The deeper Thuta went, the quieter the world became.
He'd left the salt village three days earlier, traveling mostly by foot and sometimes by the creaking wooden beds of transport trucks heading into the northern forests. The sigil on his hand had gone cold since the last attack, but the scroll was more active than ever — glowing faintly at night, shifting maps like a dreaming eye.
Now, in the damp heart of a jungle he couldn't name, it was doing neither.
Which made him nervous.
Because the jungle around him was doing something worse.
It was listening.
---
There were no birds.
There were no insects.
The trees were tall and knotted, older than any trail map, and half-swallowed by vines that whispered when the wind touched them.
Thuta adjusted his pack and glanced over his shoulder for the fifth time.
Still alone.
But not unobserved.
He stepped over a root shaped like a twisted hand and followed what little of the trail remained, pushing past hanging moss. The air was thick, wet, and somehow echoing — like sound bounced wrong between the trees.
He paused.
Behind him, something mimicked his last footstep.
Not perfectly.
Just enough to make his blood cool.
---
By late afternoon, the path led him to a clearing. At its center stood the remains of a stone altar, cracked and mossy, surrounded by collapsed wooden posts that may have once held ritual flags.
The scroll flared.
He stepped forward.
Atop the altar was a jar. Sealed. Old. Clay marked with faded spirals.
He hesitated.
His hand twitched.
The sigil pulsed once — then recoiled, as if warning him.
He pulled back.
That's when the jungle moved.
Not wind.
Something within it.
A shimmer. A shape. Gone.
Then — a sound. Laughter. Distant and wet.
He turned.
Nothing.
The altar jar cracked.
---
A voice echoed — not in air, but in memory:
"Not all flames burn outward. Some echo backward."
Thuta grabbed the scroll.
It was shifting, rapidly. Symbols emerging and fading. Spirals within spirals.
And then — a word he didn't know, burned into the center:
"Ra-thone."
He spoke it aloud.
The wind died.
The trees stopped swaying.
And something answered.
---
The sigil on his hand ignited, and a vision surged forward.
Zawgyi, robed in crimson, kneeling around the altar centuries ago. One of them pouring something into the jar. Not blood. Not fire. Something gray and writhing.
They chanted.
The jungle darkened.
And something in the trees screamed without sound.
Thuta snapped out of it, gasping.
The jar on the altar was empty.
Something had left.
Or been awoken.
---
He stumbled back. His legs shook.
A noise behind him.
A whisper: "Flame walker."
He turned — but saw only trees.
The scroll glowed one last time that night.
New line:
"Echoes bloom before the fire returns."
Thuta didn't sleep.
Not because of fear.
Because the jungle was breathing, and something now breathed with it.
-----