The world shifted again.
Not slowly this time.
Chaotically.
The swamp rippled under our feet like it was trying to eat us.
The sky turned bloody red, the leaves shriveled into ash coloured veins and shadows pooled at the edges of light as if something was blocking the Sun from breathing.
Mira pulled me closer.
"The heart is near," she whispered.
I didn't ask which heart.
There was only one answer in this place.
The pulsing one whose beat I kept hearing inside my bones.
We walked until the fog thinned just enough to reveal it.
It was as massive as the gulmohar tree.
Its trunk cracked open like a ribcage, a soft red heart like core throbbed gently.
The ground around it trembled with every pulse.
I stepped forward without even thinking.
"Vehan, stop." Mira's voice snapped.
But I couldn't.
The closer I went, the more the pulse synced with my heartbeat.
"Mira," I whispered. "It's calling me."
She shook her head. "No. It's warning you."
But by then, it was too late.
The forest's silence was broke with a familiar sound:
Crrk
Crrk
CRRK
The Grivvin.
It was running this time.
Not twitching.
Not crawling.
Running.
Its twisted limbs slammed through the mud, jerking violently like rage had finally given it strength.
"Vehan-move!" Mira shouted.
I stumbled back as the creature moved towards us, its form shuttering in and out of shape. Its red eyes glowing with something wild- not anger. Fear.
It thought we were trying to hurt the tree.
To hurt him.
Mira grabbed my hand and ran, branches snapping behind us, mud splashing upward as the Grivvin tore through the swamp like a storm.
Its breadth scraped the air:
Crrk
CRRK
CRRRK
It was getting closer.
Too close but then,
something inside me screamed without a voice:
It thinks we're a threat.
"What does it want?" I yelled.
"It wants the tree safe!" Mira yelled.
"It thinks you're here to destroy him!"
"Him?"
But before she could answer-the Grivvin leapt.
I closed my eyes, thinking it's the end.
But then! Something slammed into it from the side.
I hardly opened my eyes.
It was the sewn mouth creature.
It collided with the creaking, dragging it down into the mud with all the force it could exert!
Crrk-
CRRK-
They struggled as if two storms were colliding.
The sewn mouth split at the seam for a second-
a single drop of blood leaking out like a teardrop full of agony.
It held the Grivvin down.
Fought it.
Protected us.
Protected me.
I stared, numb.
"Why-"
My voice trembled.
"Why is it protecting us?"
Mira didn't answer.
She stood frozen.
Her eyes were wide open... not in shock but grief.
A deep, old grief that had never healed.
"Vehan.."she whispered. Her voice trembled like a truth collapsing.
"That creature..."
The sewn mouth figure turned its head slightly toward us and its eyes softened.
Not human. But remembering humanity.
Another tear of dark red slipped from its seam.
Mira flinched like she had been stabbed.
''Don't look at him like that." she whispered.
"Him?" I asked.
"Mira... what are you saying?"
Her breath broke.
And in the smallest, quietest voice I had ever heard from her...
"That's my brother."