Judge sat on the rock like a man whose vending machine just ate his last coin — and then exploded, caught fire, and blamed him for improper usage. He had been walking in circles, chased by reality like a spiteful GPS on crack that had updated its maps based on fever dreams. The forest was no longer just weird. It was wrong.
He had laughed off blinking trees, sneezing bushes, even a centisnake the size of a rickshaw that had tried to sell him insurance. But now, silence was eating into his bones. Not the gentle silence of peace, but the oppressive, suffocating stillness of a place that had forgotten how to breathe — and possibly how to blink.
No wind. No birds. No bugs. Not even his own heartbeat — or maybe it was just too quiet to hear.
"Right," he muttered, brushing dirt from his sleeve. "Flux Zone. Where logic goes to die. And possibly takes your liver with it."
He clutched Golden Eagle, fidgeting with it. Tried to eject the mag. It whirred. Error. Glowed a sad blue.
