I know something is wrong before the forest tells me.
The air is too still. Not quiet. Still. Like a held breath that has gone on too long. The kind that tightens the back of your throat before you realize you are bracing for impact. Even the insects seem to hesitate, their usual background hum thinning out until it feels staged, artificial.
I had expected time.
That was my first mistake.
Time has always been the currency he trades in. Distance. Patience. The slow, deliberate narrowing of space. I built my plan around that assumption, around the idea that he would circle the edges of what I changed, testing, measuring, recalibrating before he dared step closer.
He has always respected his own rules.
Patterns. Delays. A measured pace that suggested control was the point, not speed. Th
