Winged Falls

//Chapter Four//

Silence fell over the small group, and maybe Mason was imagining it, but it seemed like even the birds had stopped chirping. The forest in danger... and Ford wanted him to help! He took a deep breath, feeling himself start to sweat. Why does this always have to happen when I’m talking to Ford? “What’s happening?”

Ford pushed aside the branch of a tree, revealing a large clearing. “It’s best if I show you.”

Mason barely heard him as he looked up at a massive rock structure. The gray, cragged material stretched up to the sky probably around twenty feet above Mason’s head; although it didn’t reach the heights of the trees around them, it remained an imposing structure. A dark hole about the same height as Mason cut into the base of it, leading who knew where. Mason tried not to think about what might be inside. 

Ford knelt next to the hole, a frown creasing his features as he inspected something on the ground. “Mason, Wendy, both of you come over here.” 

The two exchanged glances, then walked over— Wendy loping casually along, Mason all but sprinting over. Ford pointed to the grass at their feet. “Both of you look at the ground here. Mason, have your Journal ready to take notes. What do you see?”

Mason adjusted his glasses and peered forward. At first glance, it just seemed like normal grass, but— he blinked, unsure if he was really seeing what he thought he was. The tips of the grass in about a six-inch radius around the cave entrance had turned an ash gray. Had it been any other time of year, it could have been explained as the grass either dying or growing back, but it was the height of summer. There was no simple explanation for this.

“The grass is— it’s like it’s dying,” Mason said hesitantly. 

Ford nodded. “Touch it.”

Mason wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to touch the dying grass, but he did as instructed. The tips of the grass flaked away in his hands and drifted on the air before settling to the ground. “It’s like ash.”

“Make sure you’re writing this all down,” Ford reminded. Mason fumbled to pull a pen out of his vest, bracing the Journal against his left arm to write. “And yes, it is like ash. That’s why we’re here; when I last visited this cave, about a week and a half ago, I noticed this strange phenomenon occurring inside the cave, with the lichen and moss growing inside.”

“And now it’s spread out here,” Mason realized. “But what is it?”

“Much as it galls me to admit, I don’t know.” Ford stood up and began pacing back and forth across the clearing. “Whatever this—this disease is, it’s somehow sucking the life out of plants in the forest. I’ve no idea whether it affects animals as well, but even if it doesn’t directly hurt them, it will have disastrous effects on the ecosystems of the forest! If it continues to spread, food and territory will be lost, forcing the unique lifeforms that live here out of balance.”

Mason scribbled down his words in a messy scrawl— it was harder than it looked to write with the Journal balanced on his arm, and the urgency of the situation was beginning to sink in. He paused in his writing and looked up at Ford. “ But— we’re here to stop it, right?”

“Of course we are!” This time, it was Wendy who answered his question. “If anyone can figure out a way to stop this weirdness, it’s you and Ford. You guys are both the brainiest people I know— and you’ve got me on your side.”

Ford nodded. “Exactly. I have no doubt that with the three of us, we’ll be able to solve this mystery in no time. Now then— Mason, I’m going to show you how to collect a sample of the grass, and then I’ll show you two the cave, where we’ll get more samples of the older infected growths. We’ll analyze and study them back at the lab.”