You take the fork in the road and it turns from stone to dirt. As you continue, the chatter of your fellow travelers dies away, replaced by the call of birds and buzz of insects. A wall of trees looms in the distance, and the path narrows as it disappears into the forest—the weeds reaching higher along the sides. Nature is slowly reclaiming the path into the forest.
Sunlight dapples the road through gently swaying branches as you make your way across the Forest Avenue. Birds twitter happily as they flit between the ancient trees, and forest creatures meander across the path ahead, indifferent to your presence. As your eyes scan the roadside you notice strange shapes in the undergrowth: broken wagon wheels, half-buried carts, and shattered axles. Suddenly a primal shiver creeps up your spine—are you being watched?
There is an arrangement of once brightly colored, wilting, flowers pinned to a tree ahead with the name of a stranger carved underneath. Looking past, it seems as if almost every tree has the same, with a different name underneath. The wilting bouquets become less frequent the further in you go.
At the far end of the avenue stands a massive black gate. Into the Heart of Darkness