My stomach twisted with worry. Charles had been outside. He would have left his own tracks around here, but there was nothing.
"These tracks are well preserved. I wonder if there’s any human footprints around…" Lyra said beside me as I examined them. They had to come from those rodents we’d encountered earlier, judging by their size.
"Those aren't the only ones," Bryce called, creeping closer to the newly arranged trees. We turned to see him lean down where a much bigger, wider track with sharp nail impressions scored the ground. Lyra frowned as we went over to examine them. Whatever had come through here was huge.
"These tracks look like they were made recently. Within the last several hours, at least," Cam commented. He tested the dirt beside the track with his finger. He followed the tracks as they disappeared into the forest and traced a line in the air, drawing out an imaginary path. "The trees must've maintained our old path for a while, maybe until full nightfall, before they changed to cover everything."
A tingling sensation pricked at my neck. The creatures of the Leftovers, I had assumed, would be most active at night, but I’d never considered the plant life.
"It’s not just the creatures," I noted. “Things aren’t animated like this in the Immortal Plane, even in the wildest parts of it.” Lyra studied me, searching my face. After so much time together, it felt like she could read me like a book, and vice versa.
She crossed her arms and pointed down at the tracks. "So, we were expecting things to move, but not a potentially sentient forest that recognizes our presence. Our pilot is mysteriously gone now, too. I originally thought that the soldiers who were sent out weren't used to immortal landscapes, but they were right about the true extent of what they saw." Her attention turned to the thicket of closely bunched trees that now blocked off our trail from yesterday. "Fantastic. We've got more danger around us than we thought, and those trees look impossible to get through."
Her eyes were filled with sadness and defeat as she mourned the loss of the only trail we’d had that led to our missing survivor. We also had a new missing person. The others turned away from the conversation to check the scanners. I hesitated, not sure if I should approach Lyra. She was staring out at the woods as if they might give up an answer to us if she glared hard enough.
"Nothing on the scanners," Bryce reported as he looked up from Sike's device. "We’ll stay closer to the carrier plane today." He eyed the woods with deep suspicion. Even in the daytime, they felt wrong and unnatural. I hated the way the trees bent angrily in the warm mortal sunlight. Part of me missed the Immortal Plane. I'd grown used to the Mortal Plane, but seeing the odd combination of both in the Leftovers unnerved me. Ruk hadn't mentioned what the world was like before the Separation. Now, I wished he’d given more detail about what the arbiters had changed in the planes when they worked their powers on the universe. Had trees been able to move in the past? I doubted it. This felt like something entirely new.
"Looks like there's no hope of getting through or chasing down the survivor or our pilot for the moment," Lyra said bitterly.
Bryce grunted. "We'll talk it over." We trudged back to the carrier plane. Lyra asked Sike and Cam about the readings. The hopeless look on Lyra's face tugged at my heart. As a leader, I was used to stuffing down my feelings for the mission, but she brought out something else in me. When I looked at her, I saw a part of my truest self. We were trying to learn how to live in a universe that constantly upended our basic understanding of existence.
We solve one mess, then jump right into another.
I offered to look around the carrier plane. This time, I examined the tracks more closely, looking for any sign of creatures that looked familiar. There was nothing but deep footprints around us. It rained lightly last night, making the ground perfect for finding evidence.
I picked up Lyra's scent before she caught up to me.
"Getting some air?" I asked her.
"Yes, even if it carries that strange scent with it," she said and sniffed the air purposefully. "It's like the atmosphere is rebelling here. The pressure feels like being partially underwater." She shuddered for a moment and clenched her eyes shut. "Sometimes, it reminds me of rot. It feels like these entire areas of land are just rotting away."
I gently placed my arm around her. She leaned into me, touching the collar of my open cloak. She made fun of me for wearing it, but I'd worn a cloak since I was a boy. I felt naked without one. She sighed.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, and paused, searching for the right words. "You seem sad." I was used to seeing disappointment or frustration in Lyra, but this hurt was softer… more personal. She averted her eyes for a moment to the tracks on the ground.
"I’m here for you," I reminded her. As much as she used to gently push me to stop stuffing down my emotions, Lyra struggled with burdening others with her worries. As her partner and team member, I wanted her to share them.
She nodded. "I know. I’m really upset about Charles. I barely knew him, but he was so considerate to us last night, and I’d hate to think he got hurt because of it. I hope he’s alright, and that we find him soon.”
I nodded, waiting. There was more, I could tell from the inflection of her voice.
“I'm worried about the survivor, too. I don't know them personally,
