Stephen crawled through to find himself in a relatively small cave with a view of the outside world. To his relief, there was no snow. In fact, the landscape before him was a one of tranquil beauty. Before him was a collection of trees, each one looking very sturdy and sprouting green leaves. Stephen couldn't believe it. Mesmerised, he stepped out of the cave and rubbed his eyes as if he thought it was all an illusion. He'd half-expected to have been greeted with a desolate, barren world, but this was the exact opposite.

As he exited the cave, he realised he was standing in what appeared to be a small clearing in a forest, as the trees surrounded him in a semicircle. Stephen looked behind him to see a huge cliff of limestone, and he almost gasped in wonder at its sheer awesomeness; if he needed proof that he had been in suspended animation for many years, this was it. There was an earthy smell in the air and the ground was a little soft, indicating it had been raining not too long ago. There were clouds in the sky, but there were some spots of blue poking through here and there. Stephen walked forward, looking all around him with a bewildered smile on his face.

"Wow…" Stephen uttered to himself as he walked away from the cave and into the forest. He was almost lost for words. "This is…unbelievable. There's no trace of the war…"

Indeed, there was no sign of there ever being a devastating war, or any sign of mankind for that matter. It was as if he had taken a step back into a time before the Industrial Revolution had occurred, or even before the first settlers had arrived in Britain. Stephen continued to walk on through the trees and look around him. Everything seemed so peaceful, and he felt much safer than he had back in the cavern. He guessed from the way everything looked that it was either late summer or early autumn. Thank goodness, he thought to himself. Winter was sometime away, and by then it was likely he would have found somewhere to stay.

But as Stephen made his way deeper into the woods, he began to notice things were not as normal-looking as they had first appeared. Stephen looked around mesmerised at the trees that surrounded him. Some of the trees appeared to be just like they had been before the war; however, some other trees appeared to be huge, both in height and width. The leaves on the normal trees were small enough to each fit in his hand, but the leaves on the huge trees were big enough for him to wear like a hood or a cloak. It was as if the world had partly grown or he had gradually shrunk after leaving the cave. Was this a side-effect of the war or a result of the lengthy time without mankind everywhere? If so, why hadn't all the trees grown to gigantic proportions? These larger trees seemed to increase in numbers as he ventured deeper into the forest, but there were still numbers of normal-sized trees as he journeyed.

Stephen paused and spent a good few minutes staring up at the leaf ceiling above him. The trees towered over him like skyscrapers he had remembered seeing a few times before the war, only these towering forms had not been built by hand. They must have taken hundreds of years to grow, Stephen thought.

When he looked down at the floor, he then realised it wasn't just some of the trees that were giant – some bluebells were growing in the areas of earth that the sunlight managed to reach after penetrating through gaps in the leaves. Like with the trees, some of the bluebells appeared to be the size he remembered them as, while others were reaching up past his knees. The grass, however, hadn't appeared to have changed for the most part, with some clumps of slightly longer strands here and there.

"Everything's so big," Stephen muttered to himself. "If this is what happened to the plants, imagine what the wildlife's like…"

Almost instantly, Stephen wished he hadn't said that. Thoughts began to whirl around his head. What was the wildlife like? Some of the trees and flowers had grown to larger sizes. The same must have happened with the wildlife, surely. A lot of the creatures he remembered from country walks when he was young were much smaller than him. If the same creatures had followed the trees' example, they would surely be big enough to attack him. And who was to say they acted the same either? Perhaps creatures he remembered as harmless and timid were now ferocious predators?

Now it was like a thousand eyes were on him, glaring down from out of view. Stephen lowered his head as if doing so would somehow protect him. Was he imagining it? All of a sudden, the ruined Utopiadome felt like a much safer place. But what if it had been one of these creatures that had managed to open the door of the Utopiadome? If that was so, then Stephen felt he was lucky to still be even standing. Had he done the right thing of wandering away? Goodness, whatever had pried the Utopiadome door open must've had powerful claws.

That wasn't the only thing that Stephen was now getting worried about. He had been walking for some time, and it now occurred to him that it was darker than what it had been when he first stepped out of the cave. The sun was setting. If there were any large predators in this new world, Stephen especially didn't want to be alone in the dark of the night-time forest, otherwise there was no chance for him.

Stephen heard the sound of the leaves rustling, and upon looking up, he felt something small and wet hit his left eye. It was starting to rain. Stephen winced and wiped his eye with a finger, and also put his hood that was attached to the back of his suit up as more raindrops fell onto him and everything else they could reach through the treetops. Judging from the growing sound of raindrops hitting the leaves of the trees the rain was picking up, so Stephen immediately started walking at a faster pace, intent on finding some shelter before the sun completely set. As he trudged on, Stephen inwardly cursed himself. The whole thing about the wildlife was going to be preying on his mind for a long time.

Indeed, the wildlife Stephen remembered had changed a lot, for at that moment, one of the inhabitants of this new world was hurrying through the woods as fast as he could. This character was an adult otter with a thin build and dressed in grey rags. His footpaws were soggy from running across the muddy ground and puddles and the fur on his body was matted. His legs were aching and he had a tremendous stitch, but he continued running as fast as he could. Every so often, he would turn his head to see if anybeast was following him. In his pocket, he had a few scraps of bread – all he'd been able to get a hold of.

The otter stumbled and felt himself collapse to the ground and tumble down a small slope, but this didn't stop him from trying to flee. Instead he scrambled across the ground on all fours, too exhausted to get back to his feet but still intent on finding somewhere safe.

One of the trees in front of him had a small opening amongst its roots, big enough for him to fit into if he kept low. The otter scurried into the opening and huddled up, trying to keep his breathing under control. As he kept as quiet as possible, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the direction he had came from. The otter could feel his heart beating faster than it ever had done before. The footsteps were accompanied by threatening voices.

"Any sign o' 'im, Cap'n?"

The otter's heart was pounding as he heard the footsteps slowly move around.

"Nah. Come on, we're goin'. It'll get dark soon."

"But yer haven't caught the otter, Cap'n. Yer'll be whipped fer sure!"

There was a pause. The otter hoped the captain wouldn't change his mind.

"Well that's the risk I got ter take," the captain said. "'Sides, there's no reason why we can't search t'morrow. How's Thornclaw expect us ter find an escaped prisoner in this weather? He'll start the search again t'morrow, knowing 'im – just watch!"

The otter heard the footsteps slowly die away. Carefully, he rose out from the hiding place and peeked around the tree, and sure enough he could see two rats trudging away. When the rats disappeared into the trees, the otter settled down, putting his head up against the tree trunk and sliding down into a sitting position, all the while breathing heavily. He had evaded capture…for now. Like the soldiers had said, they were sure to search again for him the next sunrise. But for now, he could have a few hours of peace thanks to their laziness.

As he breathed, the otter turned his attention to a hole in his clothing on his left side. Through it, a large wound was visible. The otter exhaled irritably and tried to cover the wound up with the flaps of torn clothing around it. The wound wasn't clean and the otter knew it was likely to get infected without proper treatment. For now, all he could do was try to cover it over until he found some kind beast or a healer who would help him.

After a moment of rest, the otter stood back up and staggered away deeper into the forest. Although the search had been called off, he still wanted to put as much distance between him and where he'd came from. The otter had gone through enough pain and toil just to get to this stage, and he was not willing to give up now. Besides, he had to deliver his message as fast as he could before it was too late. There was danger, a new threat to Mossflower that was hidden so well that nobeast knew anything about it…except for him and those he had ran away from. It was a race against time for him to warn the inhabitants of the place he had once lived before he had been captured, the place he knew he would be most trusted amongst those who lived there…Redwall Abbey.

I know this is quite a short chapter, but I felt it worked better on its own than as part of the previous or next chapter. Stephen is finally in Mossflower! What will he encounter? Who is this otter? Who is Thornclaw? All will be revealed soon.