...The morning came. The sun moved out of its hiding place, out from the clouds, out into the air, where it lit up the sky with red and yellow. Then the morning arrived, morning air, morning animals, morning sun. The forest revealed what it'd hidden: a lake, and a series of vines that hung along with the trees.

Heat crept along David's spine, forcing him to awaken. The fire had gone, the boat was in the water. He ran to them, who waited for him. He clambered onto the boat, and they set off. Into the water, following the Prophet's footprints.

The boat continued, past the island, nearing the figure of Pnoaphales. Streams trickled into the mountains, dug in flat curves, and stretched into the sky. Soon, the Prophet and his immortality would arrive. Immortality. To feel anew, fresh, he could see it in himself. Living forever, with everyone the same. No worry about time. He could relax on a bed forever, but he could do anything without the worry of time. Time wouldn't matter. No, never time. Days wouldn't pass that fast because his immortality would fix all of that. Soon, he would meet the Prophet. On the mountain, death forgotten, living without fear, without his burdens, all things fulfilled.

He stared into the water, watching for the serpent, but found hundreds of orange fish swimming in groups around limestone boulders. Some poked their fins above the water as Bernard fed them crumbs of bread. Some swam underneath the boat.

The boat continued, past the fish, and into a cluster of islands, each round and without plant-life, but filled with sand, leaking green and blue into the water. They passed by each of them, and into open water, where the fish turned sleek and silvery. The waves of the lake intersected upon each other into diamonds of water, moving the boat side to side.

The wind grew stronger, forcing Rickman to push the raft harder with his paddle. Down it went, forcing the water to curve downward, and a small wave appeared, collapsing into the lake afterward. The boat moved forward, displacing sheets of water and foam forward, again it went as Rickman pushed down.

David touched the surface of the lake, then left a wet fingerprint on the boat. It dissolved into the wood, gone and absorbed. He wished for a fishing rod or a net. It'd be fun, a nice thing to do, to try and re-invigorate a memory long-lost. He could try to catch the fish below, but the thought of the serpent made him hesitant. So, his finger moved in a line across the surface of the lake, moving with the boat, intersecting with the waves.

The afternoon arrived and the sun crossed the sky. The fish faded into the lake, into the depths, and the light dimmed away into the red. Pnoaphales loomed, larger than before, each detail sharper, with trees of various height and various colors, yellow spruces populated with various fruits. Pnoaphales held junipers bent backward, with their gnarled, twisted, rough forms, into the ground. He could see birches without bark, all light brown, short and squat. They'd skewed their course away from the Prophet's path, away from the footprints, and into a different side of Pnoaphales