Night-darkness diffused throughout the forest, swaying to a gentle rhythm as the trees did the same. The forest was uniformly gray and black from the night-darkness as he navigated through this gray-tree-sea to the other side where rebuilt Palmacosta awaits. The night-darkness was a haze of shadow washing through the leaves, flowing through him like murky ink as he walked with the rhythm of the trees, which went left, right, left, right, left, right… He could not count the number of times it swayed left and right as he moved through the rhythm of the forest, but they pass through and stop, unconsciously collecting in memory as they build up: minutes, perhaps even hours had passed. He didn't know when he started in the forest, but he knew when he found Colette there face-up, as still as stars overhead which gave no brightness, sprawled across the forest floor in which the same night darkness danced all around. When the moon was absent; it was not reflected across the darkness, leaving only the dim sky, and it fully dark on Colette's face which usually reflected the moonlight whenever it was there, however little there was of it. He knew when: it was midnight, and he knew because he felt it in his blood.