A child's voice giggled gleefully.

"Chrin, where are you?" another cried reservedly.

Sounds of small feet pattering against the muddy ground broke the pause between the two young voices as a small boy dashed gleefully between mighty oaken trees.

Moss covered the ground beneath his feet where the mud had not already coagulated into carpets on the forest floor, but even it could not disguise the squishing of his small bare feet on the ground. Every step sent a new wave of must into the air, melding with the thick humidity of the forest.

The child's steps stilled as he pulled himself tightly against the rough black bark of a tree. Moisture dripped in great silver beads down its coarse, peeling exterior, seeping into the toddler's garments until he shivered frightfully.

Despite the chill, he could not help but smile as his companion's voice broke over the dreadful quiet of the wood.

"Chrin, where are you?" the voice repeated. Another small boy stumbled up the hill amid the trees. Face disguised in the bars of dark shadow thrown down by the trees' towering branches, his breathing slowed as his wide eyes scanned the dank scene. "Mother.... Mother told us to be back by nightfall, you know. It is past dusk. We... We need to go back."

His rung his small hands anxiously as his wide brown eyes struggled to peer through the shadows. The hulking shapes of many trees barred his way, but it was their shadows that were his truest obstacle. Black stretches of mist curled in swaths from the darkened bark of the trees in fingers of fear that squirmed through the leaves of the forest floor, threatening to consume his small form. Were it not for the few stray beams of moonlight that broke the canopy of leaves high above him, his small eyes might not have been able to distinguish even between the silhouettes of the trees and the pure consuming dark of the night that promised to be filled with every manner of nightmares his small mind could produce.

Finally he let the screaming voice in his mind overtake his meager courage. "Chrin - Chrin I'm turning back."

Fluttering steps against the soft ground alerted his small companion to his fleeing.

The small boy could not help but chuckle at his brother's cowardice. "It is only the dark, Declan," he whispered through a smile to himself.

His own small eyes looked upward and around to see the bowing, jagged trees of the forest swaying gently in the night air. A moment passed as a cloud passed over the moon, painting the scene in the densest black he had ever seen.

"It's only the dark," he repeated in voice that wavered with the wind.

Around him the air seemed to hiss as it passed through the trees, but his little shoulders shrugged it off quickly.