The Explorers looked at the fountain one last time, then at the empty auditorium.
Behind where they were on the stage, a giant curtain was hanging down from the ceiling.
Enza started pulling it aside, which took a lot of her strength. She held it open while Athalia slipped backstage, then went inside herself.
Instead of a backstage area, behind the curtain led directly outside.
A completely dead forest stretched out before the Explorers.
It was filled with 'life', yet it was dead.
Plants, animals, trees, flowers, lichen, insects, all of them lay dead everywhere.
The first stratum was separated into two parts: The Forest of Ash and the Forest of Death.
The Forest of Ash is lifeless, but is a lack of life the same as death?
Death isn't so kind as to be gray and clean and harmlessly cold, like old ash.
The final state might become that, but you can't forget rigor mortis.
Death is both warm and cold; it's disgusting during it happens, as well as right after.
The Forest of Death was thick with that fresh stench of the end of life. Enza and Athalia resisted the urge to throw up.
But they took the first step inside, closing the curtains behind them. They were on the first stratum now.
The Explorers moved as quickly as possible into the forest, pushing corpses and rotten foliage out of the way. It was difficult going.
But that was okay with them; they were patient.
…In the Forest of Death, death is only one side of the equation.
What is death without life?
What is death that does not become life once more?
Death is a great force in life; life is a great force in death.
When in the Forest of Death, you know to feel fear once Life begins…
The grand Instrument, 'Bring Life.'
As Enza and Athalia stumbled and tripped their way through the disgustingly crowded forest, they were waiting for this Instrument.
But they didn't have to wait long.
The Forest of Death is only the Forest of Death for half the time. The other half, it's the Forest of Life.
DRIP
This single dripping sound echoed throughout the forest. Enza and Athalia's heads whipped upward.
"There it is…"
A big droplet of water was falling from the sky, its source unclear. It was vibrating with an energy that was both powerful and weak, condensed yet relaxed. It was transparent, opaque, bright white, pitch black, and every color on the electromagnetic spectrum at once.
The moment it touched the ground, the forest around it came alive. There was a cacophony as animals were revived and got to their feet, trees and plants rustled as branches snapped loudly, and birds screeched.
Life's beginning isn't smooth: the forest was screaming.
Bring Life zipped around the forest excitedly; it had a playful energy. It was lighting up parts of the forest at random, seeming not to care about the tidiness of its task. However, it always went back to revive the spots it had missed.
Athalia and Enza were crouched down behind a tree, hiding from the water droplet. This was the first part of their plan.
Bring Life might look playful, but its intelligent nature brought extreme hazards.
If it saw new creatures that don't usually exist in the forest, of course it would want to play and have lots of fun!
Unfortunately, playing with Bring Life was not safe.
This forest was easier to travel through quickly when it was alive, since the living things would be able to move out of the Explorers' path. For this reason, Enza and Athalia were waiting for Bring Life to clear a path of life ahead of them.
But the truth was, Bring Life could go right to their current hiding spot by total chance. Their current situation was a gamble. The Mountain was never truly safe, even with the utmost of training.
Unfortunately, this was a necessary gamble. They couldn't use Athalia's Measuring Anchor to move around quickly here because of the trees in the way. They would only be able to outrun Bring Life on foot while the forest ahead of them was alive.
To the relief of Athalia and Enza, the water droplet's playful zipping cleared out a large swath of forest ahead. Then it zipped to the left and began making a wide circle around.
The two Explorers looked at each other and nodded, sprinting through the forest as fast as they could. As soon as they broke out from their hiding spot, they heard Bring Life stop moving behind them.
It had seen some new friends!
It happily danced through the air towards the Explorers as they sprinted away, countless animals jumping out of their path.
Athalia and Enza dodged and leaped through the trees, occasionally throwing things behind them to block the way. Athalia kicked down a tree, and Enza threw dozens of handfuls of dirt.
Although Bring Life had intelligence, it was limited and simple, so distractions like this would make it pause for a second before flying around them.
When the water droplet was forced to pause due to the obstacles, something odd would happen.
A source of life naturally brings the dead back to life.
But what happens when that source touches something that's already alive?
What happens when Bring Life stays in the same place instead of moving on?
Right where the water droplet had paused, there was a spider's web, two birch trees, colorful bushes, a small anthill, and a bear.
As soon as Bring Life paused, all of these things began to rapidly evolve…
The tendrils of the bushes shot out chaotically to cover the ground like a web. The anthill exploded as the ants multiplied in size. The trees bent towards each other and melded together to form a dense canopy. The bear's limbs and facial features were rearranged on its body, its fur turning to the texture of a dragonfly's wings.
Amidst this chaos, a pattern began to emerge. All of the hyper-evolved creatures within Bring Life's were moving into a single point, trying to merge.
Of course, this doesn't match up with how evolution usually works. Evolution is a series of extremely small changes that happen over a long period of time. It's driven by subtle factors in the environment, and follows the survival of the fittest principle.
The Instrument Bring Life throws all of that out the window. By forcing this slow and methodical process to happen all at once, it usually leads to all the life in the area violently merging, although the results can be unpredictable.
This phenomenon naturally posed an immense risk to Athalia and Enza, who were sprinting through the forest along the path Bring Life had cleared for them.
Their only saving grace was that the first stratum wasn't very large. The Explorers only had to run for another minute before they would cross into the Forest of Ash and be safe from the water droplet.
But right then, an animal darted in front of Enza, causing her to trip and fall. Athalia immediately turned around to save her, but Bring Life was only a second behind…
As Enza was helped to her feet and started running again, Bring Life approached the back of her suit. The sticks and dried flesh that made up the suit began to come to life.
Tendrils of meat and wood started to wrap around Enza's neck and face. She frantically tried to pull them off, but it was no use. Athalia saw this and cursed, kicking down another tree to slow the water droplet that was joyfully chasing them.
She had an idea. She took out the fishing rod and made a cast toward Enza's neck.
A muffled shout escaped Enza's mouth, but she didn't have time to protest against Athalia's plan.
Athalia gave the line a quick pull to ensure she had Enza hooked securely, then made a wide swing with the rod like a fish had just bit the line. Enza was whipped at high speeds into the trunk of a nearby tree. The writhing organism on her back let out a squeal and a crunch as it was instantly killed.
The tendrils dropped away lifelessly from Enza's neck and mouth, allowing her to start screaming in pain.
But then Athalia said, "There's no time for that!"
Athalia aimed for a clear path in the forest ahead and flung Enza toward it. She slammed into another tree trunk right at the border between the Forest of Death and the Forest of Ash.
At that moment, Bring Life had found its way around the obstacle. Athalia sprinted ahead with all her strength, making it to Enza with only a second to spare. She dragged both of them into the Forest of Ash.
At the point where the Forest of Death meets the Forest of Ash, it changes from solid ground to a web of catwalks. At the points where multiple catwalks merge, there are ashen trees.
In between the catwalks, there is only the pitch-black Chasm.
All of the catwalks are covered in dense ash, but only some of them have solid ground hidden beneath. If you step on the wrong one, you'll fall away to your death.
The Explorers had no way to mark which paths were safe, as the catwalks would reform differently on a regular basis.
Just like when they let Bring Life clear a path, a gamble had to be made. Athalia held her breath as she and Enza landed on top of a catwalk. Thankfully, it was solid.
At the moment they crossed into the Forest of Ash, the water droplet had caught up. However, it seemed completely unable to cross between the forests. As it pressed against the invisible divider, it let out a loud screeching sound.
As it pushed against the force, Bring Life was changing. The water in the droplet was turning into acid.
However, it couldn't seem to stop itself.
…The Forest of Ash is lifeless.
How could a source of life coexist with a lifeless place?
Yet life had a desire to proliferate wherever it could, so it tried its best.
But only as it turned to acid was Bring Life able to pass through the barrier. Only when it became something that was neither alive nor dead could it come to the Forest of Ash.
Athalia and Enza watched as the mix of black, white, transparency, opaqueness, and every color at once was turned into sizzling acid as if the border had put it through a sieve, leaving it to pool at their feet. Then it started to disappear- it was evaporating.
Athalia and Enza sighed with relief.
Truthfully, the evaporation of Bring Life wasn't the end of its threat… but it meant they had a second to rest.
They could also watch the upcoming show.
For half the time, the Forest of Death is also the Forest of Life. Right then, it was bursting with life.
And just a short while later, the Instrument known as Bring Death returned to balance the scales.