We Must Try

“I can't say I've ever seen anything like it,” she said, staring at the tree branches spread across the ground in front of them, blocking their path.

“Nor have I,” he agreed, shaking his head. “What sort of madness is this?”

It was a good question, with a troubling answer. She'd read about something similar happening, but that was in a mythology book. Could it have been based on reality? If so, what she saw was much more disturbing than either of them could have imagined.

“We should leave,” she said.

“But we've come so far.”

“Yes, we've come too far. We are not meant for this place.”

The branches just lay there, beneath a yellow sky with dark clouds in the distance. It all looked more like a scene out of that same mythology book than any realm known to humans.

He gazed at the trees and the clouds and the sky, took a deep sigh, and nodded. “Much as it pains me, I'm forced to agree with you.”

Did it pain him to agree with her, or with her conclusion? She would have to ask him about that, after they had escaped to safety, wherever that might lie.

She turned and looked back at the mountains in the east, whence they had come. Retreat was not an appealing option, but other directions lacked geographic features that might help them hide from whatever was about to rain down upon them all.

If this place was what she thought it was, they had gone too far. They had tread on lands considered sacred by others. They were not meant to be here, nor was anyone or anything, not even the trees.

“We might not be able to escape,” she said.

“We must try.”