Wandering in a forest underneath the pale beams of moonlight. Leonide thought he might be sleepwalking, lead-heavy legs dragged him through the brambles, sluggish and sagging with unfamiliar weight.

The hum of crickets in monotonous orchestra blurred into one jarring vibration ringing in Leonide's ears. He could walk no further, too blinded by the penumbra to see more than a few steps in front of him. He let out a murmur, a breathless whisper that formed no true word, the sound stuck in the pit of his throat. A pale young man slid out of hiding from behind the thick and gnarled shadow of an evergreen, poised with a disarming and menacing grin.

"Are you lost, perhaps?" Asked the other, flicking his tongue across his teeth, shining with spit in the pale blue light. Leonide gave him no answer, prompting a disheartened and playful tut from the young man. The stranger's gaze swept over Leonide. "Should you be out, so late, and alone as you are? I wonder if you know the stories."

Leonide offered no rebuttal, vacant eyes half lidded and distant with tired apathy. He felt his lips part to speak but little more than air filtered out from his chest. Perhaps he was sleeping after all. The young man's brows furrowed with newfound agitation.

"You will not speak, lost one. Then begone, you are not welcome further."

"Am I dreaming?"

Leonide's voice punctured the conversation meekly, hoarse with disuse and wavering with nervous concern. The young man's lips pursed with impatient cynicism.

"You are in the waking world."

"But am I awake?" Leonide asked. "Do you know?"

"Only the awake can be in the waking world," Came the disgruntled reply. "Now go! Off with you, for wasting my time. You do not decide now to speak that I've shooed you off."

The waking world, Leonide thought, seemed a strange and unkind place to thrive. Yet he stood among the waking world a spectre, suspended in the realm of dreams and consciousness. He waited, the brittle tension between the two among the moonlight remained firmly in place.

"How does one leave this forest?" Leonide asked.

"I wouldn't know," The young man returned, tone pointed. "The same way you came in, I imagine."

Leonide's brow furrowed, just. "You've never left."

There came no answer, despite the question not being poised as one. The young man's state tapered off with forced disinterest. Neither spoke again, and the silence stretched into oblivion.

Leonide, bound to nothing, and the young man, bound to the forest. Both bore shackles neither could see nor understand. Leonide pitied the man for that.