The carriage lurched forward, wheels groaning as they rolled over the packed earth of the yard. Enoch steadied himself against the wooden frame and settled onto the bench. The cloth bundle rested at his feet. It felt lighter than it should have, as if the weight of what he was leaving behind had already begun to fade.
Rose sat opposite him, hands folded tightly in her lap, watching the village recede through the open flap. Thomas sat beside her, stiff and silent, eyes fixed ahead. He did not look at Enoch again.
Greywood slipped past in pieces. Familiar roofs. The temple's pale stone catching the morning light. Smoke rising from chimneys as the day began like any other, unaware it had lost someone who would remember it. Someone whom the little village had been a part of her as much as she was a part of it.
Enoch exhaled slowly.
As the carriage passed the edge of the village, something tugged at him. Apressure, faint and distant, like standing too close to and impact without feeling the pain of the disturbance.
He frowned and glanced back, nothing was there. The road stretched southward, winding between low hills and thin stands of trees. The horses picked up pace. The village disappeared behind a bend, swallowed by distance.
Only then did the pressure fade.
Enoch leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment. He told himself it was nerves, a reaction to leaving. Humans felt those things, after all.
Still, the silence inside him felt heavier than usual.
Far away, beyond roads and villages, beyond places with names, and without. The land shifted.
At the edge of a barren plain scorched black by fire, the sky pulsed once, barely noticeable, as if light itself had inhaled. Green flickers danced along the cracks in the earth before vanishing again, leaving the ground unchanged to any eye that was not watching closely.
Deep within the stone of a distant mountain, something stirred.
The unmistakable green energy of chaos did not surge. It did not roar, It pulsed gently, as if not trying to alert anyone of it'sexistance.
The rules governing the flow of power twisted slightly, like a thread pulled just enough to change a pattern without breaking it.
A presence lingered, neither awake nor dormant, its will pressed thinly across reality like a shadow cast from very far away.
The very first sign came before midday.
One of the horses pulling the second carriage stumbled, snorting loudly. The driver cursed and reined it in. When the animal lifted its head again, steam curled briefly from its nostrils, faintly tinted green before dispersing into nothing.
No one noticed.
They stopped to rest near a stream. Rose busied herself with food. Thomas spoke to one of the drivers and Enoch knelt near the water to rinse his hands.
As his fingers touched the surface, the ripples spread wider than they should have. The water warmed slightly beneath his skin, then cooled again.
Enoch withdrew his hand slowly.
He stared at the stream, watching it flow as if nothing had happened. Reason supplied an answer. Sunlight? Shallow water? Maybe, his imagination?
He accepted it and moved on.
That night, as they camped beneath the open sky, Enoch lay awake longer than usual. The stars looked sharper, and closer somehow. He counted them out of habit, tracing patterns he had learned long ago, patterns that no longer seemed quite right.
One star flickered green for a fraction of a second.
Enoch sat up.
It did not happen again.
He lay back down, staring upward until sleep finally claimed him.
Elsewhere, fire moved, not wild, not uncontrolled. It flowed through channels carved into reality itself, reshaping paths that had once been sealed. Laughter that echoed across a scorched field had faded, but its echo remained, imprinted into the fabric of the world.
Where fire passed, change follows. It was up to the ones affected by that change to decide if it was a good or a bad change. Where change accumulated, cracks formed and through those cracks, more of the influence seeped. By the third day on the road, Enoch noticed the patterns, agai.
Small things, things too small to speak of.
A campfire that burned hotter than expected. A wheel that did not crack when it should have. A gust of wind that pushed smoke aside just as sparks leapt too high.
Each time, Enoch was nearby. Each time, he told himself it was coincidence. But reason does not ignore repetition.
That night, as the others slept, Enoch sat alone at the edge of the camp, staring into the fire. The flames twisted lazily, their color steady, and ordinary.
Then, just at the core, he thought he saw green. It vanished the instant he leaned closer. Enoch frowned, a rare expression on his face.
"Something is going on," he murmured to himself.
"Definitely something weird is going on. Perhaps a trick by a god? Something spying on me?" He added
"Green flames, very weird. The stream clearly felt warm and then turned cold when I touched it. That is plenty weird in my eyes"
He did not know why the words felt true.
The world, unaware of why, began to brace itself, as if sensing that something which had once been removed had found a way to press its shadow back through the seam.
Nothing had returned, no sir not yet. But something had changed, yes.
And in that change, the world learned a new habit, to hesitate, to listen, to leave space where none had been before, as though instinct itself had stepped back from an edge it could not see.
For when the silence finally chooses to move, it would not announce itself.
It would simply fit, and take the space left for itself.
When Enoch stood from the fire and walked towards the outskirts of the camp, a blind folded man in rags walked past their camp shouting madly.
"Woe to the earth that had mistook silence for safety.
Woe to the skies that believed distance was the same as escape.
Woe to the laws that thought themselves eternal.
Woe to the gods who mistook fear for judgment, who choose suppression over understanding, who judge what they could not command and cast it into the realm where all dreams die.
Woe to the ones who caused the dissolution, who tore apart what should never have been divided, who believed breaking a will would make it harmless.
They were wrong!
Woe to the living, for the laughter they have shall turn into gnashing of teeth and sorrow
Woe to the world, for "They" are returning, and they don't distinguish friend or foe."
When the man finished his almost crazy rant Enoch frowned, a evil melody seemed to play in his head as he gazed up into the skies.