He sniffed the musky air, broke off the bark of a pine, and darted through the bushes...as if looking for it. A wail, from somewhere on the ridge to the right...the reverb echoed inside his soul. He slipped through the shrub-boulder maze, passing rusty-red rhododendron, to the rock ring before his canvas green tent.
Distributing bark and twigs inside the ring...blowing one last length of light, tinder crumbling before the whisper-like wind threatened to cool the pit...suddenly a drizzle descended, a mist bathing him. And with it, the sounds of the forest deteriorated into discord. In this dissonance, his heart raced, his head pounded, and his frame stiffened.
But deep in the gray green forests of the gathering darkness, the presence lingered, ever elusive. And though the mountains and the sky melted into the night, the presence hid where no man could hide, between the realm of the known and the unknown...
A canopy of tears emptied from the leaves above, and the hiker wiped his face. The cascade of drops caught the last embers unprepared, and doused his hopes...the fire died, and another stepped in to where the shadowlands had been. There were eyes behind the pines, red bullets that pierced the night...
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