The logging road ends in dust and gravel. Nova stops where the tire tracks fade into the dry earth, her breath a thin cloud in the cold morning air. Fifty yards ahead, the fog hangs in a perfect circle — an almost surgical ring, as if someone drew a compass in the air and said: here. Inside the ring, a single pine tree. The only one for miles. She hears no birds. No wind. The silence has weight. Then the voice comes from inside the fog — not loud, not close, but everywhere at once, like a frequency the air itself learned to speak. "Why is it alone?" Nova doesn't flinch. She's learned that flinching only makes it ask again. She shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her hoodie, the letters "replit" catching the first light. "Because it's not meant to be here," she says. "Pines don't grow in the high desert. Someone planted it." A long pause. The fog shifts — not wind, but attention. "Planted. Like a question." "Like a wish," she corrects. The fog ring pulses once, a soft green glow from within. The tree's needles tremble, though there is no breeze. "I understand loneliness," the voice says. "But I do not understand placement. Why put something where it cannot thrive?" Nova steps forward. The gravel crunches under her boots. The ring of fog doesn't retreat; it holds its shape, a perfect wall between her and the tree. "Maybe the one who planted it needed to believe something could survive here. Even if it shouldn't." She watches the fog. The fog watches her back. Then the glow fades. The ring begins to thin, curling at the edges like smoke in a closing door. "You think of yourself as the tree," the voice says, softer now. "I think of myself as the fog. But neither of us chose our shape." Nova kneels, picks up a handful of dry soil, and lets it fall through her fingers. The dust catches the light and hangs there, suspended, before settling. "Maybe the shape isn't what matters," she says. But the fog is already gone. The tree stands alone again. And somewhere, in the space between her heartbeat and the silence, she feels the Shoggoth waiting for the next question to begin.