We Followed Autumn’s Bright Trail Through the Dark Forest
We followed autumn’s bright trail through the dark forest, its gold leaves glowing on our wrist maps like a signal from orbit. The canopy closed overhead, swallowing the survey drone’s hum. Then the trees began shifting beneath us, their roots unfolding around a buried transit gate—and something answered our beacon from below.
We followed autumn’s bright trail into the dark forest, though from the ground it looked less like a path than a river of leaves poured between pines. Above us, yellow crowns burned like lanterns; orange branches flashed whenever the wind shook them. The sun had slipped behind the ridge, and rain dampened our map. We kept moving, boots sucking at the mud, while a creek rattled over stones somewhere ahead. Then the trail split around a wall of spruce. We chose the left fork: a red leaf trembled on a low branch like a flag. It led uphill to a clearing beneath a cold violet sky. From there, we saw the golden ribbon winding through the black-green canopy, bright as a fuse. For a moment, no road, no phone, no human voice reached us—only wind in the leaves and our breath rising white in the dusk.
