The morning dawned slowly. Sunlight filtered through the foliage, falling on the ground in soft golden patches. He adjusted the bag slung over his shoulder, checked that nothing had fallen out, and took a deep breath.
The forest looked peaceful in the morning. Almost friendly. But after the nightmarish events, this tranquility still seemed deceptive.
"All right..." he muttered. "Time to go."
He moved forward, using a giant tree visible far beyond the horizon as a guide. Even from here, it seemed unrealistically tall, as if someone had stuck it into the world itself, without caring about scale.
There was a lot of forest around. Too much. The trees stood close together, but strangely did not interfere with walking. The bushes seemed to part, the grass was soft, and the roots were not as aggressive as in a normal forest.
Along the way, he began to notice strange plants again.
The leaves of some trees glowed with a pale blue light, and the low bushes gave off a sweet, warm aroma that made him want to breathe deeper. He stopped, examined them, and sometimes touched them cautiously with his fingers.
"What if I eat this..." he muttered, "I hope I don't explode."
He walked for a long time. It was probably past noon, but the sun was still high in the sky. His shoulder began to ache, and his legs gradually grew tired.
He looked at the giant tree again.
And frowned.
"Has it gotten any closer?"
He stopped, squinted, and compared the distance to how it had seemed in the morning.
It had hardly changed.
He exhaled slowly.
"So..." he said aloud. "This isn't a walk. It's... torture."
He sat down on a fallen log, wiping his forehead.
"If I go like this... it'll take me a week. Two. Maybe... a month."
The thought wasn't frightening, but it made him think. Going straight through the forest was foolish. He understood that.
And at that moment, he noticed something strange.
The ground beneath his feet was denser. The grass was slightly flattened. And the bushes on either side were sparser, as if someone had passed through here many times before.
He stood up and slowly walked forward.
"Is this... a road?" he said quietly.
It wasn't paved. It wasn't smooth. But it was too convenient to be accidental. It was as if the forest allowed him to walk here.
He continued along this path. At times, the road almost disappeared, but then reappeared, as if deliberately preventing him from getting lost.
Most importantly, it led in the same direction as the giant tree.
"So... I'm not the first?" he smiled. "Or maybe the forest just decided to help me."
He straightened up and adjusted the bag over his shoulder.
"All right. Then that's what we'll do. Me and the road. Slowly. No heroics."
He stepped forward, already more confident.
There were minor mishaps along the way. He stumbled over roots, almost dropped his bag a couple of times, tried to cut across once — and immediately found himself in a thorny bush.
"I get it, I get it..." he muttered, climbing back out. "On the road. Only on the road."
By evening, fireflies appeared in the air. They flitted above the path, sometimes hovering in the air as if marking the way. One flew very close, and he instinctively waved his hand.
"Don't even think about it," he said. "I've had enough of strange things."
As the sun began to set, the forest began to change.
The trees thinned out. Wide gaps appeared between them, and the light no longer filtered through the foliage but fell almost directly onto the ground.
He slowed his pace.
Ahead, the forest suddenly ended.
Beyond the last trees lay a field — wide, calm, covered with tall grass swaying in the wind. And across this field stretched a normal road.
Not a forest path.
Not trampled grass.
A real road.
Smooth. Well-trodden. The kind that people clearly walked on.
He froze, staring at her for a few seconds.
"Now that's interesting," he said quietly.
On both sides of the road, the grass was shorter, and in the distance, almost at the horizon, dark dots of buildings could be seen.
"So... someone lives there," he muttered.
He took a step toward the edge of the forest but stopped, turning back. The road he had been walking on all this time disappeared among the trees, as if unwilling to go any further.
And ahead was another road.
Straight. Open. Leading to the village.
He tightened his grip on the bag strap and looked ahead.
"Well..." he said quietly. "It looks like the journey is just beginning."
And he stepped out of the forest into the field, onto the road leading to the village — and to the first real trace of this world.