Disclaimer: see Prologue

A/N: So, here's the first chapter. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going into hiding so that Isuzu won't make me help her with edits for Lost Glimpses. - Onoro (Elf Secretary, Wakabe Writing Firm)

The construction was going well. No bad weather had come upon the land, the crew was not in ill shape, and so far the fabled "Keeper of the Trees and Master of the Lands" that the local people had warned/threatened them with had yet to appear. The trees were deep rooted, but nothing that a group of woodcutters couldn't handle. Even the most stubborn of these proud wood specimen would vanish under the blade of heavy machinery and a group of men determined to be paid.

But this did nothing to ease the feelings of dread and fear that plagued one Mr. Alex Borden, the acting overseeing manager of this little project. As a man that had once been a member of the more superstitious of the human population, he was no stranger to the thought of ghosts, spirits, and guardians. And to him, there was something that screamed that what they were doing on that land was wrong and dangerous. Even the men who were downing the trees and tearing at the land felt it. Three of them had quit within the first week, and though so far they were the only ones, Alex knew deep in his gut that they would all soon be following. Still, for all that the men ignored the ever increasing pressure around them, none could deny that something was going on. Alex certainly couldn't. As the overseeing manager, he was expected to be the first one there and the last one out. As such, it often left him alone in that dark and secluded place that would soon become a building of one kind or another, with many others scheduled to follow if all went as planned. In the isolation of the early hours and late nights, Alex was often plagued by things that he could not prove, and things that should not be possible. The noises he heard from the deeper parts of the forest that they were in terrified him, especially the sounds of a disembodied voice. He had only gone out to investigate once, but even then he could find no source for such, and more than that, he was given even more chills from what was not there but could be felt. Constantly, he felt his eyes drawn to the ground beneath his feet, to the innermost parts of the forest that they were destroying, and to the east, always feeling as though he were being watched. His men had reported, in the breaks between shifts, drinking coffee in the morning and a cold beer in the evening, about whispered words that drifted to them when they were tearing up the earth. They had felt like something was warning them, trying to make them stop, to let what was beneath their feet lay undisturbed by their hands, and let them lie. One had even reported seeing a figure standing in the deeper parts of the woods, with a hat that watched before blinking out of existence. It was unnerving at best and downright traumatically scary at the worst. But he ignored it. if he let these things get to him, then he wouldn't get paid. If he didn't get paid then he'd be behind on rent again.

Looking out over the field, he contemplated what was going to be done when he heard on of the men start yelling out for ground control. Frowning, he made his way over, pushing through the growing crowd of spectacles who had stopped their work so as to see what the commotion was about, and if it would cause them to leave the land for a bit. As he came forward, he saw what it was all about. One of the crews had unearthed a bit of earth, maybe ten feet beneath the surface, and had come upon stone wall. Something cold gripped him, not just his heart, but his whole body, and he flinched at the feeling of it.

"Call the authorities, get an anthropologist down here. Something's not right here." Something really wasn't right here. In all the data that they had on this area, there was never anything that said it might have ancient sights underneath. In fact, all the way up to at least the tenth century, all data seemed inclined to say that this place had always been a forest, had never been without trees and plants and forest life. Nothing should be here.

Nothing, except for the low hum that suddenly started to fill the air.

It was slowly filling up the area, coming from the stone, muffled but growing in volume. Words that he could not understand were slowly taking shape, no longer the humming but sounds and then what seemed to be words of an ancient tongue. Some of the men had already started to run, a few were being dragged away. Many, however, were frozen in place, staring in horror and suspense as it came louder. And then something drew the earth down, and all hell broke loose.

As soon as the earth began to crumble down into an unseen cavern beneath, the rest of the men started running, shouting, dropping equipment and heading toward safety. All except for Alex. He stood there, stalk still, rigid and unmoving as he watched with wide eyes as it further revealed itself. The stone beneath the earth began to take form, showing an archway, a doorway down into the ground, to some place that he knew he should not be. And for one precious second, for the smallest moment, he felt pure fear and terror, a moment where he was in possession of himself, where all he had was that primal fear of danger and death and something terrifying.

Then, something came over him, and he felt like he was being buried within himself. Something that would have scared the shit out of him had it not been for the fact that he became detached from everything.

"You cannot be here, restless spirits. This can no longer be a place that you claim as your own, for we have all passed away into the land, and your spirit must join us too, before we can finally become but a memory of the land. No longer can you stay, for we must go away- not in thought, not in spirit, but in earthly bounds we claim."

Then, then he felt something come deep from the earth, like the vibrations of a thousand voices, ringing and moaning with a pain and hunger that Alex had never known before. He could feel, through the filter that kept him separated from his body, the grabbing of hands without form, the clawing of nails without flesh, and the biting of teeth without bone. For a moment, a white mass seemed to descend upon his body, and he felt as though he were being pulled into the earth, down, down to a place where he would disappear into the masses of a restless hunger and anger at something that he could not explain or understand. But then, he felt his lips quirk into a smile, before the pains of the invisible but powerful peaked, and then disappeared.

For a moment, the thing that overtook him stayed, briefly, before it fled too. Then Alex found himself slammed back into his own body, feeling everything at full force, all the pain and aches and searing hot pain and the heaviness of his arms and the lightness of his head. Alex wobbled, pitifully trying to fight against the darkness that was creeping from the corners of his eyes, trying to lure him to sleep. Finally, his body gave out and he collapsed to the forest grounds. But as he did, he was given one last vision before he finally succumbed to the dreamless sleep of the exhausted: the sight of a small pile of gold inside the archway of the stone doorway that had been unearthed, and the sight of yellow boots that faded from view.