What if being alone simply meant not yet knowing who surrounds us?
Sophie looked back at the notebook. At the bottom of the page, Aurelia had scribbled a few final lines. The handwriting was faster now. Almost urgent.
She read softly.
"Man believes he lives alone. Yet he is surrounded by countless invisible beings who constantly enter, leave, and live alongside him. We depend on them far more than we imagine."
A chill ran through Aria.
Sophie continued.
"If the beings of Fire leave you, your life becomes barren. You can no longer bear fruit. If the beings of Air withdraw, flowers disappear... and so do their fragrances. If the beings of Water leave you, you slowly lose awareness of your own being. And if the beings of Earth abandon you... you no longer have a body. You die."
No one spoke. Even Jazz remained silent. In the distance, the stream continued its quiet song. Sophie stared at it without really seeing it. Then, almost despite herself, she whispered,
"So..."
She hesitated.
"We're never truly alone..."
Aria gently closed the notebook.
"No."
She lifted her eyes toward the forest.
"Maybe..."
"...we were simply never taught that."
Sophie drew a slow breath.
"I want to keep reading."
She smiled.
"This is so different from everything we've ever been taught."
A short pause.
"And who was he, really?"
She looked at Aria.
"Do you think he'll start talking about the spirits of nature?"
Aria nodded softly.
She didn't need to answer. Through Aurelia's words, she felt that this man wasn't trying to teach knowledge. He was teaching a different way of living in the world.
Sophie leaned a little closer to the screen, almost as if she wanted to step inside the pages.
Meanwhile, Jazz projected a simple topographic map onto the trunk of a nearby tree. Three glowing points appeared.
A high ridge.
A shallow depression.
A probable water source.
"Suggestion," he announced.
"We move toward the ridge to establish our position. After that, we descend into a more open area if the terrain allows it. I will leave discreet navigation markers. I also recommend limiting unnecessary stops. We still don't know whether our disappearance has been detected beyond the Wall."
Aria nodded.
She carefully closed the file and slipped her phone back into her backpack.
"That's enough for this morning."
She smiled gently at Sophie.
"We don't have to understand everything all at once."
She stood up.
"We'll pack up, erase our tracks..."
"...and tonight, we'll continue."
The three of them quietly dismantled the camp. The hammock disappeared in only a few movements. The tarp was neatly folded away. Jazz pressed three tiny matte markers into the moss, almost invisible to the naked eye. Only his sensors would ever find them again.
Sophie tightened the straps of her backpack and took a deep breath.
Something had changed. The anxiety that had weighed on her only days before seemed to have loosened its grip, replaced by something calmer… steadier.
The man's words still echoed inside her, blending with the scent of damp earth and the breath of the forest.
What if everything really is alive?
The trees.
The air.
The water.
Even our thoughts...
She couldn't fully explain what she was feeling. But something inside her seemed to have quietly fallen back into its rightful place. As though a forgotten frequency had finally been found again.
Jazz turned slightly toward her. One of his LEDs pulsed once… then went dark.
"Ready?" Aria asked.
Sophie nodded. Together, they resumed their journey.
The forest absorbed the sound of every footstep. Soft moss muffled their movements. Roots formed a natural path beneath their feet, while the scents shifted with every few meters—wet earth, fresh resin, sunlit leaves.
After several minutes, the trees began to thin. A wooded ridge appeared ahead. They climbed it without speaking.
From the top… the city had vanished.
As far as the eye could see stretched an endless ocean of treetops moving gently beneath the wind. Far away, almost swallowed by the horizon, a pale line barely hinted at the existence of the Wall.
"Northwest," Jazz announced.
"A depression lies to the west. High probability of water."
Aria studied the terrain.
"We'll head that way."
Sophie followed her gaze.
"With a little luck..."
"...we'll find a stream."
She smiled.
"I'd love to cool off."
A smile passed between them.
The wind swept softly across the ridge.
Now and then, a sudden shower of seeds drifted down from the branches, as though an invisible hand had gently shaken the forest.
Jazz recorded every occurrence with almost comical concentration.
"Observation, unusual synchronization."
"Cause unknown...but it's beautiful."
A burst of laughter escaped them. Then they continued walking.
The forest breathed around them with an ancient, peaceful rhythm. As though, since the moment they had arrived, it had stopped seeing them as strangers.
As though… without them realizing it yet...
It had begun to welcome them.
The Guardian Angel: The ancients knew that human beings, like the world around them, are shaped by four forces: earth, water, air, and fire. Earth carries their actions, water their will, air their feelings, and fire their thoughts. These forces belong as much to the visible world as they do to subtler realms. But as humans moved away from nature and the Mother of the World, they gradually forgot how to perceive these forces within themselves. Yet they have not disappeared. They have merely fallen dormant… waiting to be reawakened.