I walked through the jungle alone.
The canopy above was thick and green, filtering the morning sunlight into scattered gold that fell in patches across the forest floor. The air was warm and wet, heavy with the scent of earth and leaves and the distant sweetness of flowers that bloomed where the light touched the soil.
Birds called to each other from the branches, their songs bright and indifferent, and somewhere in the distance, a stream murmured over stones worn smooth by centuries of water.
None of it touched me.
I walked past all of it, the light, the sound, the life that pulsed through the jungle like a heartbeat. My boots were soft on the fallen leaves, and the birds did not fly away from me. They knew I was not a threat.
