She poked her head inside the rectangle of wood. There was nothing remarkable to see, just a chaotic mix of rotting debris and new life. But outside, she found an axe embedded in one of the logs: an actual hand axe, haft as long as her forearm, brown blade the size of her fist.

She worked it free. The head wobbled slightly on the handle, and it was badly rusted. It was, however, an axe. She made a few experimental swipes with it, then let it hang by her side as she slowly turned.

There was another house even further away.

It looked to her like the whole village had just packed up and gone, leaving things behind that shouldn’t really have been left. Perhaps Stanislav was right after all. She walked halfway over to the third ruin, growing increasingly uneasy for no reason at all. Everything around her was green and brown, with even the man-made structures being eaten by nature.

Perhaps that was what had happened. The plants themselves had risen up at the order imposed on the land and dragged the people down, into the ground, burying them with roots and vines. Flowers grew on their graves and rot consumed their houses. All that remained were ghosts.

She stopped. She could feel her legs start to tremble. Concrete was what she knew, concrete and glass and tarmac and noise. Not this. Not the forest.

She turned around, and hurried back to where she’d found the axe. She was breathing fast and shallow, and leaned against a tree to recover. Orange in the distance meant that she was safe, back in sight of the others.

A crash, a shout, and she raised the axe instinctively.

Dalip stumbled back from the house, which he’d accidentally partially demolished. Then he heard her, or sensed her, because he spun around, hands up, ready to defend himself. For a moment, they didn’t recognise each other, seeing only a threat. His gaze went from the axe, to her, and his shoulders sagged with relief. She looked up at her hand, and lowered it.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘You, you … What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

‘Just looking. Just … looking, that’s all.’ He held his hands up again, but this time palms out. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

‘Well, you did.’ She wasn’t angry, but startled and scared instead. ‘I, I found this. And there’s another house further on. There used to be people here, loads of them, and now there aren’t.’

Dalip didn’t seem to want to get close to the axe, not when she was still waving it in front of her.

‘Everyone’s going to keep looking for a bit longer. I came over here because I hadn’t seen you for a while.’

‘I don’t need looking after,’ she said automatically. ‘I’m fine.’