The Tributary That Shouldn't Exist

Three days out on a routine cargo run, you know every bend of this river by memory. That's why your stomach drops when the fog rolls in from the eastern bank — thick, pale, and wrong — and beneath it, a tributary mouth yawns open where your charts show nothing but solid land.

You cut the wheel hard, but the current takes the decision from you. The barge slides in like a key into a lock. The engine sputters. Your compass needle spins freely, pointing everywhere and nowhere. Through the mist, the water stretches ahead impossibly far, flanked by trees so old they've forgotten the shape of ordinary light.

Whatever this place is, it was waiting for you.