Green forest canopy once again covered the sky. Day groaned in frustration and at the sudden ache he felt in all his limbs. It felt like he’d been twisted into a ball and shoved through a thin tube. The backpack on his back made it uncomfortable to continue laying on the ground so he decided to sit up. Day looked around for a moment.
“Great... great... this again.” He looked up and took note of the light filtering through the treetops, “Huh... okay white light. I guess that means I really went back in time? Or maybe I’m back on Earth?”
His hopeful thoughts were immediately crushed when a nearby bush rustled violently and three massive wolves stepped out - wolves made of wood and had glowing vermillion eyes. He jumped to his feet and scrambled to find purchase in the once again slippery ground. He picked up his walking stick and pulled off the axe-hammer from it’s place on the knotted wood and held it out in front of himself in what he hoped was a threatening manner. He hoped that the blatant trembling in his arms would go ignored.
The wolves watched him silently and made no move to approach him. One laid down on its belly and another sat on its haunches. The wolf that remained standing chuffed a breath and its tail twitched. Day held up his axe-hammer for a minute and then two. Time passed agonizingly slowly as the standoff continued. Day kept up a solid internal monologue while he waited for the wolves to attack him.
When he finally realized half and hour later that his initial panic had completely dissolved to boredom he decided that he’d had enough of the wolves’ silent staring.
“What do you want?” Perhaps they were like the horse from before. The wolf that had laid down stood up and took a tentative step toward Day. Its head was lowered cautiously and it kept itself low to the ground as took slow steps toward him. Day lowered his axe-hammer slowly, ready to raise it at a moment’s notice. The wolf stopped in front of him and remained bowed close to the ground a few steps away from Day. It seemed to wait for him to make the next move.
Day considered the wolf’s oddly submissive behavior skeptically, “You know. I don’t believe this. At all. Nope.” Despite his words he hooked his axe-hammer on his walking stick once again and tentatively took a step toward the wolf. It did not as much as twitch as he cautiously approached it. When Day was within arms reach of the wolf he paused uncertainly, “Uh... what now?”
The wolves beyond the submissive one stood up and slowly walked toward him. Day took a cautious step back in response.
A light wind blew through the trees behind him providing slight resistance to his steps. Day paused.
As if reacting to an invisible signal, the wolf that first approached him took another step forward once again putting itself within arm’s reach. It looked up at him expectantly.
When Day met its eyes, he felt the echo of... something. It was like a brief whisper in his ear and a slight tingle on his skin and it was clear to him what it was. In an instant, snippets of instinctive knowledge and impressions danced in his mind before falling silent. Rather than startle at the alien experience, Day almost felt relieved - like he’d been holding his breathe for a long time and had just for a moment been able to exhale to relieve the desperate need to breathe. The wolf shuffled forward minutely.
Day tentatively raised his hand and brought it toward the wolf’s head. “I hope I don’t regret this...”
He patted the wolf’s wooden head gently. The bark that surrounded it’s body like fur felt rough and dry but yielded like soft skin. The contrast was odd. “Huh, I expected this to feel different...” Beneath his hand the wolf huffed and pushed up into his hand. The sensation of exchanging knowledge returned more strongly. The wolf’s actions gained context as Day slowly petted it.
“You’re... an ambassador? No, envoy? Uh, teacher?” The impressions that flowed from the wolf were difficult to understand. It was as if he were listening to one half of a conversation through a door behind a wall. He could understand just enough to trust the wolf to not attack him but he couldn’t understand its motives.
One of the wolves moved around and nosed Day’s pocket. Day looked down at it and reached inside where he assumed it wanted him to. He pulled out the metal ball that he had found in his backpack earlier. Before it had a dull metallic sheen like brushed steel but now it was shiny orange and its surface was perfectly reflective. The wolf he was petting laid down again and gently took Day’s free hand in its teeth. It pulled him down until he was sitting. Day removed his backpack and put it beside him.
“Right. So, now what?” He looked at the wolf in front of him. It used a paw to bat at the hand holding the ball. Day put it down between them. Immediately, the ball started to unfold like an origami figure. Impossibly, the unfolding seemed to pass underneath him without his feeling it. It continued until it had made an orange circle large enough to comfortably fit him and the three wolves within its circumference. Day stared at the metallic orange mirror beneath him incredulously.
He looked up at the wolf. It stared back. The feeling of understanding flow between them again and Day tried to interpret what the wolf was projecting. It felt apologetic.
“What?” Faster than he would react, the wolf bound forward explosively and swiped its wooden claws across Day’s face. Day howled in pain as he felt the claws leave four lacerations across his right cheekbone and he brought up his hands to defend himself. Blood streamed down his face and he groaned loudly. The wolf quickly took a few steps back to get out of range of any counterattack Day could have made. The pain was magnificent and he could barely think through the burning claw marks. Blood slowly dripped past his finger and down his hands and arms. It slowly gathered at his bent elbows before it dripped to the orange mirror.
The first drip coincided with the sound of sizzling and he looked down to stare blearily at the boiling blood. More blood joined it and started to vaporize as well. As each drop slowly shrank and the pain in his face faded Day started to notice that the faint sliver of information he had felt before was becoming stronger. After dripping blood for a minute, the amount of information he was receiving had tripled. Another few minutes and it had tripled again.
With a mental snap, the information went from a steady flow to a torrential flood. He suddenly knew more.
The forest was an oblong, misshapen ring with a circumference of exactly 7777 miles. It covered more than half of the continent and extended to the west to an ocean. The world was a single continent, pangaea. In the surrounding mile there were 257 large creatures, 1349 small creatures, a network of plant life that was constantly sharing information, and billions of insects - and he knew everything about each and every one. The timberwolves were sorry. He knew that to the north, a baby sparrow had fallen out of its nest. Its impact had crushed exactly 445 moss rhizoids. The forest welcomes you.
The pain from the claw marks took a far backseat to the pain of the sudden information overload that immersed him. Day clawed at his temples in an effort to get rid of it. He continued to bleed.
He passed into unconsciousness.