Chapter 245: The Heart of the Glades
Coop squinted through a curtain of sawgrass. Using the side of his hand to form a gap wide enough to slip his body through the fringes of the wetland, he ventured forward.
Strips of emerald blades rippled under the relentless Florida sun, presenting the only visible evidence that a breeze drifted across the environment. Waves swept across the region, formed by the flowing edged stalks of the glades rather than the protected water. In contrast to the grasses, the shallow waterways were untouched by the mellow winds, buffered as they were by the flooded meadows extending into the air.
The chill of the cool pre-dawn was gone, replaced by a harsh, humid, and sticky morning. Coop slowly waded forward, holding his spear above his head as he cautiously took the first steps into the unfamiliar danger zone. From a distance, he hadn’t detected anything out of the ordinary, so he was entering the quest area methodically, waiting until he found the first representative of the Infestation and measured their capabilities before he pressed farther beyond the perimeter. An ambush could come from any angle, but he was prepared to face the challenge.
Compared to his first real adventure on the Zombie Lord’s oil rig, he was a completely different person. Considering it was only the start of Day 117, it hadn’t really been that long, certainly not enough to actually transform his personality, but the assimilation had been a crash course in the cruelty of the galactic community. He doubted there was anyone on Earth that could claim to be unchanged. He was no exception.
That wasn’t to say all the changes had been negative. Even someone like Coop could recognize how confidence had seeped into his actions. He was certainly more assertive after a hundred days of the assimilation. He felt a lot less like a passive observer, anxiously being dragged along, than he did in the previous days.
Coop pressed into the marsh, welcoming the confidence that steadied his steps while remembering hard-learned caution. His eyes were active and he engaged all of his senses with Presence of Mind, ready to take on just about any opponent, big or small.
Beneath the endless powder blue sky, a symphony of natural sounds bloomed all around him. Great white herons spread their wings after roosting for the night, flying low as they crossed the grasslands with beats of their feathers. Their guttural calls could have been attributed to dinosaurs, echoing across the landscape while the grasses rattled together in the breeze. Frogs and crickets provided a steady backdrop along with the calm bubbling of flowing water. Coop kept an eye on the birds as they claimed their own sections of the wetlands for the day, but they behaved as if nothing was out of the ordinary, ignorant to the realities of the assimilation. Somehow, the natural environment had been preserved.
The air itself was heavy, thick with the scent of swamp flowers and moss, like a primal perfume unique to this particular section of the world. Rather than being unpleasant, the fragrance seemed wild and pure. Coop took a deep breath through his nose, staying relatively quiet, only adding the sound of water trickling against his legs as he traversed the marsh. The ambience gave him the feeling that he had been transported back in time, as if he was the first explorer to venture into the Everglades.
The vistas were only slightly spoiled by the occasional street light, covered in lichen, and with other vegetation hanging from the lamps. Small bits of human development managed to survive the assimilation long enough to be reclaimed by nature. From a distance, the street lights looked like branchless pine trees, but as he observed a roseate spoonbill nest nestled at the top of one, he realized the leaning objects were man made.
As he continued, the sawgrasses swayed, revealing glimpses of the vast hidden world submerged underneath. The stalks leaned out of his way, pressed by his weight, before bouncing back up once he was gone, letting the sun highlight his submerged feet as he went. The water was the color of weak tea and stretched out in an intricate network of channels and pools. It was a shallow, hidden labyrinth teeming with life.