The forest had moods, Ren discovered. Happy forest was green and birdsong. Concerned forest involved ominous rustling. But panicking forest? That was new. The trees swayed without wind, leaves changing color in waves like the world's most disturbing screensaver. Animals fled past them, not even pausing to consider if the travelers were threats.
"Is it always this... atmospheric?" Ren asked, ducking a low-flying something with too many wings.
"No," Varos said grimly. "The forest knows what's coming. Every living thing can sense the barriers weakening."
They'd been traveling for three hours, maintaining a pace that had Ren's legs filing formal complaints. The path—if twisted game trails counted as paths—wound through sections of forest that looked like different artists had designed them. One moment, normal if oversized trees. The next, crystalline growths that hummed with their own light. Then patches where reality seemed negotiable and the colors had opinions.
"Break," Varos finally called, and Ren nearly collapsed with relief.
They'd reached a clearing where someone had long ago built a rest station—stone benches around a fire pit, protective wards carved into trees, and most importantly, signs that other travelers had survived this far.
Ren dropped onto a bench with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. "New appreciation for modern transportation. Would it have killed your ancestors to invent proper roads?"
"The forest doesn't like straight lines," Guard Three—he'd learned her name was Seylas—explained. "Try to force a road and you'll wake up finding it's become a circle. Or a cliff. Or a bear."
"The road becomes a bear?"
"Once. Very unpleasant for everyone involved."
Elanil sat beside him, close enough their shoulders touched. She handed him a water flask without comment, but he caught her checking him for signs of exhaustion.
"I'm not going to collapse," he said. "Probably. Maybe. The odds are at least forty-sixty."
"Those aren't reassuring odds."
"You want reassuring? Wrong apocalypse, wrong human."
The guards set up a perimeter while Mayfell studied a map that looked more like abstract art than navigation. The purple crack above had widened enough that its light competed with the sun, giving everything two shadows that didn't quite agree on direction.
"So," Seylas said, edging closer with the expression of someone about to ask for an autograph, "what was it like? The human world?"
"Disappointing, mostly. We had these things called jobs where you did tasks you hated to buy things you didn't need to impress people you didn't like."
"That sounds..."
"Exactly like it was. We also had instant noodles, though, so it balanced out."
Guard Two—Lysara—had also drifted closer. "The stories say humans could fly in metal birds and speak across vast distances."
"Planes and phones, yeah. Though mostly we used them to argue about meaningless things and share pictures of cats."
"Cats?"
"Small furry demons that pretended to love you for food." He paused. "Actually, that describes a lot of Earth relationships."
Even stoic Varos seemed interested now. Guard Four—still hadn't gotten his name—watched from his post but was obviously listening.
"Did humans really war among themselves constantly?" Lysara asked. "The histories say—"
"The histories say many things," Mayfell interrupted gently. "Much of it filtered through ten thousand years of interpretation."
"But yes," Ren admitted. "We were very good at finding reasons to kill each other. Skin color, imaginary lines on maps, whose imaginary friend was better. We were creative about stupidity."
"Then how did you achieve so much?" Seylas wondered. "The ruins we've found, the artifacts—"
"Spite, mostly. 'Oh, you reached the moon? Well, we're going to Mars.' 'You invented the internet? We're making it worse.' Human progress was fifty percent genius, fifty percent 'hold my beer and watch this.'"
"Beer?"
"Fermented grain water that made bad decisions seem reasonable. Actually explains a lot about human history now that I think about it."
They laughed—actually laughed. Even silent Guard Four's mouth twitched. For a moment, sitting in this impossible forest with the sky breaking above them, it felt almost normal. Like he was just telling stories instead of being the last witness to a dead civilization.
"Must be lonely," Lysara said quietly. "Being the only one who remembers."
The words hit harder than expected. Ren looked at his hands, searching for something clever to deflect with. "I... yeah. It's like being the only person who's seen a movie. You can describe it, but no one really gets the references."
Elanil's hand found his, squeezing briefly before pulling away. The gesture was small, but the guards noticed. Seylas and Lysara exchanged knowing looks.
"Right," Varos said, all business again. "Five more minutes, then we move. The first Mist surge is due in two hours."
Rating: 7/10 for bonding moment, 10/10 for hand-holding progress, 0/10 for emotional preparation.