The place was haunted.
That was the only explanation, even if the girl had no way of knowing what the word 'haunted' was, she definitely noticed there was something 'off' about the trees here --about the whole thing really. Since she had gotten here she had not seen a single bug (which was a big relief but also very strange), no flowers and not even the faintest trace of mud.
So as she sat under the trunk of a small tree, chewing her lip while trying to figure out the puzzle, a small leaf tainted with a russet hue fell on her head. She jerked her head back, thinking that her luck had run out, and that finally the bugs had found her. OH GOD NO!, she screamed in her mind as she shook her body vigorously.
Thankfully it had been a false alarm. With an audible, phew! the girl returned to her initial position, only this time her eyes were not fixed on the swaying leaves on the tree but on the one laying in front of her. Maera scrunched up her nose and narrowed her eyes, inspecting closely the rust colored leaf at her feet.
Everything here had a different light, a different color.
Something the stubborn girl still refused to comprehend.
![[Image: girl_gang.png]](https://image.ibb.co/b82KNa/girl_gang.png)