Chapter 11: One Step In
Laurent realized he might regret this about an hour too late.
The city wall was already behind him, its shadow long and unmoving on the road. The sound of carts and voices had thinned to nothing, replaced by wind through tall grass and the distant creak of trees shifting under their own weight.
He had never slept outside like this—not without walls, not without a door he could close and lock. Even on Earth, even when things were bad, there had always been a ceiling somewhere. A corner. A boundary. Here, there was none.
The forest ahead wasn’t dense yet, but it was enough—trees spaced irregularly, undergrowth thick in places, thin in others. No paths stayed paths for long. No signs. No markers cared whether he understood them.
Laurent adjusted the straps of his pack, suddenly very aware of how little he knew. Every sound made him pause: a rustle in the grass, a bird lifting off too fast, the snap of a twig somewhere to his left that he was certain he hadn’t stepped on. His mind immediately filled in the gaps—claws, teeth, things watching him without needing to hide.
He stopped walking.
For a long moment, Laurent stood still. Breathing slow. Heart loud in his ears.
The urge to turn back pressed at him, steady and unhurried, like a hand guiding him the other direction.
You can still go back, the thought insisted. Say it was a misunderstanding. Take another job. Figure something else out.
He looked behind him. The road was still there, winding back toward the city—clean and unbroken. Familiar. Safe. Closed. Not physically, not yet.
But the moment he stepped back onto it, the numbers would start again—the counting, the pretending, the slow slide toward failure that wore the shape of patience.
He exhaled through his nose and turned forward again.
One step into the water, he thought. That was how it felt—like he’d already waded in past his ankles. Not drowning. Not struggling. Just far enough that stopping now would only leave him cold and ridiculous, soaked for nothing.
He moved on.
As the light shifted, the forest grew denser. Shadows layered over one another, depth becoming harder to judge. He chose a small clearing to stop, hands trembling slightly as he unrolled the thin bedroll. This was where he would sleep. The ground was uneven. Too many roots. Too many places something could crawl out from.
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He tried adjusting, then gave up, sitting with his back against a tree.
He liked animals. He always had. On Earth, he’d kept pets—quiet ones, gentle ones, creatures that trusted hands and routines, creatures that lived in the same world he did. Wild animals were different. He knew that in theory. He just hadn’t felt the weight of it until now.
Night arrived without ceremony.
The forest did not quiet down. It breathed. Clicked. Moved.
Laurent held his pack close, listening to every sound, replaying every warning he’d ever heard about things that hunted at dusk and things that hunted at night. He did not sleep much.
He lay on his back, staring into darkness that did not belong to any ceiling.
He had once stared at a different ceiling—flat, white, faintly cracked near the corner where the light hit wrong. The hum of a campus building settling after hours. A message left unread on his phone because he had decided he would answer it in the morning.
There had always been a morning then.
The forest breathed around him—wet leaves shifting, something small moving through brush. No walls. No doors. No familiar hum of a house settling at night.
On Earth, Aly used to knock softly before entering his room. Not because she had to. Just because she liked the ritual of it.
“Are you busy?” she would ask, already halfway inside.
He could see her clearly now—standing on the beach in Bali, the pink sling bag hanging too proudly across her shoulder. She had held the strap like it might be taken from her.
“You didn’t have to,” she had said.
“I know.”
He pressed his arm across his eyes.
The forest did not quiet.
He pictured her walking through the house now, maybe still using that bag for no reason other than liking it. Maybe it sat on a chair somewhere.
Maybe it was empty.
The thought struck harder than the forest ever had.
His breathing broke pattern.
Not loud.
Not sharp.
But wrong.
For a second—just one—he wanted to scream her name.
Not whisper—not think it.
Scream it into the trees like the forest owed him an answer.
The sound never left his throat.
Air came in shallow and stuck halfway.
For a moment, he couldn’t force it.
His fingers dug into the dirt beside him, nails packing with soil as if anchoring himself to something solid would help.
What if she’s—
The thought didn’t stop when he told it to.
It pressed harder.
His jaw locked, but the image didn’t fade.
His shoulders trembled—not once, but long enough that he had to clench his jaw to stop it.
He folded forward without meaning to, forehead hovering just above the soil.
The sound that escaped him wasn’t a scream.
It was smaller.
Broken in a way he couldn’t control.
The forest shifted nearby.
He didn’t move.
His breath fractured and stayed that way. He didn’t try to fix it.
He let it hurt.
Eventually, the forest reclaimed the sound.
And he lay there, eyes open, until morning decided for him.
After a while, the forest reclaimed its rhythm, and he forced his breathing to match it.
The tremor in his shoulders did not return, but the tightness lingered, quiet and stubborn. He let it stay. There was no point pretending it hadn’t happened.
When morning came, his eyes were dry. He was still alive. Still whole. Still breathing.
He reached for his pack and misjudged the strap.
His fingers slipped.
The bag fell harder than it should have, the sound too loud in the quiet clearing.
He froze.
Nothing answered.
Still, his pulse spiked higher than it should have for something so small.
His hands were steady only after he forced them to be.
Something tight in his chest loosened just a fraction. Regret was still there. So was resolve.
He stood, stiff and wary, and took another step forward.
