I Can See Evolution Paths

The enormous Broken Mirror remained somewhere beyond the ancient forest, occasionally visible between the massive black trees as the group continued forward. The compass still pointed in its direction, but that didn’t make the journey easy.

The ancient road they had initially followed had disappeared beneath centuries of vegetation, and the forest seemed to have developed its own strange relationship with the ruins scattered throughout it.

Massive roots wrapped around broken walls without completely crushing them, sometimes growing beneath fallen stone and lifting it slightly from the ground, while other trees had grown through the remains of old structures as though they had been deliberately making room for them.

Arthur slowed as they passed another ruined building. "This place is strange."

"What do you mean?" Athena looked over immediately.

He pointed toward the ruins. "The trees."

One of the enormous trees had grown directly beside an old stone wall, its roots surrounding the foundation but curving around it instead of breaking it apart, leaving most of the ancient structure intact.

Mithra looked at another nearby ruin. "She’s right. The roots aren’t destroying the ruins."

"They’re growing around them," Arthur said.

Athena’s eyes sharpened. She approached the wall and crouched beside one of the roots, carefully examining the space between the stone and the enormous tree. "The growth pattern is unusual."

"You’re doing that thing again," Sun said.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you start staring at something like you’re about to spend the next six hours studying it."

Athena ignored him.

"I think she’s interested," Arthur laughed.

"I’m aware," Sun muttered.

Athena brushed some moss from the stone. "The roots aren’t behaving randomly. Look here." Everyone moved closer as she pointed toward several thin roots running along the base of the wall. "They’ve grown around the original foundation rather than through it. If these structures were abandoned naturally, we would expect the vegetation to gradually break them apart."

"But that isn’t happening," Arthur said, looking around.

"Exactly."

Luna slowly looked around them. "My grandfather said something about the forest preserving things."

"He did?" Arthur turned toward her.

"Not exactly like this," Luna said. "He said the old stories described the northern forest as a place that remembered things. I always assumed that was just a way of describing how old it was."

Arthur’s eyes lit up. "The forest remembers?"

"That’s what they called it."

He looked around at the enormous trees. "That’s interesting."

"I knew that word was going to come out eventually," Sun sighed.

"What?"

"Nothing. Keep going."

They continued deeper into the forest, Arthur paying far more attention to the trees than before.

The ruins grew more frequent as they advanced. Ancient stone paths appeared beneath the vegetation, sometimes running straight for several dozen meters before disappearing beneath roots or collapsing into the earth. Broken statues stood beside them, some missing heads or limbs, others pushed partially into the ground.

Athena became increasingly fascinated, stopping at nearly every major structure, examining the stonework, measuring the spacing between foundations, trying to determine what kind of civilization had once existed here.

Arthur watched her for a while before smiling. "You’re really enjoying this."

"There is an enormous amount of information here," she said, not looking up from a broken carving.

"You haven’t even found the Mirror yet."

"That does not make this less important."

"I think we’ve lost her," Sun said, shaking his head.

"She’s probably going to start carrying the ruins home," Mithra smiled.

"I heard that," Athena said without turning around.

Sun grinned, and Arthur looked ahead again.

They continued along the ancient road until they reached another large cluster of ruins.

This one was different. Several statues stood along both sides of the old stone path.

"Wait," Arthur said, and the others stopped with him.

The statues were badly damaged, but enough remained to reveal their original forms. Humans. Beasts. Plants. Several creatures Arthur couldn’t identify. Some appeared to be standing in groups, others positioned facing the same direction.

Athena approached one of them. "Look at the carvings."

Arthur stepped beside her. The stone wall behind the statue held an image of several people standing before a large circular structure.

His eyes narrowed. "That’s a Mirror."

"It appears so," Athena nodded.

"There are more," Mithra called, examining another carving.

They moved along the wall, the same image appearing again and again, people standing before Mirrors, some kneeling, others holding objects toward the glass, one carving showing several figures surrounding a smaller group.

Arthur stared at it. "What were they doing?"

"We don’t know," Athena said.

He looked at the statues again. Something about the scene bothered him, the way they weren’t positioned randomly but placed deliberately along the road, almost as if they were meant to represent the people and creatures who had once lived here.

He walked toward one of them, and Athena noticed. "Arthur?"

He crouched beside a large root growing across the ground. The bark was unlike any ordinary tree he’d seen, a faint pattern running through it like veins beneath the surface. He reached toward it.

The moment his fingers touched the root, the familiar sensation of his power responding to another creature appeared. His eyes widened as new information surfaced.

[Ancient Root Beast]

"Ancient Root Beast..." he murmured.

"What is it?" Athena asked immediately.

He pulled his hand away for a moment. "I think I can gain something from these roots."

"The roots?" Sun blinked.

"Let me try."

He placed his hand against the root again, and this time the sensation spread farther. For a moment his vision blurred, then the forest changed around him. He was still standing in the same place, but the scene was different, the ruins intact, the roads clear, the statues whole, and people walking through the forest.

He froze. They were human, but their clothing was unlike anything he’d seen in the present-day Everglades, strange ancient garments, some carrying tools, others carefully moving the enormous statues along the stone road.

He watched several people work together to position one of the statues, adjust it, step back, discuss something among themselves, then move toward another. He couldn’t hear their voices. The image wasn’t a complete memory, more like a fragment the roots had preserved.

The scene changed. The same place, much later. The statues still standing. Then figures wearing long robes appeared.

His eyes narrowed. The robed figures approached the statues. One raised a hand. A violent force struck the ruins, and several statues were destroyed instantly, stone fragments flying through the air.

Another memory flashed, a different group of statues struck by an enormous shockwave that sent them crashing into the ground.

His expression changed. "Someone destroyed them."

Then darkness closed over the vision, and he pulled his hand away, stumbling backward slightly.

Vedas moved closer immediately. "Arthur."

"I’m fine."

Athena was already watching him closely. "What did you see?"

He looked toward the ruins. "Fragments." He took a breath. "The roots stored information."

Her eyes widened. "Information?"

"I think the trait I gained lets me see some of what happened around them."

"You’re saying the trees remember what happened here?" Sun asked, looking up at the enormous tree.

"Not everything. I only saw fragments."

Athena turned toward the roots immediately. "Can you see all of their memories?"

"No. It’s incomplete. I don’t think the information is stored like an actual memory. It’s more like... traces of what happened."

Her fascination deepened instantly. "So environmental information can be retained biologically."

"That’s one way of putting it," he smiled.

"Please don’t encourage her," Sun said, and Athena ignored him. "What did you see?"

Arthur looked toward the statues. "At first, I saw people moving them."

"People?" Luna stepped closer.

"Humans. They were placing the statues here when the ruins were still intact."

Luna looked around in amazement. "So these weren’t created after the settlement was abandoned."

"No." His expression turned more serious. "They were part of it."

Athena glanced toward the broken statues. "And the destruction?"

He pointed toward several damaged figures. "I saw robed people destroying some of them. Others were knocked down by a shockwave."

"Do you know who the robed people were?" Mithra frowned.

"No. I couldn’t see enough."

"Then someone came here after the settlement was already established," Vedas said, looking at the statues.

"Yeah."

"And they deliberately destroyed the statues," Sun said, crossing his arms.

"Some of them." He looked at the road ahead. "Which means whoever made this place didn’t simply disappear."

The group went quiet. That was the distinction that mattered. Something had happened here after the people who built it were already gone.

Athena slowly looked toward the carvings depicting the Mirrors. "And these people were connected to the Mirrors."

"Looks like it," Arthur nodded, his eyes drifting toward the enormous Broken Mirror visible beyond the trees, curiosity returning fast. "If those people knew about the Mirrors, then maybe this forest can tell us something about them."

"Of course that’s your conclusion," Sun sighed.

"What else would it be?"

"You’re impossible."

He crouched beside another root. "But useful."

Sun couldn’t argue with that.

Arthur touched the root again, this time turning his attention to the environment itself rather than the statues, and the sensation felt different, subtler patterns coming into focus, the roots, the old roads, the direction certain trees had grown, the places where the vegetation had clearly been disturbed. The forest was full of information.

The compass still pointed toward the Broken Mirror, but it only gave them a general direction, unable to account for collapsed roads, enormous roots, ruined structures, or paths swallowed whole by vegetation.

He looked down at the compass, then at the forest, then back at the roots. "I think I understand."

"Understand what?" Athena asked.

"The compass tells us where the Mirror is." He gestured toward the surrounding forest. "But these roots can tell us how to get there."

Her expression shifted, understanding fast. "If the roots retain information about the environment..."

"Then I can use them to figure out which paths were here before everything collapsed."

He looked farther into the forest, closed his eyes, and placed his hand against another root. The information came in fragments again, a road, a collapsed wall, a clearing, another road hidden beneath vegetation.

He opened his eyes. "There." He pointed toward a narrow passage between two enormous trees.

"That doesn’t look like a path," Sun said.

"It was."

He stepped forward, and the others followed. As they passed between the trees, they found the remains of an ancient stone road hidden beneath the vegetation.

"...Okay," Sun said, staring.

"That’s useful," Mithra smiled.

"Very useful," Athena said, almost excited.

"Looks like the forest really does remember," Arthur grinned.

Luna looked around the ancient road with a strange expression. "My grandfather wasn’t exaggerating."

"Apparently not."

They continued along the hidden road, and for the first time since entering the sealed north, the forest no longer felt like an obstacle.

It felt like a map.

Arthur occasionally stopped to touch roots along the way, using the fragments they preserved to understand what lay ahead. Some paths had collapsed completely, others led toward dead ends, while a few still connected to the ancient roads that eventually converged in the direction of the Broken Mirror.

The deeper they went, the stranger the fragments became.

He touched another root, and this time the image lasted longer. He saw people walking along the road. Then the scene changed. The same people were gone. The road was empty. The enormous Mirror stood in the distance.

And something was standing in front of it.

His expression slowly changed. He pulled his hand away.

Athena noticed immediately. "What did you see?"

He looked toward the Broken Mirror, silent for several seconds before smiling faintly. "I think we’re getting close."

"And?"

He looked back toward the root. "The forest remembers more than just the people who lived here." His eyes shifted toward the distant Mirror. "It remembers something that came here afterward."

The group fell silent.

Far beyond the trees, the Broken Mirror remained barely visible above the ancient forest. And somewhere between them and that enormous structure, the roots were holding onto a memory Arthur hadn’t fully seen yet.

Whatever had once stood before that Mirror, the forest still remembered it.

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