The forest had begun to change.
It wasn't immediate. At first, it was only the incline, the way the path stopped winding and began to descend more directly. Then the trees thinned out, not in density, but in species. The canopy grew higher, darker, and the leaves above no longer rustled with the wind. They clung to their branches, motionless, like damp fabric left to rot. Beneath their feet, the ground became different. The ashen ground long since gone, replaced by a thick moss that no longer crunched or squelched. It absorbed their steps with silence, as if the soil itself had grown used to being undisturbed and now resisted the memory of footfall.
