Chapter 31 Chapter Thirty

Turk navigates the alien forest, which was not long ago a colony of oil drillers, by remnants of pavement and sidewalks.He managed to follow the white lines and asphalt to find the parking lot of the shopping center, and from there it was only a short walk to the last time he saw Su Lianne.The building where Moai and the others used to be. It's just that it's not there anymore.There was only a large area of ​​rubble and rubble in front of me, and the trees were thicker, blocking out the dim light of the afternoon.It has become an embankment of broken tiles, siding, wood, aluminum twisted into unimaginable shapes.This embankment passed, and in the dimness, the steel beams of the house skeleton stood up in a rectangular shape.Some of the beams were covered with those root-like extensions.

We're going to walk diagonally towards the south end of the mall.He said.That's where the grocery store is, or where it used to be.Maybe it's still there. ☆ A haunted forest, Liz thought. Oh, how strange. She found herself reading to herself a sentence from a storybook her father had read to her as a child, the title and the story she had forgotten, except (in her father's exaggerated drawl) that they went into the dark forest.They went into the dark forest.In this dark forest with birds like torn paper in the trees, this forest is (another part of the same story) from which they must escape, but that is easier said than done because there are wolves here, or something worse. something bad, and the night was coming, and she didn't know the way out.She wanted to rush out from under the sheets and grab her father's hand.want more than anything.

But can't.She scolded herself, this time in her mother's voice: Don't be silly, Liz.Get yourself in order.Be well behaved, girl. She almost stepped on a pile of metal stained with plaster, which Turk recognized as Mrs. Rebuka's car.She recognized the wire tires, quite clearly, because a pole-like tree trunk emerged from the cracked pavement, pushing the car over and over.The cart is useless now, and unless the forest is back into the ground, any cart will be useless.It also doesn't look like the forest will be shrinking back anytime soon.If we're going to get out of here, we'll have to go, Liz thought, and it's a horrible sight.The good news is that the car was empty, Isaac and the others weren't in the car, so they're probably somewhere else, still alive.

Now we are close to the food store.Turk said, and Dr. Duvali ran a few meters ahead in one go.A dilapidated shop doorway could be seen behind a row of alien growths. The earthquake did not spare this place. If Isaac and the others hid here, they might all have died.It couldn't be more obvious than it is self-evident.Dr. Duvaly wanted to dig right away, but what could the three of them do with tons of tile fragments?Turk said: Let's go around to the back first, it seems that there may be less damage in the back. Duvaly stood dejectedly on the edge of the rubble for a while, and for the first time Lise felt a little pitiful for him.All night, all morning, Lise had been imagining those women huddled with Isaac in a safe place, and they could all be together again, and then she and Turk could head for some safe port, even if these crazy fourth Young people insist on staying in this perverted place.This is the happy scene she was most looking forward to.

Now it looks like that won't happen.The whole thing could very well end in tragedy.There may be no way to escape this dark forest.Perhaps for Isaac and the women, the story was over. ☆ At first glance, the back of the mall appears to be more intact than the front, but that's only because the cement loading area wasn't damaged by the earthquake.Everything else is a mess.Lise was upset, and Dr. Duvaly seemed to be fighting back tears. Turk still walked carefully on the edge of the debris area with firm determination, and finally Turk turned around, raised his palm as a stop gesture, and said quietly: Listen.

Liz stood still.She heard the crackling of the forest, a sound she was almost used to.The wind was blowing, and those shiny orbs were beating the quiet wood music.But beyond this sound, subtle, what is that? One sounded like scratching, and the other sounded like digging. Duvally said: "They're alive!It must be! Don't jump to conclusions.Turk said, come with me and keep quiet. Duvale, worthy of a fourth year, held back his renewed optimism.The three of them were within an arm's length of each other, with Turk leading the way following the sound.With each step, the sound of digging and scratching became more and more audible.But Lisi's optimistic heart began to hesitate.There was something wrong with the sound.That relentless soft rhythm that seems too patient to be quite human

Then Turk made another stop gesture, and beckoned them to come forward. There was movement in a broken loading bay.Sure enough, as Liz suspected, this was the action of a hypothetical intelligent creature.Here grew a dense hedge of growths that Duvaly called eyed roses, with petaled eyes all fixed on the remnants of the rubble.Surrounding it was a thick mat of writhing roots, some sharp, others flat like a spatula.It was this mass of roots that dug.So surreal!The debris isn't just concrete, steel, and plastic, it's crumbled breakfast cereal cartons, milk bottles, and canned food.Liz suddenly became dizzy.She watched a black-and-blue tendril wrap itself around a large commercial soup can, crumpling the red-and-white paper label and holding it up so that the nearest eye could examine it before passing on to another tendril, and so on. .All the way to the end, the cans were thrown on top of the cleaned up debris remnants.

The process was so meticulous and weird that it almost made her laugh.But she didn't smile, but stared at it intently, as if it had been a long, long time.Even if Rose with Eyes knew they were there, she didn't respond.So patiently digging down, scratching, exploring, knocking, sifting She stifled a scream when Turk suddenly put a hand on her shoulder.We should step back a bit.he said softly.She thought it was a brilliant idea. ☆ Has the sun already set?Lise's watch was lost on the road or in the workers' dormitory.She doesn't like the coming night. As soon as they were free to talk (though still softly, as if the eyed rose could hear them, and she knew they could), Turk said to Duvali: I'm sorry we didn't hear those Miss

But Duvali's eyes were still bright and full of hope.Can't you see what that means?They must be alive, down here at least Isaac, must be alive! Because the hypothetical intelligent creature wants Isaac.These growths may not necessarily be sentient (whether individually or collectively), but they know that parts of themselves are separated by rocks and ruins. They want Isaac.But what to do with him when you find him? We can only observe.Dr. Duvali said, sleep here and observe until the child comes out alive. Come out to meet his fate.Alice thought.