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ArtistA dark, unsettling illustration of an ancient forest at night, where massive tree roots twist above and below the soil. Beneath the ground, a vast network of pale yellow fungal strands spreads endlessly, faintly glowing with cold green bioluminescence. At the surface, trees appear sickened and hollow, their bark cracked, while subtle light leaks from the earth itself. The atmosphere is ominous, slow, and inevitable — a legend of decay, memory, and nature’s indifference. Cinematic composition, deep shadows, muted earthy tones, organic textures, minimal light, in the style of Shaun Tan × Ian McQue × Zdzisław Beksiński.
The Dark Hallimasch
Long before forests were measured, mapped, or named, something began to grow beneath the soil. It did not rise toward the sun, nor did it bloom for admiration. It spread in silence, thread by thread, root by root, deeper than memory and wider than any crown of leaves. The Dark Hallimasch did not announce itself. It waited. Beneath ancient forests, where fallen trees returned slowly to earth and generations of roots tangled like buried histories, it learned the patience of stone and time.To those who walked above, the forest seemed alive in familiar ways. Trees swayed, moss crept, mushrooms appeared and vanished with the seasons. Yet below, unseen and uncounted, the Hallimasch bound everything together. It fed on decay, but it was not merely a scavenger. It remembered. Each dying tree became part of its body, each fallen trunk another line in a story written underground. Slowly, relentlessly, it reached outward, touching roots miles apart, whispering through soil and darkness, until entire forests were linked by a single living will. People noticed its presence only when it chose to be seen. At night, faint green lights glimmered at the bases of trees, cold and unsettling, like breath escaping the earth. Woodcutters spoke of forests that sickened without warning, of trees that stood tall and green one season and collapsed the next, hollowed from within. Axes struck living bark, but the sound returned dull, as if the forest no longer echoed. Paths shifted. Landmarks vanished. The ground itself seemed to listen.Legends say the Dark Hallimasch is not evil, but indifferent in a way only ancient things can be. It does not hate those who walk above it, nor does it spare them. Where forests grow too old, too proud, or too wounded, it advances, dismantling them from below, returning all things to a shared silence. It teaches the land to forget its own shape. Villages that ignored the signs found their fields failing, their timber rotting from the heart outward, their boundaries dissolving as trees fell in patterns no human plan could explain. Some believe the Hallimasch is the forest’s final memory, a keeper of endings rather than beginnings. When the world above grows loud with names and ownership, it works patiently to erase them. Fire cannot kill it, nor steel uproot it fully, for it has no single center. It exists everywhere it has ever touched, a living archive of decay and renewal bound together. Even now, beneath quiet woods and protected groves, it continues to grow, slow as centuries, certain as nightfall. Those who sense it say the ground feels heavier there, as if the earth itself is holding its breath, waiting for the moment when everything standing must finally return below.
