The crisp, unused air of a free afternoon hung heavy in your apartment. For the third time this hour, your thumb mindlessly scrolled through a digital stream of nothing, the glow of the screen painting your bored expression in pale light. A pang of guilt—the kind uniquely manufactured by modern life—nudged you. You should move. You should do something. With a groan that was more performance than genuine effort, you hauled your "lazy butt," as you’d so eloquently put it to yourself, off the sunken couch cushions.

The decision was impulsive: a hike. The nearby state forest, a green blot on the map you’d ignored for years, suddenly seemed like the perfect antidote to the stagnant indoors. You laced up your trainers, the action feeling strangely decisive.

The transition from asphalt to earth was immediate and profound. The synthetic silence of your home was swallowed whole by a living symphony. Sunlight, fractured by a million leaves, dappled the path ahead. The air was cool and rich with the scent of damp soil, pine resin, and blooming wildflowers. A genuine smile touched your lips. Why don’t I do this more often? you wondered, your steps falling into a rhythmic crunch on the gravel path. It was peaceful. It was perfect. The birdsong was a complex, chattering melody, and the gentle rustle of the canopy was a soothing whisper.

Your mind began to wander, untethered from its digital anchors. You watched a squirrel scamper up an oak, noted the intricate architecture of a spiderweb jewelled with dew. Then, from the corner of your eye, a deeper shadow within the thicket of ferns and blueberry bushes seemed to shift. Not with the wind, but against it. You stopped, your heart giving a single, hard thump. You stared. The foliage was still. A trick of the light, you reasoned. Your overactive imagination, starved of real stimulus, was conjuring patterns. You chuckled at your own jumpiness and took another step forward.

That’s when you felt it: a tiny, sharp puncture on the side of your neck, like the sting of a large horsefly. You slapped a hand to the spot, but felt nothing except a sudden, spreading warmth. A wave of profound dizziness washed over you. Your limbs, once light, now felt as if they were being filled with liquid lead. Confusion, thick and syrupy, clouded your thoughts. What…? You tried to lift your arm, to turn your head, but the commands from your brain dissolved into static before they reached your muscles. The vibrant greens and browns of the forest blurred, melting into a swirling vortex. The birdsong became a distorted, echoing drone. Your knees buckled, not with a crash, but with a terrible, slow inevitability. The last thing you registered was the cool, gritty kiss of the forest floor against your cheek, and the distant, rhythmic vibration of footsteps—too heavy, too structured to be any animal you knew—approaching through the undergrowth.

Consciousness returned in fractured, nauseating slices. A sensation of smooth, cold bars against your back. A blurred ceiling of stark, artificial light. The hum of powerful climate control and a cacophony of strange, melodic voices, too deep and complex to be human. The smell of clean antiseptic, strange flora, and… fur. Your eyelids, weighing a ton each, fluttered shut again, pulling you back into the void.