The blanket spread like a small island in the forest’s green sea. Ants marched toward the sandwiches, undeterred by laughter and lemonade. The father told a joke no one quite understood, and the mother smiled anyway, brushing crumbs from her daughter’s curls. Overhead, sunlight broke through the trees in fractured gold. A breeze carried the faint scent of pine and something else—smoke, maybe? The boy looked up from his juice box, eyes widening. “Mom,” he whispered, “the trees are glowing.” For a heartbeat, everything was still—perfect—before the forest exhaled, and the sky turned the color of flame.

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