What if the greatest danger was believing that everything could be understood?
The stream no longer flowed the way it had before. It was still moving, yes… But something had changed in its rhythm. The water slipped between the stones with an unusual slowness.
Sophie stood perfectly still, so did Aria.
As for Jazz… He had stopped making comments altogether. For him, that was almost more unsettling than the anomaly itself.
"Presence confirmed," he repeated, his voice lower this time.
Neris returned to them in just a few strides, her eyes already sweeping the canopy, then the ground, then the water. Her miniature drones hovered silently around her, tiny black specks suspended in the air.
"Where?" she asked.
Jazz tilted his dome toward the stream.
"There."
A brief silence.
"In the water."
Sophie's stomach tightened with the strange dizziness that comes when something you had always believed was imaginary suddenly decides to take shape.
The stream began to ripple, not across its entire surface, only along a long, winding line. At first it was barely visible, like a shadow beneath the reflections. Then it became clearer and wider.
"Sophie..."
Aria took a step backward.
"I know."
"No, you don't," Aria replied, her voice tight.
"There's something under there."
The line moved slowly beneath the water.
Something long drifted silently between the stones, following the current. Green and golden reflections bent across a dark, smooth mass whose true size was impossible to judge.
Jazz quietly took another step back.
"Journal update: twelve-percent probability of encountering a mythical creature has been canceled."
A pause.
"Revised assessment: mythical creature confirmed.Estimated size: much too large."
"Jazz..."
Aria whispered.
"Please be quiet."
"That was exactly my intention."
The water rose. First like a low swell, then like a back. An enormous back, something slowly emerged from the stream. Dark scales shimmered with blue and copper reflections. Thin streams of water slid across them like liquid light. Its body looked far too large for such a narrow stream, far too ancient for this place.
Sophie stopped breathing.
Then its head appeared, broad, long and elegant: a serpent.
Not quite like an anaconda. It belonged to the natural world… Yet also to something beyond it. There was a presence about it, too calm, too aware.
Its eyes opened in two dark glimmers, not hostile. Within them there was neither curiosity nor anger, only a cold recognition. As though it already knew something they did not.
Neris froze.
"None of my sensors can detect it properly," she murmured.
"My drones can see it..."
"...and not see it at the same time."
"Same here," Jazz confirmed.
"My systems refuse to decide whether it is an animal, a thermal anomaly..."
"...or a very bad idea."
Aria couldn't take her eyes off the serpent's head. Every instinct she had screamed at her to run. Her body refused. Sophie heard something else, not words, a breath, a faint vibration just behind her heart.
The forest allowed you to enter.
She repeated it aloud without realizing.
"The forest… allowed us to enter."
Aria slowly turned toward her.
"Is it saying that?"
Sophie didn't answer.
The serpent rose a little higher. Its head now towered above the stream, above the ferns, above the stones. In a way… above them. Water streamed from its scales in slow, silent ribbons, as though even the droplets knew better than to disturb it.
The breath returned. Sophie's fingers turned icy.
"But welcoming… is not the same as protecting."
The silence grew heavier. Neris slowly lowered one hand toward her equipment case.
The serpent turned its head toward her. Neris froze instantly.
"Message received," she murmured.
"No technology."
Jazz backed away another step.
"I have a proposal. We should listen to the giant serpent."
Aria swallowed.
"For once..."
"I completely agree."
The serpent remained perfectly still for several long seconds… It simply watched them. And Sophie felt something else flowing through it, not a threat, a truth.
The forest wasted nothing. It was only the beginning of another cycle. Life continued relentlessly and indifferently.
Every step, every heartbeat, every escape belonged to the same fragile balance to survive… or to nourish something else: predator, prey, death, growth.
Everything belonged to an ancient dance where each depended upon the other to preserve the rhythm of the endless forest.
Sophie slowly closed her eyes.
"We're walking like children..."
"...through a kingdom that doesn't belong to us."
A wave of humiliation swept through Aria.
Ever since crossing the Wall, she had believed she was being careful. She had calculated, observed, followed tracks, and watched the drones.
Yet she had failed to notice the most obvious truth.
Here… Danger did not only come from above. It came from everywhere, from the water, from the roots, from everything they had never learned how to read.
The serpent slowly curved its immense body. The water shifted with terrifying gentleness.
Neris whispered,
"It could kill us without the slightest effort."
"Thank you," Jazz replied.
"I was trying very hard not to say that out loud."
Sophie rested a hand against her chest.
"It doesn't want to kill us."
The serpent turned its dark eyes toward her.
— Not yet.
— Understand that I am the reflection of the serpent that lives within you.
The words entered Sophie like a blade of ice. She did not repeat them.
But Aria saw her turn pale.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What did it say?"
"It says..."
"...we have to learn."
"Learn what?"
The serpent opened its mouth just slightly… Then it became perfectly still.
A cold breath swept across them. Suddenly, Sophie saw farther beneath the calm water.
Another shape gliding silently below the surface.
She stumbled backward.
"There's another one."
Aria went pale.
"Another serpent?"
"No… I don't know."
"Something."
Jazz turned sharply toward the stream.
"Negative detection."
Neris clenched her jaw.
"My drones can't see anything either."
Sophie blinked.
Only the current remained. The great serpent slowly lowered its head. Then it breathed once more.
This time… Aria felt it too. Not words, but a certainty : the forest was not a refuge. It was a world that did not exist merely to be beautiful. Before anything else… It was wild.
The serpent slipped back toward the stream. Its immense body gradually disappeared beneath the water. It should have been impossible for something so large to vanish into such shallow depths.
And yet… Segment by segment… It sank until only one last dark reflection remained.
Then… Nothing.
The current resumed its quiet flow.
For a long moment… No one spoke.
Then Jazz quietly said,
"Forest protocol update: do not die because of ignorance."
A nervous laugh escaped Sophie. Aria ran a hand across her face.
"We really were walking around as if we understood any of this."
"Maybe we understand one thing now," Neris said.
Aria looked at her.
"What?"
Neris kept her eyes on the stream.
"The forest doesn't hate us."
A brief pause.
"But it's not going to take care of us either."
Sophie nodded slowly. She could still feel the serpent's breath deep inside her chest. Not as a threat, as a warning, as wisdom settling somewhere beneath her skin.
"It said we have to learn."
"Learn from the forest."
"Then that's what we'll do," Aria replied.
Neris retrieved her drones but didn't launch them again.
"We slow down. We keep following the water..."
"...but we also watch everything around us: the ground, the trees, everything."
Jazz blinked.
"At last a reasonable decision."
Sophie smiled faintly, but her eyes remained fixed on the stream. She was still afraid, not in the same way as before. This fear didn't crush her. It opened her eyes.
Far behind them… The city continued believing that danger came with badges… Drones… And official reports.
It was wrong, danger could also have scales. And it had just welcomed them.
The Guardian Angel: Sophie, Aria, and Neris discover that the serpent is not necessarily their enemy. It reminds them that the same force can protect or destroy. For the serpent also lives within each of us: a power we must learn to recognize, understand, and master, rather than allowing it to rule us.