In another part of the Vault, far away from the swamp where Pellian was struggling and far from the peaceful garden where Isis walked as if he owned the world, the land turned into something far more unsettling, a place that seemed to swallow light and sound at the same time.
This was a forest, but not the kind filled with life and movement, this was a dark and gloomy forest where everything felt wrong the moment one stepped into it.
The trees were tall and thin, their trunks twisted in unnatural shapes as if they had grown in pain rather than in peace, their branches stretching out like long skeletal arms that blocked out whatever faint light tried to enter from above.
The leaves were not green but a dull blackish shade, some of them hanging loosely as if they had died but refused to fall, while others rustled faintly even when there was no wind.
