The Light in Aquala

Lena and Mara didn’t even try to be quiet since they were too exhausted by this time to care.

They took an old hunting trail that led deep into the jungle in the opposite direction of the villagers who had fled and walked at an even pace. The clicking sound continued, keeping the same pattern of sounds, which had now become almost commonplace.

The jungle was being affected by the strange new Season, and by them as they passed, their specific Neon colors lighting up everything around them.

The air was cooler here under the canopy and it smelled of wet earth and crushed leaves. The green mosses on the rocks brightened under their footsteps, glowing their Neon colors and not fading after they passed by. They glanced behind occasionally to see if the Neon glows of the vegetation were losing their colors and going back to normal, but they weren’t.

They watched as the dark green ferns along the trail swayed as they went by, slowly taking on the sister’s individual Neon colors, just like the grass had done back on the path down from Aquala and like everything was doing now.

The jungle was glowing brighter and brighter with their Neon colors, and they weren’t sure whether they should be excited or scared at this latest development.

As they continued walking towards the clicking sound, Mara called for a break and they both sat down on one end of a large fallen log.

A movement caught their eyes and when they looked, at the far end of the log they had just sat down upon was another wild animal, watching them. It was alert, its cat-like eyes watching them with curiosity and its fur shifted color as it breathed, moving from soft gold and turquoise to deep purple and back again.

It didn’t move away, it simply sat there and watched them with its head tilted, and the pulse of its color matched the rhythm of the clicking. It was strange that it wasn’t affected by their Neon colors like everything else around them was. As this thought was crossing Mara's mind, the animal started glowing their Neon colors. Mara noted that it took the animals longer than the vegetation to be affected by their Neon glows.

"Look, it looks like it is somehow answering the clicking signal," Mara said. "Look how its color changes each time the clicking pattern repeats." The creature looked at them and stretched, fully extending the claws from its paws, before slowly blinking at them with glowing eyes and slinking back into the undergrowth.

After a drink of cool river water from their canteens and some fruits and wild berries they had picked as they walked, they continued onwards.

They came to a curtain of hanging vines that caught Lena's eye and she slowed. Every strand of the vines was lit from within and the light was moving down the strands the way water moves down a rope. The first few strands glowed blue-green. The next few glowed orange. Then the strands in the middle began to glow both colors at once, blended into a shimmering new color, and the whole curtain swayed gently in the wind.

Lena reached out and passed her hand through it. The strands brightened under her fingers and then dimmed again, and the blended color spread outward from where she had touched them and then faded back into blue-green and orange.

"It is responding to us too, just like our footprints did, but this time it is changing before we even reach it," Mara exclaimed. "The vines seem to be absorbing our Neon and reflecting it back to us. Our whole island is responding so differently to this Season’s change."

Mara held up her instrument and let it record for a moment. The lines on the display settled into the same slow pulse as the clicking in front of them. She made a note of the reading and tucked the instrument away.

They continued walking, following the clicking sound through the jungle to where there was no trail. The trees began to thin here and through the gaps between the canopy above them, Mara could see the blue sky, and the afternoon sun shining brightly through the leaves. There were the little Neon lights still flying high above them and moving forward in the same direction that they were going.

“So, they followed us.” Mara remarked. “Or maybe we are following the lights without realizing it.”

Lena shook her head in agreement. “I would like to say a witty remark in reply to your latest scientific observation, but I’m too tired to think.”

Mara couldn’t help but smile at her sister’s attempt at bantering. She was missing the teasing remarks they often threw back and forth at each other while out exploring, but like Lena, she was just too tired to think of comebacks right now.

The jungle suddenly opened and they stepped through the last line of trees into a beautiful clearing.