Tabula Rasa

Surely they can't have grown this much since last winter? I frowned, staring up at the canopy high above - so thick that only a dusky twilight pervaded despite it being nearly midday. I lay my hand on the bark of the closest tree whilst the other two drank from their canteens, but pulled it away with a jolt. The tree felt wrong in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I shivered and signalled to the others to keep moving. We hiked on through the forest towards the huddle of low-rise buildings that we knew stood in the centre of this thick mass of trees. It had been over a year since we had evacuated the laboratory, and the whole area went into lockdown. We were risking our jobs coming back, but we had to retrieve our research - it was too valuable to leave to rot in this forest. As we trudged through the undergrowth I couldn't get the feeling of the bark on that tree out of my head - why had it felt so strange? I spotted a likely place to stop and checked my watch to see if it was too early to do so. I stared at it in confusion. The face read 9pm, but that couldn't possibly be right. There was still light filtering though the canopy and it can't have been more than a few hours at most since we ate lunch. I called out to the others to see what time they had, but both of their watches agreed with mine. Like good scientists we had soon formulated a theory. Some combination of a very bright moon and this weird half-light messing with out sense of time. We made camp. I dreamt of our last day in the lab. Laughter and joy. 6 years of research finally paying off. Then the readings started spiking. The containment field collapsing. Alarms, running. Blast doors sealing behind them, failing. Invisible particles spewing into the ether making the air flicker red, blue. I awoke with a start, something had slammed into my tent and was now thrashing about outside. I grabbed my torch by instinct, but realised it was unnecessary as I unzipped the side to see what was making the noise - the same half light still fell across the campsite. A possum had become tangled in the guy lines for our tents and was desperately trying to get free. I slid out my tent and approached it carefully, whispering soothing sounds as I went. One of the ropes had come loose and managed to wrap itself around the creatures leg. I placed my hand on the creatures back to stop it thrashing so I could attempt to remove it. I froze. This is what it had felt like, the bark under my touch. A sense of tremulous anticipation under my fingertips. The connection of one conscious being to another. What had we done?