**Chapter 1**
*It’s not so different from home -*
He had been walking through dense jungles for days. He was unsure of his whereabouts and hungry. A haze crawled over his consciousness upon entering the last ring of large trees. It grew stronger as he continued forward. The trees were massive and propped themselves at least 15 feet off the ground by their roots. The roots had a faint shimmer of purple to them and almost seemed wet. He had never seen anything like it before.
The sweat soaked into his hair and clung to his eyelids, stinging him every time he blinked. It wasn’t even that warm, why was he sweating so much, he wondered. Every step forward brought about the blurriness and shrinking of his peripheral vision. He shouldn’t have come here, he thought again for the fifteenth time in the last hour.
Every so often he caught the glimpse of glistening black eyes peering from the trees at him. He chalked it up to his weariness playing tricks. It was strange that he became so encumbered after entering this particular set of trees.