He had visions of an endless winter. It wasn't so hard to imagine here, in the silent grove that lay just out of view of the highway. There was a sick-bed white dust resting over the last dregs of fall, untouched in every direction save for where his own feet had traced a thin path through the trees. It was all so clinical, Isaac thought - white, a never ending and stagnant pale that reminded him of hospital walls and the sheets on the bed he never quite managed to fall asleep in. Even the trees were grey and cold; the aspen woods, his mother had called them. The Trembling Forest, where even the lightest breeze made the tree tops shiver and brush against one another like each leaf breathed a secret to its neighbor. The Whisper Woods.
Isaac shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his worn jacket, tilting his head until he could see the still tops of the highest trees, and he listened. Nothing. An unsettling quiet had overtaken the forest, dense and impenetrable.
The restlessness that had pulled him from his bed prickled at his fingertips, tugging him forward and away from his own errant thoughts. The path he cut was purposeless, straying through the trees and underbrush with no destination in mind. Something touched his mind, telling him he should be cold. He should be freezing, it was well past midnight on the coldest night of the year to date.
Isaac didn't feel cold. He hadn't felt much of anything for a while now.