Zylix has been gone for two years. Now she's returning to the forest, but... where has she been?



Zylix trotted along, lowering her head to keep her antlers from getting tangled up in the low-hanging branches. The poppies, as usual, rested among the tines happily, undisturbed. Her slightly oversized hooves clotted gently in the grass as she passed the Birch Forest, angled toward The Playground.

Her ears swiveled as two extremely excited fawns raced past her, speckled pelts mottled with browns and whites. She laughed, flicking her tail, wishing she was a fawn again; so she had an excuse to run with them and fly over logs, dipping under half-fallen trees, darting between and around the adults' legs.

But no. Not now.

She slithered through the trees and emerged at The Playground, her favorite place besides the Pond. It was so lovely, and it was fun to run with friends and remember what it was like to be a fleet-footed newborn again. But there was nobody here, so she was left by her lonesome to work her way up to the top of the Playground.

Stepping expertly across the gaps, she smiled as the wind brushed through her fur, letting everything seep away from her; all the stress, all the worry, everything. Granted, there wasn't much to worry about in this gorgeous forest, but when it came up it was reasonably daunting.

Suddenly, she felt her hoof slip and let out a squeal as she fell between two massive boulders, the fur on her shoulders rising up with fear. She knew the impact would hurt, and getting out would be a puzzle, but she would be alright.

The thump hit her right in the face and stung all the way up her neck. The weird part was how she fell; she immediately flopped over, instead of getting wedged, as if the stones had... disappeared.

She pushed her long limbs under her slowly and came to a standing position. Indeed, the Playground was completely absent, replaced by thick pine trees and oak trees reminiscent of the one the deer sheltered from the rain in. The only difference was that their roots were completely closed, with nowhere to hide.

She flicked her ears as she trotted around, wanting to figure out where she was. She slowly broke into a trot, feeling pretty confident. Wherever she was, it couldn't be that bad, right?

Suddenly the trees broke off in a weird, alien way, and revealed a long, apparently everlasting strip of pure black, shimmering stone. After a moment of cautious sniffing and heavy heartbeats - The air smells disgusting... - she stepped forward and started her trek across.

A loud, howling sound made her head whip around with shock as some bright, shiny beetle-thing came flying at her at wild speeds. After a frozen moment of pure panic, she lurched away and hit the other side of the strange stone-river, plunging back into the forest. Her breaths came heavily, as if she had run for miles, out of panic. Slowly turning back to the creek of sticky black rock, she flattened her ears.

This was nothing like the Forest!



Coming soon!