The forest at night was a different thing entirely.
The canopy during the day already blocked enough light that the difference between day and night beneath it was more a matter of degree than kind. What changed was the quality of the silence.
During the day, even at its quietest, there was movement in the layers above—wind finding gaps in the leaves, creatures shifting weight on distant branches, the faint settling sounds of a living ecosystem going about its business.
At night, those sounds stopped.
And what replaced them was something heavier. More deliberate. The Forest of Twin Disasters did not sleep the way normal forests did. It simply changed shift. The things that moved through it after dark were different from the ones that moved through it at noon, and they moved differently—with more patience, more intent, more awareness that the darkness was a resource to be used rather than a condition to be endured.
Damien moved through it without concern.
