Soon, the small party pressed eastward. They seldom encountered mutated creatures, for most had already veered towards other directions to form new paths, scattering as they went.
Yet the island felt curiously hollow. Routes seemed to lead endlessly into others, linking different directions, but never back to the same point unless one marked the trail with care.
It was as though the land itself shifted. For instance, if a beast travelled west to south and a man set out south to west along the same line, they would never meet. The island bent their paths apart, as if it refused to let them cross.
Because of this, they slowed their pace to avoid stumbling into anything they wished to steer clear of. After roughly half an hour, they had advanced only a few metres from their original position.
