The silence at the riverbank was a heavy, suffocating thing, broken only by the rhythmic, mocking splash of brown water against the saturated mud.
It was a wet, sloppy sound that seemed to laugh at her predicament. Lin Wan sat on the edge of the bank for a long time, her chest heaving in jagged, shallow gasps as she tried to force the lightning-strike of adrenaline out of her system.
Her hands were still caked in the thick, foul-smelling slurry of the flood, a mixture of rotting vegetation and mountain silt, and the grime was beginning to dry.
Her skin felt tight and itchy, a crawling sensation that made it feel as if the river itself were trying to burrow under her pores to claim what was left of her.
She took a shaky breath, her eyes darting across the horizon. The trees here were different. In the North, the forest felt ancient and steady, but this Southern canopy was lush, tangled, and aggressive.
