do I stay here and hope someone finds me?’ The thought was disquieting. There was no right answer, he could feel that, but who knew what the consequences of a subpar choice would be?
He closed his eyes and laid there for a while, trying to come up with a plan – or fall asleep, whatever came first. His soul-strands marched around him like clockwork. Rather than staying in a fixed pattern around him, he had started rotating them while walking so he could practice moving them, and for a better variety of sights and sounds. He flicked through them all, getting a feel for what was going on.
The strands underground heard and saw nothing. There weren’t any mysterious caverns under his hill (unfortunately, that would have been fun to explore). The strands in the forest only saw bits of the forest, whatever was illuminated by starlight. They heard the whispering of the nighttime breeze, and the quiet chattering of birds as they nestled down for the evening. The strands high up in the sky, though, saw something unique, something unexpected.
At the edge of the horizon, right where the sun had just set, something was slowly rising. It was the moon, but it felt different to Aris’s eyes.
‘Is the color slightly off, or are the crater patterns unusual?’ He watched through his various strands as it crested the horizon. ‘It looks larger than normal. Maybe it’s passing closer in orbit than usual?’
Then, he saw it. Swiftly rising above the horizon, right alongside the moon, were large pieces of something. ‘Oh fuck,’ Artis thought frantically, ‘The moon’s shattered!’