Chapter 3302: The Two Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy-First Echo: A Scent of Wet Earth and Sleeping Green

The silence of the snow was broken by a new sound: the gentle dripping of water as the world began to thaw.

The first sapling, which had slept under a blanket of white, stretched its branches, and a single green bud appeared on its thinnest twig.

The first sign of the thaw was not a sound, but a scent.

A whisper of wet earth and sleeping green things, carried on a breeze that was no longer sharp with the bite of frost.

The dwellers, huddled together in their shelter, stirred.

They had grown accustomed to the stillness of winter, to the silence of the snow.

This new scent was a disturbance, a question.

One of them, the one named for the echo of the first song, rose and went to the mouth of the cave.