Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game

There was a sound.

Not thunder, not quite.

It was more like the echo of thunder after it had been devoured, swallowed by something too old for the sky. A flash of light, blinding white, hot and burning, and then an absence so complete it consumed thought, motion, even breath itself.

Then came the dark.

Miles landed first, or perhaps he simply hit the ground harder. His back struck root-knotted earth, and for a moment, he didn’t move.

He couldn’t. His breath had been knocked out of him, and his senses spun like a compass without a north. There was the smell of wet leaves, moss, and something old, like rotting parchment and petrichor, pouring into his nose.

He groaned and sat up slowly.

Trees towered around him. Colossal things. Their trunks were twisted, woven together as if the forest had once been alive and in an endless conversation with itself, and then simply stopped.

The canopy overhead was thick with black-green leaves, dappled here and there with pale, unnatural light that did not seem to come from the sun.

The air shimmered.

He looked down and saw Dee curled against his chest, faintly glowing. The tiny salamander stirred, slowly blinking its big, azure eyes.