The ground holds the footprints of the two. Strolling through the undergrowth together, the pair hasn’t noticed the vines or the chirping beyond them. At this time of year, the birds sang to one another, yearning toward the sky. They fluttered about the branches, surveying the two walking beneath. Hand in hand, striding down the path, the boy and girl are joyfully unaware.

The birds skip around the branches, tilting their heads and warbling to each other. They surge into the air. Their nest, woven together with twigs, threads of grass, and liquid ropes of labor, sits above the boy the girl, where the babies wait quietly. The mother arrives, and a cascade of chirping echos through the trees. The chicks are young, inexperienced. They stumble around the nest. There are no laws of perspective yet, only color, only motion. They know nothing of the dangers in the forest. They know nothing of the vines.

 The vines edge closer, out of the burrow they strike. The vines curl around the humans’ shoes, pulling at the heels, making them stumble. The boy and girl scream for help, clawing desperately at the thick cables climbing up their bodies, trying to tear them off. The vines are relentless. They form a beautiful, terrible lattice of green. There’s no fighting the vines anymore—every creature nearby know it.

The birds sense there is something wrong. They cannot see the boy and girl anymore, only two vaguely human bodies encased in a casket of writhing, spiky vines. The small chicks peek hesitantly out of the nest, watching the vines engulf everything below.

 The older birds fly higher into the canopy, but the chicks can only watch as the vines get closer. They scamper further up, stumbling. It’s not clear how it happens, but one chick suddenly falls, squealing downward, disappearing into the abyss of vines. The green mass inches toward the remaining chicks, curling upward, pulling them down into coiled graves. The nest is crushed inside the swarm of green, the chicks’ screams die down. Just out of reach, the mothers mourn above.

  The vines slither away, retreating from their newly-made sepulcher. Another nest, lost. All that remains are the footprints, the vines, and the birds, fluttering about.