Catherine froze, her hand hovering just above the prints. They were deep and recent. The soil still soft around the edges. Whoever had made them wasn’t far. She scanned the trees, the morning light slicing through the leaves in narrow bands. Nothing moved. No sound but the low hiss of the wind brushing through the branches.
She followed the trail anyway. The footprints wound between clusters of acacia and thornbush, weaving toward the thicker part of the forest where the air turned cool and dim. Every few steps she stopped, listening, expecting to hear the chirr of a bird or the crack of a branch but the silence stayed heavy, unnatural.