_________.____________  ____  __.   _________   _____  ________     
      /   _____/|   \_   ___ \|    |/ _|  /   _____/  /  _  \ \______ \   
      \_____  \ |   /    \  \/|      <    \_____  \  /  /_\  \ |    |  \  
      /        \|   \     \___|    |  \   /        \/    |    \|    `   \ 
     /_______  /|___|\______  /____|__ \ /_______  /\____|__  /_______  / 
             \/             \/        \/         \/         \/        \/  
               __      __________ __________.____     ________                     
              /  \    /  \_____  \\______   \    |    \______ \                    
              \   \/\/   //   |   \|       _/    |     |    |  \                   
               \        //    |    \    |   \    |___  |    `   \                  
                \__/\  / \_______  /____|_  /_______ \/_______  /                  
                     \/          \/       \/        \/        \/                   


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                                    ISSUE 003
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oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->

The Halfway Arbor

The night air was thick with the musk of pine and the heady intoxication of a
life unhinged. He stumbled through the forest, a symphony of inebriation
orchestrating his faltering steps. Beneath a canopy woven with whispers of
forgotten dreams, he found his solace, an ancient tree whose boughs cradled the
sky itself. There, under the watchful gaze of celestial guardians, he
surrendered to slumber's sweet abyss.

In the embrace of dawn, he awoke, his senses unshackled from the spirits of the
night. The man, once shackled by liquor's deceit, now stood in clarity's cold
light. Yet, as he prepared to depart from nature's cradle, the tree stirred,
its bark splitting with iridescence, sparks of light pirouetting into the
morning air. The voice that followed was an uncanny tapestry of rusted metal
and blossoming vines, resonating through the marrow of his bones.

"You've trespassed, wayfarer, into a realm betwixt and between. The threshold
crossed at my behest; now bound we are, forever unseen."

Panic clawed at his heart. He fled, the otherworldly words a curse upon his
heels. His life resumed, a monochrome march of days, each indistinguishable from
the last. His laughter lacked mirth; his gaze held a void. Interactions with the
world felt like shadows flirting with the light, never quite materializing into
something real. Existence became a tapestry woven with the gray threads of
tedium and the relentless tick of a clock to which he could no longer
synchronize his heartbeat.

Fifteen years dissolved into the chasm of routine, until a hike—fate or folly
led his steps—brought him before the arboreal specter of his past. Recognition
dawned, as did the grim realization of the void within, the life he had led but
never lived. The tree welcomed him with a twisted kinship, its laughter a
harbinger of the end.

"It is a wonder, wayfarer, how you've clung to a world that was never yours to
keep. Does not the madness beckon, calling you home to the deep?"

At the revelation, sanity's delicate thread snapped. The man, now a vessel of
anguish, hurled himself against the tree's unyielding form, again and again,
each impact a punctuation to his years of lost life. Blood painted the bark, a
visceral testament to his pain, as he sought release in the only reunion he
would ever know.

The forest echoed with the macabre symphony of his end, until finally, silence
fell. The tree, once a sentinel to his sorrow, now reveled in its hollow
victory. Its laughter, a discordant chime, filled the clearing as it began to
fade, until it, too, ceased to exist—erased from the world as though it were
nothing but a nightmare's whisper.

In the end, the forest bore no trace of the tree or the man, only the lingering
presence of a story too harrowing to hold onto, a memory too grotesque to be
anything but a dream. An echo. Echo. Echo.

                  ->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-
                  oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo oo1oo

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       ! Produced by I HATE IT HERE - https://www.tengushee.com/ihih !
       | #FAEWAVE #ERIS
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EOF