After dinner, Ethan sat by the fire, picked up a stick, and began sketching on the sand, unclear yet enough to visualize.
“This is the camp.” Ethan said, marking a small square.
“This is the stream.” A winding line stretched toward the northeast.
“And this…” He added three circles, marking forest areas where signs of large beasts had previously been spotted. One with deep claw marks, another with animal fur caught in the brush, and the last marking where they’d encountered the leopard.
Stella sat across from him, chin propped on her hand, studying the map: “The south seems the safest.”
“Not exactly.” Ethan tapped his stick on the empty zone in that direction: “This place hasn’t shown any signs, true, but it’s too quiet. No birds, no breeze, not even insects. Places like that are often
