Much as I am ashamed to admit it, my mental condition was deteriorating.
At this point, it had been half an hour since I'd exited the woods.
Upon noticing the road at the bottom of the hill, I had decided to make my way to it.
Perspective is a funny thing. I had underestimated how far away the road was.
I had thought that, because I could so easily see it, it would be just a short walk.
It ended up being over two miles.

I was hungry enough that I contemplated simply eating the vegetation brushing against my legs.
I knew they wouldn't make me any less hungry. It would have been like drinking ocean water.
I sang to myself, to try to keep myself motivated to move.

So hungry, I was, that I hallucinated a chorus behind me, as well as an instrumental.

My mind raced as I sang. My desperation grew.
I gripped my walking stick like a mic stand and sang my heart out as I walked.
My thoughts turning darker, stranger, as the reality of my situation set in.

I was so out of it, that I didn't realize that I had reached the road until I banged my knee on the guardrail.

But if I had been ecstatic to leave the dense tangle of the deep forest...
The joy I felt upon reaching that road was without parallel.
A road! A long, easily traversable route with no vines to get tangled in.
No undergrowth to ensnare my feet. No more getting lost.

This was something that I had read about, but hadn't seen yet.
Roads in the sape countries had signs, so that the people would know where the road would bring them.
This had always seemed silly to me, could one not simply keep track of their direction using magnetic fields?
I didn't know at the time that, unlike dragons, sapes do not instinctively know which way north is.

Of course, I was not alone in this country.
I was about to be roughly reminded of the second thing that roads in this country have.
Cars.

But before all that, I needed to get closer to the sign.
It would surely tell me how far away the city was.

When I finally made it to the sign, I was, to put it lightly...
Just a bit discouraged.

I noticed, however, that there was another sign.
On the opposite side of the road. If this town, this "Tolikra", was 32 miles away...
Surely, there might be something closer if I headed in the other direction instead.
I crossed the street under this sign so I could read the other sign.
What I did not realize, though, was that this placed me squarely in the path of...
Well... You will see.