The circle of forest is just that, a circle. About 750 meters in diameter is not particularly

big. It is ringed by two meters of grassless rock, and then beyond that is the wilderness.

Moss and fern and cliff and weed. The trees and plants that grow inside the circle are thick

and strange. It's raining this evening. I sit in my little hut with a mug of warm tea

as the rain batters and clatters against a roof. It leaks through in one corner and drips

quickly down into a bucket of place there. My rifle rests against my leg. My hut has

a direct view to the centrepiece of the forest. A dark, cave-like hole in the middle of

a clearing is sending down into the unknown. I tried to go through it once, but my head began

to pound the deep I went down to the point of agony, actually, and I was forced to retreat.

I don't go down there anymore. Not much point to it. My colleague joins me tonight. He

sips from a mug of his own. Ah, he says, with a pleasant smile, delicious. Nothing like a warm mug

on a cold day. Mm-hmm, I reply, scratching my beard. What do you think might be coming up tonight?

He asks. Who could tell? Nothing, hopefully. It's been a while since the last one,

he murmurs, we're over you a visitor. Yeah, I suppose we are, I say.

Visitor is a darkly comical way to refer to the things that clamber out of the hole.

Coins because of how crushingly lonely it can get in this particular station.

I've been here for three months now, another three to go. But of course, I've rubbed here with

me tonight, someone to talk to. I've missed him. The rain splashes through the leaves and into

the undergrowth, and I take a final sip before setting a mug down onto the wooden little table

with a loaf thunk. I rise to my feet. Right, let's head a little closer shall we.

Ah, he mutters, glancing out the doorway, into the rain. You know it, brother.

He sighs, fine, are we going to spit up or stick in together this time? It's a no-brainer.

...