Fiction: Group 3
their shadows was a collection of tents. In the center was one particularly large tent, so expansive that it
more resembled a stark, white, angular copy of the blooming canopy just a couple hundred meters away in
all directions.
It was walled and heated, and inside thick faux flooring had been laid out, with bunk beds rising to
the ceiling all around. An unopened pack of playing cards lay on a folding table near the center, along with
some neatly placed stools. Men wearing damp shirts and clipon ties lay in their bunks, their faces an eery
blue from the slim black devices in their hands. Those waiting for their devices to return from the well-
forested power strip in the corner of the canopy would sit on the edges of their bunks and make quiet,
awkward conversation. However, currently the only people inside were you, Tim (the shy, eager man you
had met earlier that day), and Grange. Nobody knew his first name. While most of the engineers adorned
their faces with the blue glow of their electronics, Grange instead had a stack of books next to his bunk that
he flipped through incessantly.
Presently, a muffled snoring came from where Tim had been lying in his bunk. Grange lifted his gaze and
clapped his book shut. "Well, that's the last of them." He eased himself off of his bunk and shuffled over to
the table, gesturing for you to sit.
You both sat at the table. The silence was filled with the quiet crackling of plastic wrapping as Grange
obliviously unwrapped the cards.
"You play?"
"No."
He contemplated you. The fine network of wrinkles across his face expanded and shifted as he squinted ever
so slightly. Then, they shifted again, some of them even disappearing. He relaxed, and it was as if his whole
body opened like an ancient, creaking door.
"Wanna learn?"
"...No."
A pause.
"You know, I waited for that Tim guy to get out of the way 'cus you were different."
You raised an eyebrow, your interest piqued by his pseudo-compliment.
"'Cus I knew you saw this place as it was."
It was true. The other men seemed to be capable only of peering through an eerie mist of mosquitoes and
glowing screens.
Out there was a silent, watching being. Sighing collages of greens and blues, staring amusedly as you
wandered beneath them.
"Let's go for a walk."
You were in the cooling, breathing jungle, the soothing whispers cooing quietly to you through an
amalgam of tiny chitterings and creaks.
The gravel extended long and straight like a road to the edge of your sight, the bright moon making its
rolling surface turn into an ocean, a deep, bluish grey ocean.
"Remember this place," murmured Grange. "Keep it safe in your mind, before it changes too much.”
"I will," you said quietly, measuredly.
***
"Remember that big clearing near the hill?"
"Which hill?"
