Four days of hard riding brought Leonard and Kaleb to the edge of the Wailing Wetlands. The place was just as he remembered it—utterly unchanged.
The swamp was a macabre spectacle: a festering mire exhaling a hot, humid vapor reeking of decay. Twisted, withered trees clawed at the overcast sky, their dark green leaves drooping amidst the murky sludge.
A dense fog, born from the heated ground, clung to everything, thick with the stench of rotting vegetation. An unnerving silence pressed down, broken only by the occasional, distant croak of unseen creatures and the constant drip of condensation from the decaying foliage.
"Nothing's changed around here... shitty place." Leonard said.
"What's wrong?" Kaleb asked.
"Well… I lost a friend here," Leonard said, his voice low, staring out at the oppressive landscape. "Too soon."
Kaleb, misinterpreting, tilted his head. "Wait, was your friend, like, died young, or did you just not know him for long? That's... confusing."
