ANDREW

Three tens since the Mark of the Other One blossomed.

Andrew shook his head and looked around himself. The trees Robert felled were nowhere in sight. The surroundings were unfamiliar. Every time he focused his attention on these hallucinations and the veil brushing the top of his head, he would lose time. Every time it happened, he kept remembering their departure from the village as if it had happened moments ago.

Andrew did not remember if anyone had talked about leaving after the incident. They took everything they would need and could carry. The next morning, all of them had gathered at the far end of the village.

"Well. What do we do then? Start walking?" Just like that? Someone had demanded.

"We walk." Sten had replied. And they left.

Andrew's heart had been beating furiously. There was no other way. He did not see another. None among the group did.

They had continued to walk for two weeks now.

"It's getting dark under the trees. What do you reckon?" Kauri wondered out loud.

"We walk until we have any light." Sten's answer was brief and to the point.

"We should try to forage what little we can." Mai called from the rear.

"I think most of us have had enough of diarrhoea!" Jess' angry voice echoed under the trees.

"We cannot last until the river on funny smelling chicken. We need what little we can find. Those ground apples Eric found or others. We have found edible things. Do not argue, Sarah. We don't need this. Let's find a place to stay real soon now. We have to find something edible until we have daylight. And maybe we will finally run into animals we can hunt." Mai sounded on edge, almost irritated. Andrew imagined she was not the only one.

"All right. Sounds reasonable." Sten growled.

"Why do you always decide things?" Andrew heard the angry hiss of Sarah to Mai.

"But there could be predators out here as well?" Anna asked, worried.

"Are we certain there's anything out here at all? Feels dead, this place. All we have seen are small birds and they barely make a sound." Kauri constantly kept looking around. "Makes me nervous. The wrong kind of nervous."

"This might be a good thing." Eric's voice was light and hopeful. "Might be that the animals know humans. Our scent keeps them away. We might not be that far from civilisation."

"Hold on. There's a right kind of nervous?" Sarah demanded.

"Yeah, you know. Before meeting your girlfriend or before an awesome stage show." Kauri's tired face still beamed.

"Right! Try to find something edible then, Mai. You and Lenna have found decent stuff lately. Robert and Eric will follow you. Keep a lookout for trouble. The rest of us will set up camp and get a fire going. Maybe see if we can find a spring or something nearby." Sten rumbled.

"Should we give the job of making a fire to Robert?" Kauri chuckled nervously, but no one said a word and ignored him.

"It looks like it will rain again tonight. It's a wonder the forest is this dry." Andrew's gaze was on the low, dark wall of clouds heading their way. "But we won't have to worry about water."

"We still need to get that fire going. To boil the water." Sarah reminded them.

"What is going on?" Jess lurched down at the base of the nearest tree and buried her head in her hands.

Andrew kept wandering around tonight's campsite for a few moments longer. He leaned against trees, surveying the darkening forest beyond. Pieces of string hovered around everything and kept distracting him. He was afraid if he got too interested in those, he would end up lost.

"Hey Andrew! Sit down; you will fall over if you keep pacing around like that." Kauri shouted. Somehow, again, Sten had got a fire going with two sticks and dry moss. "Come sit down! Rest!"

Sten's gaze had found Andrew once again, although the man said nothing. Andrew suspected Sten constantly kept an eye on him and Eric.

"If I sit down, I am not getting up again."

"You don't have to worry about that. Jess is already asleep." Andrew stopped at Kauri's words and looked at the copper curls peeking out from under a blanket of animal hide.

"You all right?" Sten growled.

Andrew realised he had been massaging his left arm. "You know, Jess was kind of right earlier today." He tried to make small talk. It should have been so obvious that he was panicking. How did the others not see it?

An annoying piece of string was fluttering around the campsite, and he could feel silk cloth hovering near his neck. The veil had returned once again. "It's all turning into one big tunnel of greenery. And yet it's not like my home, nothing like the old forests in East Europe. I can't tell one day from another. I am too tired to sleep. I don't even know what I am talking about." Andrew muttered shaking his head.

"I can relate. I think we all can." Anna blurted somewhere in the corner of Andrew's vision. He wandered closer to the freshly started fire and laid out his bundle of cloth and fur near it.

"What gets me is we up and left." Kauri said with a sigh. "I don't know how to describe it well. We left the wrong things behind. Feels like that, you know. As if we are carrying the wrong thoughts with us."

"Well said, actually." Sten grunted.

"Do you think we will find a way back?" Sarah joined in.

"There has to be a way, right? We got in. Should be a way out if you would believe the brat." Sten mumbled.

Becca's spontaneous tales were something no one wanted to discuss for long. Everyone was looking at the girl sleeping at Jess' side. She was holding up remarkably well. She was keeping pace.

"I'm forgetting about going back. It's hard to think about it out here. If you need to worry about not starving to death the next day. You're out here. In the middle of all this vast landscape. With each step, the past seems to matter less and all that surrounds us takes us deeper into its embrace." Andrew received a few crooked looks in his direction, but no one said a thing.

"What do you miss the most? What is that one thing above all that you would bring into this world?" Anna asked everyone.

"Don't say things like that, you two! We have been out here for only two weeks. You're making it sound like there is no way back." Sarah sounded upset.

"Sarah's right. Let's not talk about things that way. We are alive, we have a chance." Sten said quietly. "Let's try to keep a positive outlook."

"No one wants to talk about any of this. We're marching straight into the unknown with nothing to hold on to, only regrets and vague promises." It was Anna's turn to be upset.

"Do you want to talk about what Robert did earlier?" Andrew tried to chuckle lightly, but there was no way to hide the nervous undertones of his laugh. "I think most of us are trying to keep the right thoughts in our head."

"It's difficult to talk if you don't know what we are supposed to talk about." Sarah retorted.

"I think it's that we are asking the same questions repeatedly. What's the point in trying to ponder what the answer is if you do not know whether you are asking the right questions to begin with." Andrew admired Kauri. The man was shorter than everyone here, besides Becca. Yet he towered above them all with his attitude.

"But it would be nice to listen to some music. This silence is crushing." Andrew mused.

Anna immediately continued the conversation. "Like Lenny Kravitz! Or Eminem."

"You like old music. Didn't take you for the sort." Kauri chuckled.

"It's not old music." Anna laughed. Andrew had never seen the woman smile like that. "Those are the classics. What proper people listen to. You know, proper music. Like Queen and The Rolling Stones."

"Alright." Kauri laughed.

"I was thinking about true music." Andrew said with a grin. "Classical music."

"What, like an orchestra?" Sten had raised his eyebrow. "That might explain a lot about you."

"What is that supposed to mean." Andrew could not stop his mouth.

"Means, what I said." Sten let out a light chuckle. "But really. An orchestra? Violins and trumpets?"

"Yeah. A grand orchestra. The strings, the brass, the woodwind, percussion instruments. The piano, the flute, the clarinet. And a choir. Nothing comes even close to the storm that can be created with those." Andrew realised he had allowed himself to get lost in memories.

"So you are all lounging about while the four of us are out finding food?" Eric frowned. No one had noticed the four foragers return.

"We're talking about music." Anna said with a bright smile.

"Really?" Andrew was not sure if Mai sounded upset or interested.

"Alright." Eric whipped open his bundle of furs and landed next to Andrew. "Count me in then. I am tired of this silence."

They spent the rest of the evening chatting and eating what little they had. The foragers had been mildly successful. It would have been a nice evening if Andrew had not discovered that the veil was suddenly gone. There was no trace of it, and this made him nervous. Why did these hallucinations stop?

Andrew offered to stay on watch because of that. He did not feel tired anymore.

An impenetrable darkness settled around the campfire, and Andrew could not sleep. When he stared into the fire, it made the shadows on the edge of his vision come alive. When he stared into the darkness, he could not help but wonder what was beyond this void. If something was looking back at him?

Trees, roots, some moss, maybe a critter or two, he tried to reassure himself. It had been fun to muse about, behind the wheel of a car, on the road, late at night. Gazing at the wall of dark beyond the headlights. This darkness was around him, close enough to feel it embracing him.

With a shock, he realised that the veil had gone nowhere. It was right there. Just beyond the reach of this campfire. If he stood up, he could walk up to this wall of silk and touch it. Ripples ran through it and it sparkled with the light of countless stars.

Each star had a name to it. Each one differed completely from the other. Some were close by. But the others were far away, faint. And there was nothing like the ten blazing embers right next to him.

Andrew, realising his head was drooping forward, opened his eyes, shook his head, and fell sideways to the ground. When had he fallen asleep? How long had he slept? Everything felt more real than it had in the days before.

Andrew stood up and smelled rain on the air. You could already hear the pitter-patter in the forest beyond. The first drops landed on his face, and shivers ran down his spine. He could feel a silk cloth now, gently leading him to each person around the campfire.

They were waking up because of the rain and complaining, the unseen light inside of them gently shivering. And in the forest beyond, other, tinyer embers now stirred because of the rain.