Day 2,103

The drowned forest wasn't somewhere you went to willingly, it was somewhere you woke up in when you had nowhere else to go. A place that looked familiar enough for you to navigate around but unfamiliar enough that you weren't able to find the way back out.

Along the way you'd meet other lost travellers who'd regard you with deep suspicion and after a while you'd do the same to them. Anyone and everyone could be an illusion hiding something much, much worse and the ways of knowing who was an actual human were so finicky and varied that it was easier and simpler to play like they were all out for your blood.

Occasionally you'd smell the sea or see a burnt out campsite full of broken, still smouldering tents. Both were signs that you were somehow further from the exit than ever before. In fact no matter which direction you headed, if you had no place in mind you'd only wind up deeper under the waves, breathing water like air and hoping the strange shadows above you were just boats.