Their arms were draped over the guardrail, while two pinkies from separate bodies touched, tickled and played.

'So, what about Friday?'� he said.

'Geography midterm,'� she said.

'This early?'�

'Phillips wants to take care of it a week early.'�

'Bastard.'�

'I know'�'�

They giggled. Simultaneously. Their sounds played together like the fingers over the rail. The night was cloaked in thin, ethereal light and the moon was three-quarters full. Moths flung themselves against the flickering lights, like zealots to their glorious demise. But unable to consummate the transaction of destruction, they repeatedly dove and slammed into the glass bulb.

Tucker watched them, head turned towards his love, but eyes to the light perched above the screen door. He shifted his feet on the wood of the porch, and returned his eyes to their brown counterparts.

'So.'� The word slipped from Carmen's lips. There was nothing to follow it. Said to be said and no more.

'So, indeed.'� Tucker responded. A single dimple accompanied his slight smile.

She returned the smile and laughed a little. 'I'm fucking *bored*.'�

'Me too, Sweetcheeks,'� said Tucker, looking at the moths again. Her gaze wandered to the fluttering martyrs. A moment passed, undisturbed by noise beyond the thrill of insect chatter and the distant sound of rushing water.

'Did the English homework?'� Carmen whispered, treasuring the serenity and wishing no harm upon it.

'Yup,'� responded Tucker, voice level to hers, 'and you?'�

She nodded, knowing he couldn't see the gesture. Their hands interlocked and they drew closer. Time passed, moths continued their suicide courses with no dead end. The screen door led into rooms unlit and Sunday was slowly waning. But they had the day off tomorrow. They had all the time that time would allow.

'I have an idea,'� said Tucker. Shattering the silence, which had finally begun to overstay his welcome.

'What?'�

'Tomorrow, we'll go exploring.'�

She giggled. 'Huh?'�

'Yeah,'� he said, dimple appearing again. 'We'll go past the river and search for stuff to look at.'�

A dark, feminine eyebrow ascended. 'Honey, you have plenty to look at right here.'�

He chuckled and she smiled deeper. They embraced, as silence retook his throne.

'Alright,'� she said, 'Tomorrow.'� He smiled and nodded. 'But until then,'� she continued, 'we should wander off to bed.'�

Her head against his chest, she heard his heart speed its pace.

'*Separate* beds, Tuckles.'�

Chuckling, he released her, and let her float away across the porch and to the screen door. He ambled over, eyes drawn to those moths, once more. She entered the house before him, holding the door open with one hand. Supporting it with his own, he allowed her to leave the threshold.

But he didn't enter right way. He still watched the moths. Something about their struggle towards that untouchable light seemed resonant. He yawned and realized there were better times to let his mind travel past doors unopened. He switched off the lights, removing the false idol to the clergy, and let the screen door fall closed behind him.

#

Blinds half-drawn and sun angled in the sky, the digital clock on the nightstand beneath the window, read noon. Tucker checked through the contents of his hiking pack one more time before carrying it out of the room.

The low light of his room was uniformly shared throughout the house. Each window was blocked to some extent by shutters. The light of a late-spring day could only seep in through what clear window panes were exposed. And in this dead light, the house seemed lifeless and gloomy, despite the power of the near-summer sun.

But Tucker was unaffected by the murk, and proceeded to trot through the house with the backpack affixed firmly around his shoulders. He hop-skipped into the kitchen, mirth and excitement bubbling up within him, and selected a few protein bars from the pantry. Having found everything he wanted, he strode through the rear screen door and onto the porch, where Carmen waited.

'Got everything?'� she asked. She was leaning against the guardrail, facing Tucker with the lush forest at her back. She smiled affectionately upon seeing the look of glee on his face.

'Yup,'� he said, 'but an equipment check couldn't hurt.'�

She nodded and took off her backpack, placing it on the ground next to where Tucker would set his. They both went over the contents, listing them off.

'Food? I have protein bars here, and three bottles of water.'�

'I have the lunches.'�

'Okay, good. Lemme see'� You have the blanket right?'�

'Mhm.'�

'Alright, and I have a rope and what else'�'� He paused, looked up at her. 'And our defense.'�

Her eyes met his. 'Defense?'�

From his bag, he pulled a dark, metal revolver, with a long barrel. She swore.

'Tucker, what the *hell*?'�

'Cougar season, Carmen.'�

'Jesus!'� she stood and stomped over to the other side of the deck. 'My god. Tucker, you scared me half to death!'�

He stood, sympathy painted across his features. 'Carmen, it's just my dad's Python. I've shot it since I was twelve. I kn-'�

'And you took it while he's out?'�

'He won't know. I'll put it back before Mom and Dad get home tomorrow.'�
She swore again. 'I *hate* guns.'�

Tucker mulled over his position for a few moments, eyes tracing Carmen's back.

'Alright,'� he said, 'I'll put it back.'�

She sighed. 'Thank you.'�

He smiled and walked inside, revolver in hand. Carmen turned to the empty air and wiped the traces of tears from her eyes. The memories were still fresh. Despite the years that had passed.

Tucker returned to find her eyes dry, her pack on and her smile replaced. He could sense the gilded nature that smile possessed, though. He clutched her hands in his, brought them up and looked directly into her eyes.

'I really do love you, ya' know?'� he said. Her smile flourished and their lips met, but only briefly. Hand-in-hand, they walked down the steps leading to the back yard and the forest beyond.

#

Bright greens, bordering on fluorescent, intermingled with darker tones, as they made their way through the forest. Carmen took the lead, stepping on a rotting log and feeling the termite-eaten wood cave under her weight. She gave a surprised peep before she slumped down and nearly fell over. Tucker tried to help her steady herself, before they both fell down, laughing.

After returning to their trail, giggles still squeezing out of their lips, they wound past a particularly large elm tree.

Carmen stopped for a moment. 'I can never get over how massive that tree is.'�

'Yeah,'� said Tucker, wrapping his arms around her waist. 'They don't usually grow that big around here.'�

'They don't usually grow here, period.'� Carmine said, as her wide grin was replaced with a wistful smile. 'Normally only evergreens grow here, but here we have a huge deposit of deciduous trees.'�

'Really?'� said Tucker. 'I've never noticed. Being here all my life makes it seem normal.'�

She hummed, noting the myriad of insects that populated the woods. This place was filled with buzzing, scuttling movement and thick, lush foliage. A contrast to the normal dry, sage-colored wilderness.

'Interesting,'� she said, leaning back into him.

'Kind of,'� he said, head resting on her shoulder.

#

The path they followed continued to disappear under the screen of fallen leaves and encroaching greenery. Tucker led now, being more familiar with the area and its many pathways and oddities. But now as he vaulted over the steadily increasing number of fallen logs and stray branches, he began to fully realize what Carmen had said. It was as if she had broken down a wall that barricaded all the childhood assumptions he had made. Now his adult mind could examine them in full.

It was then that he noticed how bizarre the forest was.

Insects, in teeming hoards, moved in shimmering waves. Buzzing, skittering, clawing their way through soil and air, they permeated the area. It seemed that the scale of the creatures had increased as well. Mayflies were just a little too fast, ants were just a little too numerous, dragonflies were just a little too large and spiders were a shade too bright.

And yet, not one of them touched Carmen or Tucker. Never did any segmented body come into contact with the skin of a human. That unsettled him. But he didn't really worry. Not about the possibility of the crawling multitudes coming into contact or Carmen's reaction to them. Tucker never had many problems with the bugs before as long as he kept his space. And Carmen was practically a child of the wilderness. She was thriving like the forest around her. He was glad for it, too. When she was happy, it never ceased to elate him.

'Tucker!'� she said, excitement pulling at the edges of her voice. 'Come look!'�

He turned to see her balancing a rather large spider on the back of her hand. He yelped a little louder than he wished he was capable of.

'Oh, come on,'� she said, 'she's not poisonous. She's a Wolf Spider.'�

Tucker's fear of insects larger than the palm of one's hand, however, superseded her happiness.

He spoke between heavy breaths. 'That's nice.'�

She examined the spider with an odd combination of love and excitement. 'I've never seen one this big, though'� She's beautiful. Did you know that Wolf Spiders live everywhere outside of the Arctic Circle?'�

He was glad she had a hobby, but Tucker's anxiousness increased by the moment. Arachnid features twitching, the spider continually tried to skitter away, but to no avail, as a tender hand would rise up underneath it. The spider could find no escape as the fleshy ground regrew over and over again.

'Funny.'� said Carmen.

'What?'�

'She's running away faster than a normal spider would.'�

She lowered her hand to the ground, allowing the animal to run off. Tucker and Carmen stood silent for a moment.

'Did you know that the Wolf Spider is highly protective of its young?'� Her voice was distant.

'No, I didn't.'�

'They're wonderful mothers.'�

#

It was one o' clock when they reached the river and its grassy shores. The path on their side continued, fainter than ever under the greenery. They continued the follow the vague trail, with the river flowing swift at their side. It proved more reliable than any beaten path.

Trees still grew dense on Tucker and Carmen's side, but they paled in comparison with the flora on the opposite bank. In addition to the juniper, pine and elm that grew equally on both sides, there was a staggering addition of variety on the other side. Aspen, tamarack, maple, cottonwood and arrays of many non-native trees grew together where they should not.

Carmen could hardly contain her wonder at the diversity and the density. The trees grew so close together that they became a patchwork wall of plant life. Even Tucker was impressed at this seemingly deliberate arrangement. Tucker hadn't noticed now intricate these trees were. It had been a while since he had been this deep into the forest. Now, through his teenage eyes, the woods had an alien quality, almost as if it were ripped from the pages of a hallucinogenic children's picture book.

The legion thrill of insects accompanied the silent couple as they followed the trail further. The track beneath them wasn't the only diminishing sign of civilization. As they plunged, landmarks that Tucker had used to guide himself in the past became increasingly infrequent. all of which he had come to somehow distrust.

As if he were being led somewhere.

Tucker trusted his senses, though. He figured he had a few more miles before he would lose his navigational abilities. He checked his watch. Two-fifteen.

'Hungry?'� he called back to Carmen, who stepped off a rather large rock.

'As hell. Unpack the lunches?'�

Tucker looked ahead, trying to spot a good place to eat. It wasn't hard to find: just thirty feet ahead, beneath a slim elm. They sat and unpacked their food in the relatively cool shade. The day was mild enough, so the drop in temperature was quite superfluous, but Tucker and Carmen found it a good opportunity to remove their shoes.

They dipped their feet off the grassy overhand and into the water. As their toes numbed and scraped the stones beneath, they relaxed and laid their bodies down. The sky above and the water below distracted them from their original intentions. They soon fell into their own enclave of clasped lips and interwoven fingers, allowing the soft warmth of the afternoon sun to caress their skin while the water below cooled their feet.

Carmen broke away. 'Give me a minute,'� she said as she stood swiftly and ran off into the woods behind the elm. Tucker bit his lip and sighed. His eyes, following a lazy arc across the opposite bank, occupied themselves while Tucker's mind wandered to his parents. Teenage libido was something they issued many sermons over.

His thoughts were cut short. Something stirred on the other side of the river. A brief imprint in his vision. A shuffling white-furred silhouette. A duo of curled horns, a pair of gleaming eyes on a gray, velvet face.

Then it was gone.

Tucker blinked and rubbed his eyes. He strained them against the gleam of the sun. But whatever it had been, it had left.

'An animal?'� he mumbled, to no-one in particular.

'What animal?'�

He started and faced Carmen, who leaned next to him with a curious grin. 'Talking to ourselves again, are we, Tuckles?'� she said.

Tucker couldn't help but laugh. 'No, I just'�'� He started and then trailed off.

'Just what?'�

'Thought I saw something. A goat, maybe.'� He received an odd look before continuing with a grin. 'Probably going insane, though.'�

They laughed and wandered back to their lunches.

#

Stomachs full, they sat at the base of the tree. She was leaning her head against his chest as they let the sounds of the environment blend with their heartbeats. Tucker glanced at his watch and noted that time was slipping.

'We should head out soon,'� he said.

'Why's that?'� she asked, eyes closed.

'It's getting late.'�

She moaned softly and stretched. Eyes opening, she blinked away sleep. Tucker looked down into them, as she shifted her head into his lap.

'Just a little further down the trail?'� she asked.

He smiled. 'Sure.'�

They stood up, packed their backpacks and left the shade of the slim elm. Following the river once more, they became more talkative after the lull in conversation the meal provided. Topics shifted, swirled and eddied, but they always danced around the more important things in favor of the frivolous.

The scenery inevitably drew discussion.

'This place is beautiful'�'� Carmen stopped for a moment, gazing at the trees of both shores.

Tucker broke stride as well. 'It's enough to make you wonder what could cause all this.'�

Carmen's eyes stuck on a spot along the opposite bank's trees. Tucker began to speak, but stopped when he saw her run ahead. Attempting to follow as best he could, he fell behind and matched pace. She stopped, and he nearly ran into her.

'What the hell's happening, Carmen?'�

She pointed across the river. His eyes followed her finger to a large opening in the tree-line. A perfect elliptical hole grew between two aspen, as if two great hands had bent them aside. From within, the shade of trees created darkness, giving the portal an illusion of depth.

But was it an illusion?

The pair walked further along the river until they were directly across from the hole. The shade still masked any of the contents of the tunnel that followed the opening, but they could see the surrounding trees.

'Perfectly bent,'� said Carmen.

'The dimensions are perfect.'� Tucker couldn't comprehend it. They both stood in silence for a minute, examining the oddity.

'I wonder what's inside,'� Carmen said, apparently to nobody. She quickly glanced at the river before leaping from the shore and onto a stepping stone.

Tucker turned his focus to her, surprised. He watched as she stepped from rock to rock without stumbling once. When her feet hit the grass of the opposite shore, he breathed out. Thank God she didn't break her neck, he thought.

'Come on, Tuckles!'� she laughed while she yelled. 'I nee-eeed you!'�

He laughed and looked down at the nearest rock. Biting the inside of his cheek, he closed his eyes and tried to relax. Just a little water.

Once on the other side, he kicked his legs, in a futile attempt at drying them. A venom-laced look at his giggling companion and repositioning his backpack was sufficient to give him confidence enough to begin laughing at himself.

He turned to Carmen again and motioned to the opening. 'Shall we?'�

'We shall.'�

With that, they climbed over the living threshold and plunged into the shady tunnel.

#

The green corridor around them seemed to possess the same curvature as the portal behind. Vaguely elliptical, yet somehow natural. Light descended from an unseen sun through pinprick holes in the canopy. Sparsely lit by the apollonian spears that rained down upon it, the ground was a carpet of discarded leaves.

As Carmen and Tucker traveled down this passageway, they openly noted the absence of the bugs they'd seen so frequently until now.

'The leaves seem pretty undisturbed, too,'� Tucker said.

'Yeah,'� Carmen responded, 'Not one of them is crushed. It's like they've just fallen'�'�

She stopped, noting a lone Praying Mantis making its way across a fallen twig.

'No one's been here for a while.'�

The creature was skittering for the portal the couple had entered from about fifty yards away. Tucker only nodded, but there was more communicated between the two than either would admit. As they fought back their hesitance, they continued down the path.

To fill the silence, Carmen spoke. 'This place is amazing.'�

Tucker nodded; the omen that the mantis provided still weighed heavy on his spirit and prevented his voice from being set free. However, he was interested in the construction and weave of the trees around them. How they had formed such a structure like this, he could only speculate.

'I wonder,'� Carmen continued, 'how these trees grew like this.'� The tunnel began to slope downward and turn to the left.

'Probably a specialty project,'� said Tucker. 'I hear there's contracts for these sort of natural buildings occasionally.'�

'But how could that be possible?'� she said, examining the canopy. 'There's absolutely no evidence of heavy machinery, or even people out here. Besides, this is your dad's property isn't it?'�

'Yeah, you're right there. Family property.'�

Turning sharply now, the tunnel became gradually steeper. However and Tucker and Carmen took little notice.

'Then how could this happen?'� Carmen said, almost mumbling to herself.

Tucker had been keeping his eyes on the ground, while Carmen walked behind him. Thought had clouded his perception enough so that he did not realize when he approached the end of the tunnel. When the light changed around him, however, he looked up and a felt a gasp of awe quiver from his throat. Carmen hurried from behind him to see what caused his reaction.

She stopped in her tracks.

Before them was a massive dome, walled by trees and shrubs. Easily a hundred yards across and three stories tall. The trees that lined the edges of the massive structure, rose and arched, perfectly intertwined with the trees next to them. Everything held fast and tight, gripped together by an impossible weave. Shafts of light dove through what holes existed in the canopy. Stepping forward into the dome, the couple remained mute, mouths open in wonder.

At the center of the great construct was a series of rock pillars. Pointing upward, they resembled giant stone teeth, belonging to a gargantuan, ancient beast born from rock and soil. These stone edifices were arranged in a circle. All aligned and arranged with precision not found in the natural world.

Tucker shivered. This place was fantastic, amazing even. Architecturally sound but somehow naturally constructed. Everything followed natural patterns, lacking straight edges and clean lines, but somehow they were able to achieve structure and stability not found in many man-made constructs.

Speech returned as they closed in on the circle of stones. 'Hey!'� said Carmen, 'Look what I found!'�

Tucker hurried over to her and nearly fell into her discovery. Slipping backward and landing on his ass, he looked over to where Carmen was standing. She smiled, suppressed laughter, and pointed to the hole in between them. Tucker stood and looked into the pit, rubbing his rear.

Winding and deep, the tunnel extended downward. Walled with dark green foliage that somehow had been affixed to the circular walls, it plunged to depths unseen.

A silence layered itself over the scenery, like a winter night's frost. It was shattered after several moments passed.

'What the hell is it?'� Tucker asked.

'A hole,'� she replied.

'I can see that.'�

'Then why'd you ask?'�

'Stop being annoying.'�

'I prefer to call it 'cheeky.''�

He looked at her from across the pit with a smile splashed across his face. 'Do you ever stop?'�

'Nope,'� she replied, returning his grin.

Their teasing was cut short by a scream.

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