Astereniya and I searched for half an hour, but we couldn't find whatever had made the noise. Although I hated giving up, we eventually decided to leave and continue on our journey. I walked with her in silence, mentally chiding myself. If we had found the thing, it would be different, but we had just wasted a huge chunk of time searching for nothing. We wouldn't get nearly as far as I'd hoped to. That was two miles lost, just like that.
As we hiked onward, the forest gave way to a vast swamp. The blanket of mist only seemed to get thicker as we continued forward. Trees became few and far between, replaced by scrub and reeds. There was no wind whatsoever, the cattails only moving when we brushed them out of the way. There was no noise, either--everything was absolutely silent, except for our boots squelching through the peat.
Toward the end of the day, Astereniya and I made our way over to a scraggly tree. It was the biggest one we'd seen in a long time, and we didn't want to risk continuing on and getting caught out at night without shelter. As dusk fell, we weaved a tent out of reeds and set it up among the tree's snarled branches.
"I'll take first watch," I offered. I sat down in the fork of two tree branches and watched as the color slowly leached out of the sky, leaving only the scattered glow of moonlight to see by.
