Chapter 2: A Trail of Worn-Down Memory

Chapter 2: A Trail of Worn-Down Memory

Dawn bled across the horizon in bruised shades of purple and orange, a sight Ethan had once watched from his high-rise apartment, coffee in hand, as a prelude to a day of crunching numbers. Here, it felt different. Older. It wasn't the start of a day, but the lifting of a shroud.

He stood by his brother's battered pickup truck, the engine ticking as it cooled. He’d swapped the loafers for a pair of high-tech trail runners and his slacks for expensive hiking pants—gear designed for curated paths, not the wild tangle of the reservation. He felt like an actor in the wrong costume.

Tomas emerged from the small house, not looking at Ethan but at the hills, as if seeking their permission. He carried a small, heavy-looking pack and wore the same steel-toed boots from the funeral. Without a word, he started walking, and Ethan fell into step behind him. His desire was a sharp, bitter thing in his throat: get in, find the proof, get out, and never look back.

The trail was a ghost of what Ethan remembered. The path they had worn down with their frantic, childish energy was now faint, half-reclaimed by weeds and fallen pine needles. They passed the great, flat rock where they’d pretended to be warriors making camp. It seemed smaller now, just a slab of stone, its imagined grandeur stripped away by time. Further on, the gnarled oak with the broken branch that had looked like a giant’s arm was just a dead tree, its limb rotting on the ground. The magic of childhood had evaporated, leaving only mundane reality. Ethan had wanted proof of the mundane; he was getting it, but it brought no satisfaction, only a hollow ache.

He wanted to fill the silence, to bait Tomas with cynical observations, but the woods themselves seemed to forbid it. The usual chatter of birds and squirrels was absent. The only sound was the rhythmic crunch of their boots on the forest floor, a two-beat heartbeat in a world holding its breath. It felt… watchful. Ethan shook his head, annoyed at the thought. The land wasn’t watching. It was just land. His mind, he reasoned, was projecting his own anxiety onto the scenery. It was a simple psychological phenomenon.

Tomas walked with a steady, ground-eating pace, his silence a heavy cloak. It was an obstacle Ethan couldn't talk his way through or analyze away. It forced Ethan inside his own head, where the memories were louder. He remembered S’s laughter echoing through these very trees, a sound so clear it was like a phantom limb, an ache for something that was no longer there. He remembered her face, wide-eyed with terror, the last time they’d been on this path. They’re angry, she’d cried. I can hear them whispering.

He’d told her to stop being a baby. The memory was a hot poker to his guilt. Proving Tomas wrong wasn't just about logic anymore; it was about silencing that memory, about proving that his dismissal of her fear hadn't been a fatal mistake.

They broke through a line of scraggly pine and stopped short. A ten-foot-high chain-link fence, gleaming and new, sliced through the woods. Bright yellow signs were wired to it at intervals.

TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN. PROPERTY OF MID-PLAINS PIPELINE CO.

The fence was a violent, geometric scar across the landscape, an offense of straight lines and cold metal against the organic chaos of the forest. It was a physical manifestation of the world Ethan had chosen. Efficient. Impersonal. Brutal.

“Great,” Ethan muttered, the first word spoken between them in over an hour. “Now what?”

Tomas didn't answer. He walked to the fence, his hand resting lightly on the cold wire. His expression was one of profound, weary sorrow, as if greeting an old friend who had suffered a terrible injury. He saw more than just a barrier; he saw a desecration. To him, this fence and Ethan’s disbelief were cut from the same cloth: a failure to respect what was sacred.

“They don’t care what they build on,” Tomas said, his voice low and rough. “Or what they cage in.”

He shrugged off his pack and pulled out a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters from a side pocket. The tool looked jarringly practical in this quiet, ancient place. With two sharp, metallic snaps that echoed unnaturally in the silence, a section of the chain-link was severed at the top and bottom. Tomas bent the flap of wiring back, creating a narrow opening. The action was deliberate, a quiet act of defiance. He was breaking a modern law to honor an ancient one.

He gestured for Ethan to go through. Ethan hesitated for a fraction of a second. He was a man who obeyed signs, who believed in property lines and legal statutes. But his need to reach the cave, to win this argument, was stronger. He ducked through the opening, the cut wires snagging at his expensive jacket.

The land on the other side of the fence felt different yet again. The silence was deeper, the air colder. The path here was clearer, more defined, leading them inexorably forward. The trees grew thicker, their branches tangling overhead, blotting out the morning sun and plunging them into a perpetual twilight.

Then they saw it.

Set into the base of a low, granite cliff was the cave. It wasn’t a grand, cinematic opening, but a dark, jagged fissure in the rock, like a wound that had split the hillside open. It looked smaller than he remembered, yet infinitely more menacing. A profound, unnatural cold seemed to radiate from it, pushing against the warmer air of the forest. The entrance was a patch of absolute blackness, a void that swallowed the light.

This was the place. The start and end of everything.

Ethan’s heart, which had been a steady drum of anxious energy, began to hammer with a more primal rhythm. The intellectual certainty he’d worn like armor felt thin and brittle. This wasn’t a data point on a chart or a case study in a textbook. It was a real, physical place, and it was breathing cold air onto his face. The desire to prove a point was now face to face with the deep-seated terror of a child who had run from this very spot and never stopped running.

As Ethan stood frozen, staring into the dark maw, Tomas stepped beside him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small leather pouch Ethan had known was there. He pinched a bit of dried sage and tobacco, holding it to his lips and murmuring words in their native tongue, too low for Ethan to understand. It wasn't a prayer of hope, but one of appeasement. An offering.

Ethan let out a short, sharp breath, a sound that was half-scoff, half-shiver. “Still think a little bit of smoke is going to help?”

Tomas finished his prayer and met his brother’s gaze. There was no anger in his eyes, only a deep, chilling pity.

“It isn’t for us, Ethan,” he said, his voice flat. “It’s a warning to them that we are coming.”

He turned and, without waiting for a reply, took the first step over the threshold, disappearing instantly into the waiting darkness.