[i]Glad to hear that [/i]you're[i] satisfied with the whole affair,[/i] Fendros thought bitterly. Up ahead, Fendros spotted a tree with four parallel scars scraped across its trunk. Judging by the amount of sap that had leaked out, it looked recent. "Over there," Fendros proclaimed, walking with a briskness toward the tree. When he reached it, he ran his fingers over the gashes. "This tree is familiar." He said. [i]It definitely wasn't a dream.[/i] Fendros looked at different areas of the ground around them. "I think I can smell my blood. Some kind of blood anyway." After a small amount of wandering, Fendros walked in a particular direction and brushed away a tree branch. Suddenly, a retched smell filled his nostrils on the wind. He scrunched up his nose and covered his nose and mouth with one hand. After swallowing back some bile and after the breeze slowed, Fendros removed his hand from his mouth. "I think something rotten is upwind." Past about one hundred metres of forest was a black shape in the grass, Fendros could just see the movement of flies around it. "There," Fendros pointed to the shape through the trees, "The creature that infected me."