The beautiful Sumberland counted Fifty Treetowers, and nothing happened in all of them. This made it impossible for Sotho to move. He might as well have been a statue.

The sloth lay on a pile of leaves. And even though he had barely slept for months, he was restless and really wanted to go up there now.

His best friend’s voice sounded nearby. Sotho finally moved—but only to hide behind a massive tree. He hadn’t seen or spoken to his best friend in a year, and he wanted it to stay that way. Because he adored that funny sloth and today was a bad day.

Lothan sleepily trudged past him; Sotho dove further into a pile of leaves. Eyes closed, stay silent. Unfortunately, that was the moment another sloth fell from her Treetower hundreds of meters above the ground.

Finally! He had to be quick!

His best friend had barely turned the corner when Sotho stormed from his hiding place and ran for the elevator.

A wooden square hung from thick ropes attached to treetops. It already floated. The falling sloth hit a few wooden structures in the sky, rolled onwards, then landed on a branch that bent excessively.

This quickened the elevator’s pace.

Sotho leapt towards it and barely grabbed the edge. The large claws of sloths were made for grabbing, but still it felt like too much effort.

As the elevator lifted him off the floor, young sloths giggled all around him. They slid down large slides as if all of Slumberland were a playground. The long wooden tubes meandered through the area like giant snakes that fought each other in the sky. One of them even had a vertical looping. The oddity had been necessary to make space for a different structure that the sloths had built long ago.

He allowed himself to keep looking. These sloths were very young, so he watched until they were all tiny dots that crashed into the forest floor. The falling sloth was a dot now too, as she fell on the final branch, which bent downward and gave the elevator a final push. He did not want to look at her. He refused to even think of her name when he whispered his thanks.

Sotho arrived at the highest layer. From here, he chose the right cable car that brought him to his own Treetower. Thick ropes, often strengthened with vines, connected all canopies like a spider web the size of a city. Stones hung below those ropes. They were polished to be smooth enough to sit on them, as you comfortably whooshed along the cable.

He enjoyed the wind in his fur—and almost fell asleep at an elevation of a hundred meters—when a loud splash reached him. Ah yes, of course. Yesterday, Lothan had fallen out of his tree, which had moved the Water Lever, which meant they now pumped water from the sea automatically. It would refresh the many fountains and surrounding flowers.

Sotho tried not to think about any of the sloths that could now drink fresh water thanks to his journey.

When he arrived at his Treetower, however, the splashing didn’t cease. His home was close to the sea, yes, but now it sounded as if the ocean could swallow him at any moment.

Was it worth taking a look? He was restless enough to consider jumping out of his Treetower; on the other hand, moving to the window felt like too much effort. Maybe someone would see him! Catch him putting in effort and being out of breath! It would be as shameful as the time Grandmother saw him walk instead of taking the wooden escalator. Brrr.

He wished, as he did daily, that the Curse of Slumberland would disappear. It was his only goal in life, and he hadn’t come any closer. Brrr, even thinking about goals was exhausting.

He kicked the wooden plank that showed his house number and pulled on his face. Stupid world. Stupid place. Why did he have to be born here?

His body decided to lean against the wooden wall and get some sleep—

The splashing had been replaced by a loud creaking, crunching and … singing? The sound of breaking twigs erupted, combined with a beep. The sound they’d hear when one of their wooden machines hadn’t been oiled for a while.

Oh crushed leaves and snapping twigs!

He looked out the window—and what he saw made him tumble over the edge and fall back down again.

Yes, stupid world. Certainly.

His fall bent a few branches. This helped the young sloths—who had gone down the slides just now—back up using the elevator. Some stayed on the floor, though, curious about those sounds. Sotho’s gaze was firmly fixed on the black dot that crossed into their territory.

The dot slowly received a shape. It was a living being, yes, walking on two legs, with a really strange fur and—

Another sloth suddenly grabbed him, twenty meters before he’d hit the ground. It was his Grandmother, the oldest sloth in all of Slumberland. Or simply the oldest sloth that he could remember.

“Humans,” she whispered, her body tense and fur prickling. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “One human. Young female.”

They hung from the same branch and watched as the dot stepped forward. Sometimes she’d crouch to study a plant or cut off some tree bark and put it in a bottle. Anything she found was placed on her cart, which squeaked as she pulled it along.

“Did you say human?” asked Sotho. “Like from your ghost stories?”

Like his best friend, he hadn’t spoken to Grandmother in a while. This conversation also wasn’t allowed to take too long. For ghost stories about humans, though, they’d always found the time.

Together they climbed to a lower branch, mere meters above the woman’s head. Dozens of sloths inhabited the surrounding trees and did the same thing. They followed every footstep as if it were some breathtaking spectacle, every sung note as if it contained a secret messages. The youngest sloths froze on their slide and asked each other what a human was.

This stranger had playful curls and was barely an adult, as she hummed and seemed to really enjoy every blade of grass. Her arms held seven bottles now, of which two were filled with insects that tried to break free.

When she stepped into the heart of Slumberland for the first time, she dropped them all.

“Oh my. Oh my god. Are those slides? And—”

She ran to the wooden structures. Her fingers pulled and pushed the levers. That she moved four tree homes and two cable cars among the clouds, was unknown to her.

Then she froze, as if she’d burned her fingers on boiling hot wood. She looked around anxiously. Her head made many circles before she thought to look up.

“Aaah!”

Her hand covered her mouth. Her screaming had already made two sloths fall down.

“Oh my god. Sorry. I’m leaving, I promise. I didn’t know this was … sloth territory.”

Of course, dear reader, the sloths did not understand a thing. Since the accident with the Babble Brothers, most animal species could not understand each other anymore. I simply translate everything to make you understand, dear reader. Because this is a story you wouldn’t want to miss.

The animals ducked away. They hid behind their parents, covered themselves with leaves, or put in the huge effort to climb their tree manually.

Even Sotho cringed. So large! With such long arms! And that mouth filled with sharp teeth! He felt restless, but this … this humans was moving all the time! She had covered a huge distance in Slumberland in just a few minutes!

His thoughts filled with visions in which he was eaten or crushed by this human. He suddenly understood why they were the dominant species in the world.

“That armor protects them. We mustn’t attack,” said Grandmother. “They call it clothes, but you won’t take me for a fool!”

“Don’t talk to me so much,” muttered Sotho. He looked into the black, shimmering eyes of his Grandmother. “I … I can’t lose you yet.”

She smiled briefly, then looked away too.

“My name is Mindy,” said the human with a trembling voice. “I just happened to walk here. Sorry.”

She pointed all around her. At the colorful flowers, the imposing Treetowers, the beautiful paths and the slides that connected it all effortlessly. Even fireflies were caught and placed inside colored glass to create a rainbow of pretty lights. Hedges, cut into the shape of mythical animals and gods, formed a guard of honor as Mindy approached.

Sotho thought that Slumberland had to be incredibly ancient, for his ancestors had to build all of this at their snail’s pace.

“But how …” said Mindy out of breath. “How did we not discover this place before!? How?”

Grandmother jumped into action. Her next words were hard to believe, especially when he noticed Mindy cringing like they did, keeping her arms before her in a protective stance.

But her words were clear and decisive.

“She has to be erased, as quickly as possible. Tempt that female to touch the Curse.”

Sotho couldn’t escape it any longer: he had to visit his best friend Lothan. Together they’d tempt Mindy to visit the Curse Circle and ensure this problem was solved swiftly.

Lothan groaned about this exhausting mission, but Sotho was glad he could do something. He couldn’t stay awake; he couldn’t sleep; it slowly turned him insane.

“Keep your distance,” said Sotho. “Those humans are cruel and kill you with one blow! Brrr.”

Lothan hung upside-down from a branch. “So … we must make her follow us, without ever getting close?”

“Nobody said this would be easy.”

“Nobody said anything at all.”

Mindy had decided to study all the wonderful things she found. Once in a while, she looked upwards anxiously, but most sloths had already returned to their bed. Even Grandmother, repeating some excuse about “old bones”.

Sotho and Lothan had to deal with the human alone.

He let himself fall down and landed right before Mindy. She yelped and looked … worried?

“Did you hurt yourself? You fell from a really high …”

Sotho looked pained. Lothan waved his claws, a gesture to indicate he also didn’t know what to do. What was she saying right now?

He decided to just shake his head.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good. Wait, you can understand me?”

Sotho grew nervous. From her tone and face, he thought she might be asking a question. But what question?

He shook his head again. That seemed the safe option.

“Oh. That’s less good.”

Mindy pressed her lips and looked around forlorn. She held two of their rainbow lights in her hands. After placing them on her cart, she remembered the meaning of theft.

With a deep sigh, she settled on the floor.

What was that woman doing? Was this a trick of the human monsters? Grandmother always told him they were highly intelligent. Received all sorts of gifts for their brown from the gods, when they were still around of course.

“You have no idea, sloth, how often I wished that all animals could communicate again. There is so much we don’t know. So much … pain because you can’t explain yourselves.”

Lothan landed next to him.

“Thanks for testing if that human would eat you,” he whispered. “But this is taking a bit long. Come, we walk to the Curse, she’ll follow surely.”

“Should … should we do that?” said Sotho. “She doesn’t hurt us. She is more afraid of us than we—”

Lothan frowned and grabbed his friend’s shoulders tightly. “Listen to yourself, lazy sluggard! Have you fallen in love with a human?”

“Not love. Brrr. But—”

“Well then.”

Lothan strung his friend along.

The main path of Slumberland was a neat snaking route, made from flattened sand and some wooden bridges. Nice and wide, barely used of course. But now they took a thin side path, made from bumps and painfully sharp stones. It ended in an area of perpetual night, thanks to the trees that almost grew into each other.

An area with only a single, clear source of light.

Mindy stayed put, confused.

Sotho tried to imitate her gestures from before. His trembling arms, exhausted from the simple movement, pointed at random trees and stones—and still it worked. The female smiled, stood, and followed them.

When they reached the Curse Circle, night had fallen. The sloths froze immediately when their feet touched the circle border. The Curse was dangerously tempting, like the sight of a bed when you were sleepy, or an oasis after being thirsty for days. But they stayed put.

Mindy followed their lead.

“Is that thing … bad? Good? Why do you show this to me?”

She stepped closer, but stopped again.

“It’s beautiful. It looks almost magical, like, like in those fantasy movies. Should I …”

She looked at the many tubes, pots and tools on her cart. A few of those stuck out the pockets of her white lab coat, which was discolored and torn at the bottom.

“Maybe you understand I am a researcher,” she mumbled. “Must I research this thing? No, sorry, silly question. You don’t understand me.”

She stepped even closer. Her fingers reached out to touch the Curse.

Sotho didn’t know what was inside, but its shield was a web of bent twigs and leaves, like a wicker basket. The object inside emitted a blinding light that could only escape through tiny holes. And it was strong enough that touching the twigs was enough to spell your doom.

Mindy giggled. She stopped and looked around again, as if her eyes wanted to take pictures of every corner of the beautiful Slumberland. She placed her hand on the ancient trees and crouched to caress the fine sand inside the Curse Circle.

“Sometimes I doubt my decision to do this work,” she mumbled. “And sometimes the beauty of nature convinces me with ease.”

She looked over her shoulder. Lothan waved his arms forwards, as an encouragement to take that final step. Sotho smiled at her, the magical light reflected in his curious eyes.

She stepped towards the object.

Sotho’s breath caught.

As her fingertip touched the object, Mindy mumbled again. “Who knows. Maybe this magical object will finally fulfill my wish of communciation between animals.”

Sotho understood. He understood what she said, but only when her fingertips touched it. She spoke of a wish. Her biggest wish was to understand the sloths, not kill or conquer them.

He screamed. He leaped forward and, with all his strength, kicked Mindy away from the Curse.

The object twisted, fell from its pillar with a bang, and dug a deep hole in the sand.

Mindy and Sotho rolled away from the circle, until a tree obstructed them. Human hair fell on his face; his claws were digging into her wrists.

He immediately jumped away from her, out of breath.

Mindy pushed herself to her feet. Her face was colorless and her mouth wide open. A silence hung between them, only punctured by Lothan who grabbed his friend and asked what in Slumberland’s name he was doing.

“Wish?” said Sotho to Mindy. They were human noises he could hardly replicate. “Wish?”

Mindy nodded. “Wish, yes, but—”

He pointed at the magical object. Then he shook his head, fell down, and pretended to play dead.

Mindy stopped blinking. “You tried to kill me—”

“Wish Fulfiller,” said Sotho, as he combined the two words he’d heard her say. “Is real! Like Grandmother’s stories!”

He told Lothan the same, but in their own language.

“It’s a fairy tale, lazy lollard,” he said. “Why else would half the sloths swear that the Wish Fulfiller never existed in the first place?”

Mindy studied the object from afar. She didn’t remove the many twigs from her lab coat, or look at her wounds. She gazed at the light, rubbing her chin for ages.

Sotho danced back and forth on his toes. That feeling of restlessness was about to burst out of him, as he anxiously awaited any friendly signal from the human.

“I’m going to tell the others what you did!” said Lothan. “This is stupid. This will be our demise!”

Mindy finally turned to him. Her eyes shone again and she immediately grabbed all the pots from her carts. As she spoke, she made all the gestures she knew.

“Is bad for you, right? Right? I will help you find Wish Fulfiller. I free you from Curse, okay?”

She gave him a thumbs up. Sotho tried to copy it, but his claws had no thumb. Those humans had way too many unfair advantages.

But the effort was recognized. Mindy giggled and hummed as she prepared her tools.

For a second, Sotho really thought he was falling in love with this human. He carefully approached her. Close enough now that she could kill him with one swing.

And he tried to aid her research.

The longer Sotho and Mindy collaborated, the more he thought he understood her work. She placed some machine on all the corners, pressed a button, and suddenly a perfect drawing of the environment rolled out of the machine!

Then she’d start a different machine that changed the drawing every second, especially when she pressed even more buttons. Sometimes she said “aaah” and was happy; sometimes she said “uuugh” and shut down the machine.

He wanted to help, yes, but exhaustion overwhelmed him after carrying five objects. Even though those had been tiny petri dishes without content.

Mindy talked, a lot, but he couldn’t understand. He mostly responded by saying “Wish Fulfiller” again. He grew frustrated that she didn’t understand he wanted to look for that person now.

She said something hopeful after another measurement.

He repeated for the hundredth time: “Wish Fulfiller! Now!”

But every conversation ended before it properly started. It was impossible to accomplish anything. His frustration grew until he felt the need to throw a few of those tools.

He’d seen it a few times now: what happened when you touched the Curse. You had a short window of time before there was no way back. Mindy had only touched it briefly and seemed unchanged. So maybe …

His claw grabbed Mindy’s wrist. His other claw reached for the Curse.

He touched it, ignored the buzzing of overwhelming magical power through his body, and spoke rapidly:

“IwantsearchforWishFulfillernow.”

And he pulled away. He looked at Mindy’s face: yes, he still knew her, all was well. If it had gone wrong, he’d now think he stood in the Curse Circle alone.

Mindy collected her courage and did the same. As her fingertips touched he Curse, she spoke:

“Howorwhat?”

“Creatureorthing. Magicalglow. HiddeninSlumerlandsaylegends.”

Both stepped away from the curse and studied their hands. The touch felt as if your fingers burned, but that wasn’t the reality.

Another sloth fell from their branch high in the air.

Sotho used the moment to jump on the elevator with Mindy. Mindy nodded, but did she really understand? He had no idea.

He hung in the ropes and relaxed from the heavy work. Mindy tirelessly pointed out different parts of his stupid territory. She was excited about the large wooden branches, which connected to each other and made all of Slumberland one big machine. If someone fell on a branch with some speed, it would bend, which would bend the branches to which it was connected, which would pull on a rope, which would set in motion a whole series of changes that eventually lifted the elevator.

There were parts of Slumberland they still didn’t understand themselves. Branches they’d pushed and pulled for days, knowing it should do something, but they didn’t know what. Only a few months ago, Lothan accidentally discovered there were wooden buttons below the ferns. When pressed, the pushed the Treetowers away from each other, like opening the roof of Slumberland.

He hoped Mindy’s human eyes might see more. Because sloth eyes fell shut oh so easily …

She said “ooooh” about the treetops. They came in many bright colors—natural enough to not hurt your eyes, but different enough to create a painting from the skies. Sotho had thought that all trees looked like that for years, until he learned that there were boring brown and green trees on the border of Slumberland.

When the elevator stopped, Mindy looked down once and went white as a sheet. She clung to the ropes and didn’t notice Sotho had shuffled to the Branchbridges. Those wobbly vertical tree trunks had been built in places where you had to climb upwards. And where the cable cars—which worked on gravity—would not work.

Mindy crawled over that bridge like a baby, refusing to look to the side.

All lazy gods! How they had been wrong about those humans. They feared everything! He could give her a push now and—brrr, he’d never do that.

They arrived at the tallest of Treetowers. Magical flowers encircled it, hiding the tree trunk and the complex wooden machinery inside. This made the entire area look like a soft bed, shaped like a twisting staircase to the canopy.

There, Mindy discovered the goal of this long journey.

The tree was hollow on the inside. Someone had once lived in this cozy room, but departed long ago. Many connections were built along the edge, but the branches and ropes that were supposed to attach to the other machines had snapped or shattered. All sloths had decided, long ago, that it was no impossible for them to attach this tree to the others again.

At least, that’s what Sotho saw. He now studied Mindy’s face. She had only just arrived. She had only just started her relationship with the Wish Fulfiller—so, if that creature still lived here, then she must be able to see them.

Mindy wiped her sweaty hands on her lab coat. She stepped inside, her eyes fixed in one clear spot: the comfortable lounging chair. Yes, yes, that’s where a sloth would be!

Oh, he’d been stupid. He should’ve stated his exact wish far more clearly. Now … now Mindy might make a really weird wish! Or only think about herself! Brrr. Truly what a human would do.

Sotho followed closely, breathlessly.

But Mindy walked past the chair, to a circular wooden object that leaned against the back wall. Not normal wood, no. This was Dragonwood. Magical, stronger, and probably better in every way. Sotho recognized it because it had been used for most of their machines.

Her fingers caressed the deep grooves—

A door in the object suddenly opened and pushed her backward. A white panda stumbled out of the object and was petrified at the sight of the visitors.

“Oh,” said the panda. “Thought nobody visited here. My apologies for the mess.”

Mindy tapped her ear; Sotho nodded.

They could both understand her.

“W-What are you?” stammered Mindy.

“A panda. You’d think a biologist like you—”

“H-How do you know me?”

The panda rolled her eyes. “I am Ismaraldah, Goddess of Time. We will meet each other a lot, in your future.”

“Are you the Wish Fulfiller?” asked Sotho. Adoration colored his voice.

“If only I were,” she mumbled. She closed the door and hid her circular clock home more carefully this time.

Mindy sought support from the chair. “Sorry, but, this … this is a bit much. Time? As in time travel? Pandas who can speak human language—”

“Yes, yes, no. I’m only here because a fixed point is coming. About … now. Though I can be off by a few days, weeks, or millennia.”

“Fixed point?”

“Something very important is about to happen her. So important that it will always happen, no matter how often I change the timeline.”

She looked away, a tear forming. “And yet I will try to change it anyway.”

Silence reigned for several minutes. Then Ismaraldah swallowed, wiped away the tear, and smiled at them.

“Sorry, this was not the warmest of welcomes. I am glad to see you again, Mindy!”

“I never met you before!”

“We will do great things together,” said the Panda, as she hooked her soft paws into Mindy’s arms. “What, again, did you say about a Wish Fulfiller?”

“Legends say it lives in Slumberland,” said Sotho. “But half of us can’t remember it. Or maybe they died when this tree home was attacked.”

“Attacked?”

“Why else would all the ropes and wood be shattered? Slumberland is stupid. There’s probably another Curse, or a monster that attacks sloths, or something. Brrr. I’m going to wish that the Curse disappears! And everything will be better!”

“Curse?” Ismaraldah pointed all around her. “Slumberland was blessed by the gods! Look how beautiful it is!”

Mindy had calmed herself down. She dared tap Ismaraldah’s shoulder no. “He means it. The Curse is real.”

“Hmm. Show me.”

Sotho, by habit, traveled down using the trusted approach called “fall and hit a few branches”. Ismaraldah and Mindy did not trust their bones to survive that and took a longer route. Over Branchbridges, cable cars, slides, and even a climbing wall woven from violets and roses.

Still they reached the ground before Sotho. He had stopped along the route. Sticking to a small branch, he looked at something with sadness in his eyes.

Almost all sloths had gathered in the large, open tree home called Treetower 22. Unheard of! What would they be doing? They were burning their relationships like a forest fire!

Their conversations grew louder. Lothan stepped to the center and even made movements with his arms. The energy! The effort! Brrr.

“What are they saying?” Mindy asked Ismaraldah.

The panda had to lean forward, crawling over Sotho as if he were part of the furniture, to really hear it. Her ears pricked and her face contorted.

She swung back and pinched Mindy’s hand sweetly.

“Oh, nothing, nothing of importance.”

Sotho frowned at her. “They have decided that Mindy is an untrustworthy human and must be erased. She knows too much now! They claim she’s bewitched me! My best friend is calling me a traitor!”

Ismaraldah refused to translate this for Mindy. And so the young woman climbed down, humming and singing, to study the Curse again.

When Ismaraldah caught a first glimpse of the Curse, she instantly recognized it. Even the Goddess of Time kept her distance. She shook her head at the workbench and tools that Mindy had scattered around.

“You have touched that thing?” she yelled. “On purpose?”

“To communicate,” Mindy said defensively. “To find an antidote more quickly. A researcher can’t do anything without researching—”

“This is the Flamefeaster of Ardex.”

“Who?”

Ismaraldah threw sand at their faces. “The god who gave his life to give you all of this! That one, do you remember? No, no, of course not. Human schools don’t even teach this part of history anymore.”

Using a twig, she drew some rough shapes in the sand.

“All the gods had their own Heavenmatter. Ardex was the only one who had two—long story. I tried to keep them out of the hands of other beings, but I think a group has been secretly collecting them for a while. This is the first one I see in a long time.”

Mindy took pictures of the Goddess’ drawings. “Why can’t other beings—”

“Because they’re dangerous beyond belief!” Ismaraldah kept shaking her head. “Be glad you didn’t break your brain by touching that thing multiple times.”

“But … but what does it do?” she asked.

The white panda curled her tail around herself like a blanket to hide behind.

“It’s my fault. Ardex wanted to add specific magic to his Heavenmatter because he thought it would make the world a better place. Eventually, he will be right, in the current timeline, but for now …”

Some of Mindy’s machine beeped and blooped. Sotho recognized it as the confirmation of results.

Ismaraldah glanced at them, but her eyes didn’t truly see.

“The Flamefeaster burns relationships. Whoever is under its influence can only see, talk, or think about someone else for a short time. When that time runs out … your friends and familiy disappear completely from your brain, your eyes, your life.”

She climbed a tree with godly grace, to point at the sloths congregating in Treetower 22.

“I am sure there are sloths here, Sotho, that you can’t even see anymore. Like you imagine happened to the Wish Fulfiller.”

Mindy interrupted the conversation with a yell.

“I might have found something! Something about the structure of the Flamefeaster and the energy pulses it emits!”

“Really?” asked Ismaraldah, surprised. “Humans are so arrogant they think to understand Heavenmatter in a few days? It is magic!”

“Everything in nature follows rules and laws,” said Mindy. “Gods and magic simply use science we don’t know yet. Until we discovered how weather worked, we also thought it was magical and controlled by some weather god.”

“You see a time traveling panda and still believe that?”

“I’ve seen no proof of time travel yet.”

Ismaraldah’s face darkened. “I am not some puppet putting on a show. I carry the heavy burden of keeping the timeline alive.”

Mindy bounced from machine to machine, carrying at least twenty flasks and tubes in her arms. Sotho followed hopefully, but confused.

“She is in danger!” he whispered to Ismaraldah. “The other sloths could arrive any second to push her against the Curse if need be! And … and me too, maybe.”

“What’s he saying?” Mindy asked with a smile.

“He hopes you’ll find a solution to the Curse soon,” said Ismaraldah.

“Why do you lie about this?” he asked with a growl. “You’re a Goddess. You’re far too mean and petty—”

Mindy watched the two animals with a smile. “And now?”

“All the sloths love you right now and want you to continue your research.”

Sotho pushed her aside. He reached for the Curse again, ready to touch it and tell Mindy what he really thought.

Was it worth it? Forget everyone he loved, just to have Mindy maybe fulfill his wish and stop the Curse?

Yes. Yes, he felt it was worth it.

He made the final step—

All the other sloths stormed the place.

Though let’s be frank, dear reader, that it wasn’t a very intimidating storm of course. The sloths lazily fell from branches, shuffled towards the Curse Circle, and some sleepy voices told them to “stay where they are or else”. They were only impressed because of the number of sloths and how they cut off any possible escape routes.

Ismaraldah grabbed Sotho.

“Tell them this was all your plan,” she whispered. “Make Mindy trust you, so you could erase her fully.”

“I don’t lie to my own folk,” said Sotho confidently.

Ismaraldah sighed and climbed on his head. Her tiny body towered over everyone.

“Stop this madness! You need each other. Mindy and Sotho try to help.”

Not a single sloth stopped moving. The circle around Mindy, Sotho and the Time Traveler shrank further and further, until they could do nothing else than step closer to the Curse.

“Weird,” said the panda. “This usually works.”

“We don’t need others,” said a sloth. “Less so than anyone! Others are a disaster for us!”

“But she speaks the truth,” said Sotho. “Mindy thinks she can heal us!”

“Yes, that’s what a traitor would say,” bit Lothan.

The encirclement was complete. The Curse burned at their back, awfully close. Lothan came alive and quickened his pace, holding a sharp stick as a weapon.

Sotho’s arms drooped. His expression turned to stone as he stopped moving.

“Mindy can’t understand me, so believe me that I speak the truth now. This was … all according to plan. Get Mindy to trust me and then attack. Brrrr, I hate humans and they must be erased! Right? Right?”

The sloths froze.

Mindy had simply continued researching. She grabbed object after objected, tapped all the buttons of her machine, and regularly yelled something like Eureka!

Sotho was accepted back into the sloth society. He even received some pats on the back and remarks about how intelligent he was. As they stood ready to push Mindy against the Curse with their wooden spears.

Only Lothan remained suspicious. He’d seen Sotho’s desperate leap a few days ago to rescue Mindy. Worthless friend. He could walk against the Curse, if the lazy gods were merciful!

Mindy looked over her shoulder. No more escape. Sotho had won her some time, but not much.

She voluntarily touched the Curse.

All because she wanted to send one final message to all the sloths.

“Flamefeastersendsparticlesintotheair.” The pain slowed her down. And the fear of not being understood. “Particles seem to be a virus that messes with the part of our brain that deals with relationships. Recognizes faces. Remembers names. That’s what I know now. If—”

She screamed until Slumberland repeated with deafening echoes.

The sloths threw leaves against their ears against the sound.

Mindy’s bright eyes looked at Ismaraldah one last time.

“Eureka!”

She let go of the Flamefeaster and sunk to the floor.

The sloths scattered, afraid to see each other for too long, afraid to exhaust their relationships. Better they be in their own beds and save the chance to be with each other for … later.

But Grandmother stayed.

“She really wanted to help us?”

Sotho crawled to Mindy and held her unconscious body. When she wakes up, she’ll see an empty forest and wonder how she ever got there. She would be alone, scared, and maybe afraid she couldn’t get home. No slides would appear before her eyes, just a very normal forest that she doesn’t tell anybody about.

He had to bring her home safely.

Ismaraldah teleported her clock to the floor. Together they carefully placed Mindy on the benches inside that were far too small.

The Goddess shut the door, but Sotho held it open.

“You’re the Goddess of Time. I’d think you were wise,” he said bitterly. “Is this really the best you can do? Allow being abused, cursing at other beings, and then lying against innocent humans? All so that a few … a few beings accept you and like you?”

Ismaraldah gave him a final pained glance.

“Yes. I’d give anything to never be alone again.”

She disappeared among the Treetowers.

Sotho had touched a life of hope, a life of more action and excitement. He noticed the restlessness was gone, if only for a bit. Once he could finally overcome his tears for Mindy, he fell into a long, deep sleep.

Many, many years later an interesting message traveled through Slumberland. This happened thanks to a system they had recently discovered: the Message Trees. If you pushed some thick ferns aside, most Treetowers actually had a hole cut into them. One that was attached to all the holes of all the other homes. Sometimes using thick tubes through the air, sometimes using elegant tubes hidden inside the wood.

Some tall branches, at the border of the area, activated the system. They sucked in air and then used that to blow messages, scratched in leaves or branches, through the tubes. That’s also how they discovered that many branches they accidentally broke over the years … were tubes in this system. Well, let’s say that not all messages arrived where they should.

This message did, though. It fell before Sotho’s claws around dawn.

Human! New human in Slumberland! Our second chance!

Sotho met other sloths for the first time in weeks. They all fell or slid down simultaneously to greet this new human.

Would it be a researcher again? Would the humans have built even better machines by now? Those creatures invented things at a ludicrous pace. These days, sloths yelled Eureka! too whenever they discovered a new hidden system of Slumberland.

The visitor turned out to be not one human, but two.

Two adult men paced over the main path. One had gray hair, the other glasses and a clipboard. The grayman pointed at things, but the glassman couldn’t keep up. He just nodded and wrote down some numbers.

When they entered Slumberland for real, the glassman fell still. The other paced onwards and accidentally broke a branch from their machines. He didn’t notice—what was a broken twig to a large human?—until he noticed the pieces of metal inside that twig.

The two men squatted and studied the metal. Then they purposely broke more and more twigs, finding the same metals inside, which made them ask even more questions. Brrr. That would take ages to repair! So much effort!

The first sloths landed behind the humans. They tried to say the word Human, which they’d learned from the short period Mindy was here.

Stop! Don’t think about her! The more you do, the sooner you’ll forget her.

The men turned around, startled. Glassman polished his glasses to look more closely; the other pulled a black object from his belt and pointed it at the sloth.

Another camera? Tools? Sotho landed too and stepped closer, curious.

“Stay there or I shoot,” yelled the man.

“I don’t wish to be annoying, sir,” said glassman, “but sloths don’t understand our lang—”

They grayman grunted. “If you don’t wish to annoy me, then why do you do it?”

He still pointed the object, as his finger slid to a small lever at the bottom. Ah, so it was a kind of machine! Less impressive than Slumberland, less fun than Mindy’s cart—stop thinking about her!—but it was fine.

The sloths gestured for the men to follow. They walked to the side path that led to the Curse Circle. Along the way, Sotho pointed at the prettiest patches of Slumberland.

“And this is our Message Tree that connects all the tubes,” he said. He knew they didn’t understand, but he wanted to appear friendly and welcoming. “And this is the Flowerwall. You can climb it, but we prefer to just stand still and gawk at the pretty flowers. Less effort, you see? Oh, and if you pull that lever, this entire area gets a shower.”

The men followed, though even more cautiously than Mindy. The grayman held his black machine ready, but didn’t point it at them anymore. The glassman had switched glasses and concluded that his eyes didn’t betray him.

They arrived at the Flamefeaster. In full sunlight, the light was less impressive, and it almost seemed a normal basket on a pillar. But you felt your body being violently pulled towards it.

The sloths pointed at it. Then they played pretend—touch it, have pain.

“They lead us to an object,” mumbled glassman, “only to tell us we should not touch it?”

Grayman put the black object back on his belt and stepped closer.

“Not just any object. Look at what’s inside! Did you ever see something like it?”

“No. But I also hadn’t seen sloths until today.” He moved his glasses and studied the Flamefeaster from all angles, as he made a skillful and detailed sketch. “May I ask why you were certain this was ‘just an empty forest, always has been’, sir?”

“Because it’s on all the maps. Because that’s what everyone thinks.” He smiled at his friend with the clipboard. “We found gold here, man! I feel it. You feel it too, right?”

“I mostly feel uncomfortable, sir.”

Grayman moved his hands through his gray locks of hair. He looked up and saw the underside of a Branchbridge. He pointed at a special tree in the distance, which marked the border of Slumberland.

“We start there. The fastest route. Maybe we shouldn’t touch that thing, but a crane can easily lift it. Or maybe …”

His chest flashed a brief but piercing light. He looked down and smiled. “Ah, finally charged. You should use yours too, man.”

Grayman pushed his chest as if it were a button. His clothes, an old-fashioned suit, transformed into a tough harness. Glassman, who wore a worn-down brown suit that almost seemed camouflage, turned on his own armor too. The humans seemed to have turned into machines themselves!

What now? Mindy had quickly understood what they wanted, but she seemed the exception now.

“Wish Fulfiller,” said Sotho eventually.

“I’m not Santa Claus,” the man grunted, his mind elsewhere. “You have to pay if you want to use the Wish Fulfiller.”

Brrr. That was a cold response. He should’ve learned the sentence “Save us from our Curse” instead.

After turning on the harness, the glassman’s voice sounded as if it came from a metal tube.

“Did you know this was here, sir?”

“No. I only know that treasures await if you search in odd places. Do you recognize this object? Does it look like any jewels we found before?”

“Absolutely not, sir. I must dissuade you from touching it, sir.”

The man nodded. It was a difficult and nearly imperceptible movement, for his head was covered in layers of metal. They stood and walked away.

“Remind our boss about the agreement. They can do whatever they like, but all objects like this one are mine.”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“Tell nobody about this and don’t show your drawings—”

Sotho quickly jumped in front of the men, before they’d leave for good. Immediately, grayman pointed that black thing at his head again. Glassman dropped his clipboard.

“Research! Help us! Please, kind humans!”

Sotho tried all known gestures. Only the word human remained.

Grayman grinned. “What, remind me, did you say about not understanding our language?”

“We might have found an even larger treasure here, sir,” glassman said. His voice cracked. “Maybe we should destroy our agreement with the boss—”

“All dead birds on a stick,” the old man cursed, “I’m taking that glowing thing now!”

He turned around swiftly and made for the object. Glassman tried to stop him, but was merely pulled along. The harness was heavy, but it also seemed to give the humans extra strength and speed where needed.

The sloths moved to form a wall to obstruct them. Save humans from their own stupidity.

They were too slow.

The men fell against the object. Grayman ripped it off the pillar and pushed it against his chest like a newborn.

Sadness already gripped Sotho. Another one gone. Another life erased. Another chance—

But the men didn’t cry or scream. They looked at the frozen sloths—they still saw us! The Curse seemed to have no effect on them.

When the men walked away, however, the Curse escaped their hands. It flew back to the pillar and snapped into place, as if it were connected by the strongest rubber band in the world.

Sotho had never done it before: leave Slumberland. At first, he didn’t understand why, when he hated the cursed place so much. Then he remembered he was a sloth and lacked the stamina to walk that far.

Now, though, his legs moved energetically and led him to the border. Where the trees lost their rainbow colors and the spider web in the sky was replaced by a gray emptiness.

He had a bad feeling about these new humans. They’d tried to rip the Curse from the pillar for a while, but it kept returning. Then they tried to destroy the pillar itself, but it didn’t budge.

The men eventually left. They visited a square, metal building in the distance. It was covered in lights and regularly spit out armored humans. From Sotho’s vantage point, they seemed ants leaving their anthill.

Next to that large building was a much smaller building. Countless humans queued before it.

The trees didn’t just grow barren here, they were often completely gone. Both buildings stood in an empty clearing of stone and mud. The only memories of trees were low stumps that were used as chairs by exhausted workers.

His claws grabbed the branch overhead to—

Someone pulled him back. He twisted and hung eye to eye with Lothan.

“Go away,” said Sotho. “Today is a bad d—”

“Ghsjshjs said you were going to spy on people,” he said.

Sotho’s hart sank. Another name he’d forgotten and could never hear again.

Lothan fiddled with some dead leaves and jumped on the same branch, causing it to bend even further.

“Sounded like a fun adventure for my lazy slothfriend and me, right?”

“You want to burn our friendship for that? Hanging from a branch and watching humans? Go away! Save it for a better time!”

“And when will that come?”

They watched the busy humans in silence. They often entered yellow machines. As soon as they were activated, the entire valley buzzed as if an earthquake was coming.

“You called me a traitor and almost erased Mindy far too early,” said Sotho. “I don’t want a fun adventure with you!”

“Oh come on, slow snail. That is so long ago. Forgive and forget? I see you were right now, and, and—”

The next machines activated. Their low, teeth-clattering hum made Lothan briefly lose his grip.

His voice vibrated with the machines. “You’re right again this time. The others think the men will release us from the Curse; I think they just want to steal it.”

“We talk too much,” said Sotho. “I see you too often! Go sit in another tree!”

Lothan crushed the leaves in his claws. “I don’t want to sit in a tree by myself anymore!”

Sotho agreed. The voice in his head screamed it. Lothan was his best friend because they’d played in the same tree when they were young. Raced to the top of the Flowerwall. Tried to take the slide in the reverse direction, or flat on your belly—the reason why Lothan still missed some fur around his navel.

No! Don’t think about that! It will only burn their friendship faster.

Sotho jumped from the tree and neared the human camp. Lothan followed.

“I think … shouldn’t we keep our distance?” squeaked Lothan. “Or we’ll ask that white panda again! To help us! Yes, let’s do that, stay here. Ismaraldah! Ismaraldah!”

“She didn’t seem to like this place,” said Sotho with a growl. “I understand.”

The humming machines moved. In the eyes of a sloth, their movement was incredibly quick. Their black caterpillar tracks crushed the dirt as they neared the trees surrounding Slumberland.

One moment, an ancient tree stood proud and tall; the next moment it cracked and fell to its death on the floor.

One moment Slumberland was safe behind a wall of overgrown forest; the next moment it had an open wound that humans exploited.

Now they drove straight at Sotho and Lothan.

The friends grabbed each other and swung back onto the branch they’d just—the branch was gone too. They stumbled over a tree stump they hadn’t seen, which made them roll down the hill like a wheel of fur, visiting all corners of the clearing. They narrowly avoided a yellow machine, but were too late to avoid the next one.

The human inside panicked and smashed a red button. The machine shut down. The sloths bumped against the side and sank deep into the wet dirt. They heard some screaming and footsteps, but nobody came close.

They had ended up near the queue of people before the second, smaller building. Two young children were the only ones brave enough to approach the sloths and stick out a hand. The slots, though, were too afraid to accept it. A few workers took pictures of them and ran into the main building.

“Next!” yelled a voice.

The woman at the front of the line smiled and stepped inside. Did felling trees make them this happy? Why couldn’t they just leave Slumberland alone?

Cheerful letters on the building walls spelled “Wish Fulfiller”. It seemed misplaced, as if a carnival attraction had fallen from the sky and landed in a war zone. A drawing of gold coins, and a very long number next to it, also graced the wall.

A female voice rang from crackling speakers.

“Reminder: please keep your wish ready and pay in cash.”

“Dad? Dad?” said a panicked girl. “My wish—what was it again? I forgot! I forgot!”

“You wanted to be the best dancer in the world, dear. I am going to wish that our family will be in good health forever.”

“And they can fulfill that?”

“All the previous customers swear their wish came true. However silly or bizarre! For that price, yes, I’d expect my wish to be fulfilled.”

The sloths were quickly forgotten by the impatient, waiting humans.

“Well, this was a nice adventure,” said Sotho. “The human’s intentions seem clear to me. Until next time. If it ever happens.”

Sotho’s final sentence scared himself. Lothan was left behind, shoulders drooping. He reached for his friend to turn him around, but was distracted.

A flash. A glow. Time seemed to slow down, and then raced ahead again without mercy.

Sotho crawled through the mud. A clock made of Dragonwood suddenly lay in the grass. Ismaraldah stepped out—but this time she wasn’t alone. A sun badger followed her and waved at them. Then the poor fellow seemed about to throw up and sought support from a wall.

“Ah, must be in the right place now,” she said cheerfully. “This must be close to the fixed point.”

She allowed the sun badger some time to adjust. Ismaraldah herself hopped into the larger building.

Sotho and Lothan followed as if the Goddess of Time were a magnet. They briefly paused to glance at each other, waiting for their friend to leave or fall asleep. To save their friendship for some other time. Both of them, however, really didn’t want to miss what was about to happen.

The panda climbed to the balcony using a drainpipe. The sloths followed with relative ease, as their claws were made for this.

Ismaraldah pattered over a layer of gravel and pushed herself against the wall, next to a large window. The sloths followed noisily and could barely hide their massive bodies.

Through the window they saw the two men from before. Grayman sat in a large chair, behind a desk covered in dead trees. Mostly in the shape of paper, although glassman had also put some specimens from special trees inside boxes and pots.

“I’ve studied the histories again, sir,” said glassman carefully. “I think the forest is part of a protected habitat of Sloths. Although it’s odd that nobody even knows the place.”

“So?”

“We’re not allowed to enter, less so cut its trees.”

“Nonsense! Whoever follows those rules, man? Give it two years, and all humans have left in their spaceships anyway.”

“That’s a very optimistic view about the state of our technology, sir.”

“That glowing sloth diamond is mine. Did you see their wooden structures? Those branches high in the sky? I am certain they hide endless treasures. However we get a hold of them is irrelevant.”

“I understand you need to earn your money, sir. Food to eat and a roof over your head. But—”

Grayman burst out in laughter, as if his entire body couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Man, I own five mansions. I could buy the entire bakery.”

“Forgive me, sir,” said glassman. “But if you already have enough wealth, why do you desperately seek more?”

“My glassy guy, if you’ve already seen so many trees, then why did you want to visit this forest?”

Glassman grabbed the door handle and mumbled: “If I’m not quick, there might not be a forest to study at all.”

Ismaraldah left the window. The sloths looked at her expectantly, for they hadn’t understood a single thing of what was said.

“I give you a crucial mission,” she said. “To sabotage the operations of these humans and chase them away.”

“Spend even more time together!?”

Sotho created distance between himself and Lothan. He didn’t want to forget his friend forever. He wanted to go on adventures, yes, but later. When the humans were gone, Slumberland safe. When he had the energy to do anything. But this way—

Lothan sighed and trudged to the balcony’s edge.

The sun badger came up then. He looked beter and warmly embraced the panda.

Ismaraldah kept her stern gaze on Sotho.

“Animals received the ability to look ahead, into the future. To really think about the consequences of their actions. Humans received this skill more than anyone else. It made them inventive, brought them this far. It also made them a bit more unhappy every single day.”

Sotho was not in the mood for a lecture from a time traveler. His life was cursed enough as it was. “But you’ve seen what happens if we see each other too—”

“Yes, yes, yes, that is likely your future. But are you dying right now? Are you hating life and hating friendship right now? Is it impossible now to have an adventure or properly talk to your friends and family?”

Another wave of memories and gut feelings made Sotho feel like he was drowning. It made his heart race and his eyes search for the comfortable sight of his best friend. Just now, Lothan jumped from the drainpipe and crept through the shadows behind the “Wish Fulfiller” building.

But … he’d called him a traitor! And worked against him! And … and … and so what?

Was he actually hating his friend right now? Did he actually dislike being with him now? Was he actually too weak or too forgetful to do this mission right now?

He swung from the drainpipe too and yelled at his friend. It was time to sabotage a few humans.

Sotho and Lothan arrived back in Slumberland out of breath—and were obviously made fun of because of it. Sotho used the unrest in his claws to climb a tree a manually and fall down, just to help Lothan take the elevator and gather all the other sloths. For Lothan looked like he could fall asleep any second, even if it was rare he actually succeeded.

Like usual, they gathered in Treetower 22. Practically the heart and soul of Slumberland. Half of the sloths didn’t actually come. They opted to stay in their tree home, sleeping, but not sleeping. They sent clear messages via the Message Tree: I’m not going to burn my relationship with you for THAT nonsense.

The others said the same thing, really, but to their faces.

“Sounds like effort, it does,” said a grey-green sloth. “All humans who entered this place, have left Slumberland again and completely forgot it existed. Our machines help and protect us. Our Treetowers have never been felled!”

“Yes,” said Ismaraldah, “because your ancestors worked hard to solve these problems.”

“And we are ever grateful. And sleepy.”

“You are zombies,” said Didrik with disdain.

“What?”

“Argh, no, sorry, never mind, you don’t know what those are yet.”

Not a single Sloth joined their mission. So it was up to Sotho, Lothan, Ismaraldah and Didrik.

Upon nightfall they crawled back to the two buildings. The humans had already cut down anything before Slumberland’s border. Lothan still hoped the humans realized they weren’t allowed to go any further. Nobody shared his optimism.

The machines had pushed deep tracks into the dirt. Some of them were converted into real paths, accompanied by lanterns that shone a bright yellow light. The four of them chose a different path, though. One that led them through shadows and to the first yellow machine.

“Humans are nothing without their machines,” said Ismaraldah. “We destroy them all and it takes a year before they can hurt you.”

The biggest problem was the queue in front of the Wish Fulfiller. It never ended. Even at midnight, humans waited in line. Even when the building closed, everyone slept where they stood, afraid to lose their spot.

They had to disable the machines without making too much noise. Especially Didrik mumbled something about “stern time travelers” when he was forbidden from destroying everything.

Sotho pulled on a door handle. A door wasn’t a branch, though, and Sotho lacked much practice using his muscles in general. He was surprised when the door swung open and clumsily entered the vehicle upside-down. Then he felt the warm, soft driver’s chair. Brrr. Some human inventions weren’t too bad!

His sharp claws reached around him. Levers were removed from their metal box. Wires were cut. Even the chair was returned facing the wrong direction. When he left the machine, he looked back. The broken machine looked like that ancient, damaged Treetower; the one where he and Mindy met Ismaraldah for the first time.

The others were busy destroying the other machines. The humans hadn’t neatly put them in a row though—some still had half a tree in their metal claws—which delayed them. They had to cover large, tiring distances in the shadows.

Sotho sighed. He had to reach the machine that was closest to the queue. Some armored guards walked around, but they mostly chatted and drank some hot beverage. The hundreds of waiting people would see him before they did.

He used the shadow of the second building to get close. If he could make one perfect jump … he’d only be in the spotlights for a few seconds. Would he make it? He didn’t trust his clumsy body anymore. They should’ve practice this mission! He had to—

A man left the Wish Fulfiller building. His moustache covered a wide smile, and his arms held a gigantic box filled with objects. His long coat fluttered in the night winds and accidentally hit Sotho in the face.

“And? And?” asked the next clients.

“Completely fulfilled!” he said, picking at his moustache. “I wanted all the newest devices, mostly phones and computers, even those that haven’t even released yet. And look at that!”

He showed the contents of the box. When a child tried to pull out a shiny phone, he quickly covered the box again and left.

Sotho prepared to jump to the machine, drew in a breath, and—

A hollow, explosive sound bounced between the building’s walls.

His friend, who’d stood on a machine just now, fell down with lifeless limbs. He made no attempt at all to save himself and fell face down inside a pool of dirty water.

“Lothan!” yelled Sotho, climbing over the machines, but slipping and rolling and getting in the way of his own clumsy limbs.

Bright lights turned on. All guards moved to catch the sloths. Their numbers were few, Sotho told himself, as he tried to destroy the final machine anyway.

Mere heartbeats later, another group of guards ran outside. Enough to push aside the queuing people and circle the sloths.

Sotho jumped from roof to roof, zigzagging over the machines. Ismaraldah tried to lift Lothan and carry him; his friend didn’t move anymore.

His path through the air ended abruptly. He turned around and jumped back to the main building. A few protruding stones offered him grip, as he searched something to swing from. That’s the one thing he could trust his body to do.

Didrik leapt over him. The tiniest piece of brick that jutted out of the wall was enough for him to climb. He reached a few large buttons on the roof. He smashed the first one to trigger an alarm, then another to forcefully shut the doors.

Two men in suits were the last to leave the building before the metal doors closed. Grayman held that black object again, pointed at Sotho, then Didrik, then Sotho.

Finally, Sotho found what he needed. The humans had stretched thin black cables through the air to deliver electricity to all machines and operations. He grabbed Didrik’s hind paw and swung with him to the first rope, then the second, then the third. After falling for a few seconds, he grabbed the next rope just in time. It bent in the middle and made the human constructions creak and groan, but they held firm.

Of course they weren’t ropes, dear reader, but electricity cables. It’s not recommended for humans to touch those, even if they’re protected. But the thick claws of a sloth could easily hold them, and it was the only way to stay ahead of the running guards.

The guards were unsure how to attack an enemy swinging overhead. Grayman had activated his harness again, then trailed them from below.

Sotho accelerated. The cables were remarkably similar to their own spider web of Branchbridges hundreds of meters in the sky. He overtook Ismaraldah near the entrance of Slumberland.

“He’s too heavy,” she puffed. “Didrik, take over.”

Sotho was out of breath, his limbs like reeds swinging in the breeze without resistance.

The humans had shifted their attention to the machines. Those that still functioned were turned on and driven forwards to enter Slumberland. The first trees were quickly felled. Once all machines were humming, trees cracked and bent as if they were mere blades of grass, which meant Sotho could never climb the same tree for longer than a minute.

His current tree toppled backwards. Sotho’s world rotated and Ismaraldah slid downward. The next tree was still far out. Treetower 05, one of his favorites, because of the pretty lines that ran through the bark.

Could he make the jump? Could he make it in his current condition?

Grayman had followed them with precision. He stood below them now, his black machine pointed upward.

Ismaraldah looked forward, backward, forward, backward. Didrik grunted, all of Lothan’s weight on his shoulders. He looked like a turtle climbing a tree.

This was a stupid mission, Sotho reminded himself. A bunch of sloths! Against humans! They were nearly gods, with their machines.

His tree leaned completely backward now. He was dizzy, almost horizontal, and about to faint.

Ismaraldah screamed, fire in her eyes. She grabbed Sotho and threw him to the next tree. Didrik did the same with Lothan, then reached for the paws of his wife.

The sloths reached the next tree.

But the time traveler and her husband fell down hopelessly, towards the forest floor.

No, not just any floor. They fell towards the Curse. Grayman tried to break it loose by setting the pillar on fire.

His black object followed the falling panda and sun badger all the way from the top to the bottom. He blew the gray locks of hair from his face.

“Come on then! Give me a reason to shoot!”

Ismaraldah and Didrik held each other close, their eyes locked in a kind understanding.

Then they slammed into the Curse, the Flamefeaster, the thing that made you forget, with their entire body.

They refused to let each other go.

At their touch, the light grew large and blinding, enough to make the entire forest believe dawn had come. Grayman was blown backwards and landed amidst the ferns. The pillar broke. The two animals fell around it, unconscious.

The first tree home was attacked. The first Treetower, of the fifty that were never in any danger, shattered to flakes, chips, splinters and metal nails, which were collected by the canopy of lower trees. The Flowerwall lost its first flowers. The spider web missed its anchor now. The colored lights were extinguished, one by one. The fires did nothing to dissuade the gut-wrenching darkness and silence that followed.

As Sotho watched Slumberland burn and disintegrate, helplessly, he could only drown in his own guilt. Grow sick from his own realization.

Slumberland had indeed been blessed by the gods, the most beautiful place on the entire continent, and his entire life he’d only complained about it.

Sotho thought that the eyes of a time traveler had probably seen everything. That they could predict what would happen at any time and nothing would surprise her. At that moment, however, Ismaraldah’s eyes shone with nothing but fear and ignorance, like a newborn child, searching for proof she hadn’t forgotten the world.

Didrik held her. They found each other’s eyes and smiled. They knew each other still, that was most important.

The smile fell away.

“I feel it,” she said softly.

“Me too,” said Didrik. “I’m afraid … that my promise that I’d never forget you …”

“No, no, no. We will find a way.”

They helped each other to their feet.

Sotho was with Lothan. His friend survived but had a nasty wound in his shoulder. He slept to recover.

His friend lived. Sotho had never even thought about it before—had refused to think about it. But Lothan had almost died that night. All those saved moments, all those delayed adventures they’d have, would have immediately become useless.

He hugged his friend and whispered he’d stay with him until he woke up, time and time again, even though it exhausted their friendship faster.

Ismaraldah and Didrik had a discussion that started sweetly but grew furious now.

“It’s too dangerous,” said Didrik. “We barely escaped this time! We’re lucky the human’s machines work on electricity and couldn’t reach deeper into Slumberland yet. But they’ll return, and quickly.”

“Don’t lecture me about the future,” Ismaraldah said bitterly, then kissed him.

“We don’t even know if it works. How it works. What it is. We can’t do anything against powerful humans and their metal weapons.”

Ismaraldah stomped her foot. “Did all our travels teach you nothing? When a species gets too powerful, that’s exactly when you shouldn’t give up and exactly when you fight!”

“But at what cost?”

“It’s the only solution.”

“We are not going back, especially not wounded.” It was a definitive statement. The calm and strong sun badger was nowhere to be found right now. “There’s always our other plan. I still get sick from time travel and can barely live outside my own timeline.”

Ismaraldah looked around. Sloths fell from the sky left and right to hit precisely the right branches, which gave them running water and extinguished the flames. The sloths who claimed they were safe here, only yesterday, worked hardest of all to get the machines going. Some were even out of breath.

“Didn’t you say there was a fixed point around now?” asked Sotho. “A very important moment. Whatever you’re planning, could that be it?”

The time traveler hugged Didrik once more. “No. I believe the fixed point … just happened. To us.”

She seemed to wait on something, as she cursed someone called Jacintah. Shortly after, her wooden clock appeared amidst the wooden wreckage of broken bridges and machines.

A black panda exited the clock.

“I told you to arrive before the fixed point!” Ismaraldah cried.

“I am an amazing spacefolder, but not a timefolder. How often must I repeat myself?”

The black panda didn’t move with steps or jumps, but by teleporting a tiny bit each time. One moment she climbed out of the clock; the next she hung over Sotho’s head and looked at Lothan. His friend coughed and seemed to wake up.

“Well. Alright. You’re here now, sister. We’re going on a mission again.”

Didrik sighed and licked his wounds, but made for the wooden clock. The vehicle seemed larger on the inside than the outside—even then, the three of them barely fit. The clock seemed entirely designed for only one driver.

“What’s the mission?” asked Sotho.

“I only see one solution to all our troubles. We break into the Wish Fulfiller building and make our own wishes reality. Everything we’ve heard suggests that it actually works!”

Sotho felt pulled in two directions. Stay with Lothan? Join and meet the Wish Fulfiller?

Lothan woke up and groaned in pain.

“Stay down, friend. You’re safe. The humans are gone, recharging for the next attack.”

His friend smiled. He smiled, as a butterfly landed on his bulbous nose.

“That was fun! Finally we’re having adventures, weird treeknight of mine.”

“I—Lothan—” Sotho smiled too. “It was fun. Until you …”

Lothan waved his claw. “That’s life’s risk.”

Sotho looked over his shoulder. This was the final chance to join the mission.

Lothan smiled again. “Go on your next adventure. The more we’re apart, the longer we’ll remember each other, right?”

“I’d rather remember the fun things we did together,” said Sotho.

He gave his friend a soft pat on the back—the good side—and jumped in the direction of the wooden clock.

Ismaraldah turned dials and twisted rows of clocks on the wall. Jacintah sat in the center, eyes closed, and claimed to be “concentrating”.

Sotho didn’t feel like anything happened. But mere heartbeats later, they opened the doors and had moved: to the ceiling inside the Wish Fulfiller building.

Below them sat a young woman amidst a circle of candles. She talked about her wish to a dark silhouette he couldn’t recognize.

“It’s simple, really. I want Jonathan to fall in love with me, forever. And then we start a sweet family together, with sweet kids, and live happily ever after.”

A croaky voice responded, but plagued by pauses and stutters, as if it was very unsure of what to say.

“Ah. A wish that involves changing another human. Did you even read the rules?”

“Of course! It’s not forbidden!”

“It costs extra,” said the voice with pleasure.

“What do you think?” whispered Jacintah. She had teleported to the ridge of the roof. “A rare demigod that survived the Second Conflict? God of Wishes?”

“I’d believe that,” said Ismaraldah, “if I’d ever heard of such magic in my entire life.”

“Soooo what exactly is the plan, you crazy girls,” said Didrik, hanging from a metal beam with a single paw. “Kidnap a demigod and force it to fulfill our wishes? While they simply raise the alarm and we’re all deadly dead soon, aye?”

“We must try,” Sotho heard himself say. “I have to wish for Slumberland to always stay as beautiful as it is.”

Sotho’s heart raced. Dangerously. He was so close. He saw the beautiful Slumberland from his memories, everyone happy, coming together to build the machines all day. Heaven on Somnia. But—wait—where were those memories coming from? He had never actually experienced this time, had he?

“I thought we were going to wish for the Curse to be removed,” said Ismaraldah. “Can those wishes exist at the same time?”

“If we wish it to be so?”

“Maybe. That’s also how my time traveling works. The timeline is like a living being that constantly adapts to how we change it, sometimes quite creatively. Remember, Didrik, that one time you accidentally destroyed a painting by Da Vennisi, which caused an entire person to never—”

Sotho’s claw itched. How could she talk of such irrelevant stories right now? They had to jump! Grab the Wish Fulfiller! It would solve everything!

“Not the moment, dear,” said Didrik with the same impatience in his voice.

Jacintah teleported closer and closer. From the roof, to the paintings on the wall, to the dark wallpaper.

The woman below them had just made her immense payment. She received a helmet and dozens of stickers that attached wires to her neck, arms, and legs. The voice claimed this proved she really wished for that. The helmet made beeping noises and flashed a few lights to a rhythm.

The woman yelped in surprise at some parts of the process, but eventually a computer voice said: “Wish Confirmed!”

No, that was the same voice as before. The Wish Fulfiller was a computer voice.

The young woman took off the helmet and pulled the wires off her body. She smiled. Not genuinely, but a smile so wide it seemed to hurt her.

“Here. Take my thousand gold coins. Please give me the twenty most expensive products from Delja Digital.”

Multiple armored workers appeared as if they were born from the walls. They put the money into a large box and gave the woman what she wished for.

“And,” said the croaky computer voice, “has your wish been granted?”

“Yes! Sure! Thanks so much!”

The woman left. The room was empty.

“If we want to act, we must do it now,” said Jacintah. “Go? Don’t go?”

Sotho and Didrik both hung from the same tube, ready to let go and jump onto the device, or swing back and abort the mission.

Ismaraldah’s eyes shimmered. She didn’t seem herself, as if she could faint and fall any second.

“I gave Ardex his wish,” she mumbled. “See what came of it.”

Did she not see? This was a scam! It didn’t fulfill any wishes! It—Sotho read her eyes for a little longer and thought he understood.

This device could change the thoughts of creatures. It could remove your actual desires and replace it with something else. A different wish that was easy to fulfill. Something that made Delja Digital immense piles of money.

And so it could take away Sotho’s desire for a life without the curse, or more energy, or better sleep. It could take away his wish to restore Slumberland, so watching it burn wouldn’t hurt. He’d be content with whatever life was left for him.

It could take away Ismaraldah’s painful desire to always be with Didrik and never lose him. If they ever forgot each other, it wouldn’t hurt, because they didn’t wish to be together.

The time traveler let herself fall down, ready to grab the wires of the device.

Sotho and Didrik swung after her.

Sotho and Didrik combined forces to snatch Ismaraldah, just before she could attach the Wish Fulfiller to herself. A device that, in reality, simply took away your real wish and replaced it with something that made a company money.

It hurt the sun badger to treat his lover like a small child. Still, he had to drag her from the room, ignore her screams, at least until they were safely—

Her screams had woken up the camp.

Most were already awake, of course, for their plan to destroy Slumberland was in full effect. At the sight of the three burglars, the soldiers yelled they couldn’t delay any longer. They had to speed up, whatever the cost. However often the engineers said the machines weren’t ready and the cables too short—the humans decided to attack now.

Sotho stumbled into Slumberland and didn’t know what he saw. All sloths, young and old, large and small, had left their comfortable beds and gathered here. Some still rubbed the sleep from their eyes. Most leaned against branches as if their legs were still asleep. But they were here.

He was certain there were even more sloths, but he’d forgotten the others because of the Curse.

“The humans come,” he screamed. “You see it. You hear it. They have their own armor, their own protection against the curse, so this time won’t be like all the other times. This time …”

He swallowed. His eyes jumped between the blackened hole that held Treetower 05 not so long ago, and the beautiful colorful part of Slumberland that could still be saved. “This time we have to chase them away ourselves.”

“Madness!” yelled an old sloth. “What ever can we do against weapons?”

“Too much work,” said younger sloths in chorus. “Our children should do that. They have the energy.”

“We couldn’t even move a cursed stone out of Slumberland,” said another sloth sadly. “Some things you can’t fight, Sotho. Sometimes you’re unlocky—and you’ve just lost.”

The ground shook. Machines were on their way to Slumberland, accompanied by breaking branches and blinding flashlights. Sometimes Sotho was lit from behind, sometimes from the front, and the dance of lights threw ghostly shadows over their wooden structures that—

“That is madness!” yelled Sotho. “To give up and spend the only life you have doing nothing and hiding! Avoiding those you love and wishing things were better, alone, because life is so unfair and you can’t do anything about it.”

The sloths remained silent. Sotho feared they’d fall asleep again, or pretended to do so. But their eyes were wide open and overflowing with tears as they studied him. Several sloths came alive and met each other for an embrace. Ismaraldah nodded her agreement; as if Sotho had held a speech she’d written for him.

Sotho stepped aside and grabbed a long branch overhead, part of the wooden network that raised the elevator. He broke part of the branch, to everyone’s disgust.

“Especially,” continued Sotho, “because we have weapons too.”

The old sloth had a sour face. “Yes. Sure. Let’s defend ourselves with wooden sticks—”

“No. With wooden machines.”

Sotho returned the wooden beam into a different part of the network. Now it was a lever, on the ground, that you could easily pull in any direction. And when you did, the elevator suddenly jerked upward like a catapult that fired.

The first humans entered Slumberland.

The first sloths sprung into action. They followed his example and reconfigured other machines. Though they didn’t understand everything, they could clearly see where parts connected, and knew from experience what happened if you bent a specific branch.

They forcefully bend the wooden water tubes the other way. Normally, those sucked water out of the ocean to help sloths take a shower. Now they pointed the ends forwards and sprayed the human machines with an endless supply of water.

Other sloths did the same for the message system. They climbed into their Treetowers and moved the bridges and tubes, until all of them looked at the Treetower 02—which was currently being cut down.

The youngest sloths were allowed to fall down, or take the slide, from maximum height. They activated all the right branches and levers on the way down. All that were needed to build air pressure in the tubes and shoot messages through them at high speeds.

Messages that could be made of paper, of course, or leaves, or … massive stones.

Their projectiles clambered into the metal machines. Three people went down from a stone against their back, until they all pressed their chest and activated their armor. A gigantic stone between the wheels completely disabled one machine.

“Spread out!” yelled their leader. “Multiple trees at once!”

Sotho himself entered Treetower 06. It contained the highest station of all the cable cars. From there you could only go down, and down, and down, although the final station—Treetower 18—was still quite high.

But not for long, as Didrik had the task to cut the ropes and reattach them near the ground.

Now Sotho jumped onto the first cable car and traveled that path. Hundreds of meters, down and down, faster, and faster, and faster, spiraling out of control. Along the way he activated a few branches to launch the elevator again. The short burst of energy could shoot an entire sloth at high speed, straight into the heart of the human invasion.

If the sloths could do one thing right, it was fall from great heights without breaking any bones.

Until he moved too fast for that too, and simply broke all the branches he touched.

Faster, faster, until his fur was glued to his face, his strong claws suddenly uncertain if they could keep hold of the cable car, until he reached the end of the rope just above the floor.

He shot loose, at a mind-numbing speed, straight at the human vanguard.

He’d collected wooden blocks as his shield. That became a silly idea when he rammed into the first machines and disabled three of them immediately, but also gave himself a concussion. Lying on the floor, dizzy and bruised, he saw how all of Slumberland fought the machines.

A machine spun out of control on his left. Another was flattened by a falling rock. Machines got stuck in the dirt, were cut loose from the electricity, or were covered in leaves that made the driver uncertain where to go.

Still they persisted. Any reasonable animal would know this was dangerous and walk away. But not humans, no no, their pride and stubbornness would not survive being beaten by a bunch of sloths.

So they advanced to the next Treetowers. The others had been set on fire, or felled with haste and imprecision. Most trees hadn’t fallen cleanly and became a new Branchbridge connecting treetops.

Sotho heard a crackle and a whisper. He looked to the side and noticed the moment a human’s armor shut down. Followed by a machine that shut down without being attacked, accompanied by a sound similar to a crash landing bird.

The electricity. They were moving too far away from the source!

Sotho jumped upward, but cringed when someone shot at him. Those black objects in their hands were no tools or cameras, no, he was certain now.

A human jumped on top of him. But she missed him entirely and their grip was laughable compared to his claws.

When he wanted to hit back, though, he missed too. Both were out of breath after one swing, and didn’t know how to continue. The human pointed their gun and pressed the lever—nothing happened, lights went out. She eventually threw the weapon at Sotho’s head, but missed again, after which Sotho’s attempt to grab her throat merely ripped her clothes.

Everywhere he looked, the same lackluster fight happened. The sloths had never known true danger, never fought. The humans had also lived a comfortable life. In this darkness, merely lit by fires and rare lanterns with electricity, the biggest battle was hitting your enemy at all.

Sotho saw this—and ran away. He had a more important message. He asked after Ismaraldah five times before he heard she was in Treetower 20.

Why? The reason became apparent when several massive objects fell from the sky and nearly crushed him.

They had attached all Branchbridges, the gigantic horizontal trees beween canopies, to only a handful of levers. Now they could make all bridges slam into the ground with just a single fall, like a giant who tries to catch tiny humans running on the ground.

Once inside Treetower 20, panting, he said: “The humans are overreaching. Their armors are shutting down, lacking energy.”

“That might be good news,” she said. “But they’re too strong to underestimate, Sotho, it—”

“Don’t you see? We don’t need to win. We only need to delay them, until they …”

Her eyes widened. She swung from the Treetower, past the remnants of the cable car rope that was missing three stations now, and landed near the Curse.

Humans had surrounded the area. They were certain that a good burning and night of destruction would certainly pry loose that shiny object from its pillar.

Ismaraldah stood in the center, but did nothing. She let the humans come. She let more and more filthy human creatures step closer and almost steal the Curse. She let their machines drive close to it, until their metal arms could hit the pillar.

Their harnesses shut down, one after another. Most had already discarded theirs, for now it was just dead weight that slowed you down. Several thick cables had extended the electricity network, all to make one machine, of the few that were left, able to reach the Curse.

Slumberland had lost many Treetowers, but the sloths continued fighting. Their bodies might have been weak and exhausted, but even then you could fall down, or lean on a lever to move it, which would, somewhere, somehow, activate a wooden machine to protect Slumberland.

They’d delayed the humans, that was something. They’d reduced their numbers and weapons until they might be able to save the final Treetowers, for now. They’d done well, but—

Once all the humans were close enough, Ismaraldah closed her eyes. A bubble formed around her, as a red breath left her mouth excruciatingly slowly, as if she breathed out in slow-motion.

Not as if. That’s exactly what she did.

All the humans around her were caught in the same slowdown of time. They didn’t blink anymore, for the time between blinks was stretched to an eternity now. Their fastest vehicle, the machine, moved as if it had to drive through thick layers of mud. What Sotho saw as a single second, became hours or even days for everyone inside the bubble. Such powerful magic that Ismaraldah could not execute it for long, or in a large area at all.

She could merely sustain the bubble for as long as she could hold that breath, and only reach everyone inside the Curse Circle.

Ah yes. Goddess of Time. Sotho had almost forgotten.

Just as, when the bubble popped and Ismaraldah came to her senses again, all the humans had forgotten Slumberland.

Didrik and Ismaraldah ran around in a frenzy, then left immediately. The Goddess of Time had now spend a lot of time with the Curse and feared she would forget Didrik any second. She mumbled about a plan, almost had an argument about how dreadful the plan was, then stopped herself because she didn’t want her last moments with Didrik to be a fight.

Ismaraldah only had a short message for the sloths.

“We … are going to try something. To make sure Didrik and I never forget each other, and can time travel wherever we like. Maybe the world ends. Hopefully not.”

“Probably not,” said Didrik assuringly.

“You won’t notice anything at all,” she said. “But … but a lot will be lost to time.”

Crying, kissing, they entered the wooden clock again.

Sotho looked around. The number of sloths had shrunk. He didn’t know if he’d forgotten them by seeing them fight all night … or if they’d died.

One person, at least, had not died. And he promised to spend every day with this person now.

His best friend Lothan could stand again, with effort, a grimace and a smile. He had to watch the entire battle from afar, but claimed he had helped a lot by pushing a few twigs and telling me where Ismaraldah might be.

Half of Slumberland, about twenty-five Treetowers, had been destroyed or burned. But Sotho only saw the other half that stood proudly.

Together they visited Slumberland’s border, to look at the humans again. They wandered aimlessly, confused and unsure why they were here again.

A panda wandered around too.

“Tyyyypical Ismaraldah,” said Jacintah grumpily. “Leaves without me. And gets angry when I do the same to her!”

“You can’t just … teleport to her?” asked Sotho.

“If I knew where she was. Hello, we’re sisters, we’re not telepathic!”

Sotho smiled and had an idea that seemed obvious now. “Can’t you make the Flamefeaster disappear? You’re the Goddess of Place!”

Jacintah crushed his wish. “No. I am not coming close to that thing. And I can’t move things from a distance. Hello, I don’t have telekinesis! I think you’re more likely to move all of Slumberland than that cursed thing.”

No, Slumberland didn’t need to move. Or change. It was the best and prettiest place on Somnia and Sotho would never leave it.

“Then … then we only have one choice, right?”

Later that day, a group of sloths visited the smaller human building. They’d started to dissemble it now, but the Wish Fulfiller was still there, attached and running. They did their best to avoid the people. Even though they didn’t see the sloths—they were literally invisible to their eyes now—they’d still be incredibly confused if they bumped into each other.

One by one, the sloths attached the Wish Fulfiller … and let it erase their wish. Remove their desire to get rid of the Curse, to wish for a better place to live, to fear forgetting their family too quickly if they spend time together. All of it was removed by the machine—and replaced with nothing.

Smiling, chatting and playing, filled with energy and the idea to organize a party, they walked back to Slumberland together.

And the more they did together, the more they actively rebuild and explored Slumberland, the more Sotho felt like they could fight a little against the Curse. A few memories returned. A few relationships seemed to last longer.

Increasingly often, he received visions of how Slumberland used to be. Or he discovered important hidden machines because a vague memory gave him the idea that something was hiding behind those shrubs.

And so he dared visit their own legendary Wish Fulfiller tree again, joined by Lothan and Jacintah. That looted and broken Treetower that, if legends were to be believed, held a real Wish Fulfiller long ago.

As he entered the hut, he was overwhelmed by emotion and memory. A sloth in the corner that drew schematics for the machines. Two sloths in another corner that proudly watched their creations. A very young sloth that hammered a nail to attach a cable car rope, using force he didn’t know sloths could produce.

Instead of a short anxious glance, they now took their time to really explore the hut. And below some piles of wood, or behind a comfortable bench, they discovered all sorts of schematics and notes. They found a diary written by someone as they built Slumberland from nothing.

His ancestors had not taken ages to build this empire. And they had not been magical. They had simply worked hard and done it.

It was also the painful proof that sloths had let this all happen. Yes, sloths simply had the genes that made them lazy and want to hang from a branch all day. But nature seemed a combination between it is what it is and you can change. And the curse had been an excuse, for far too long, to pretend they couldn’t change.

The Wish Fulfiller was not a magic creature that turned any wish into truth. It was simply the name for a group of sloths that built beautiful Treetowers and fulfilled the simple wish to live in a nice home that way. They could just as well have called them Dreamgivers or Wonderarchitects.

In the end, thought Sotho, everyone really wished for the same things. To live another day, with your loved ones, and experience something new. And that’s what all the sloths would do, from now on, he promised himself.

A new visitor arrived.

A human!

They reached for anything that could be a weapon, then calmed down. It was glassman, the biologist that was against the entire operation. It was also the only human that still wore that armor.

“Oh, oh, my apologies.”

“Yes! Apologize!” said Jacintah immediately, the only one who could understand him. “All those ancient trees are gone! What do you have against trees?”

He seemed to have accepted that some animals could talk. He looked guilty and ashamed. “If trees could provide internet, humans would plant them everywhere and never cut them down. Unfortunately they merely provide the oxygen we need to survive.”

“Are you happy now?” said Jacintah. She pointed through the window at the blackened scar that ran through Slumberland like a sharp knife.

“Happy? I never wanted this. I just wanted to do more research, learn more, discover new animal species in unexplored territory. Is that wrong? Wanting progress? Discovering the universe?”

“And what will you do with your life once you know everything and have everything?”

He smiled kindly. “I heard you talk about Mindy. She has been her and tried to help you, hasn’t she?”

Jacintah translated. Sotho and Lothan nodded.

“She is world-famous now, miss panda. What am I saying—she’s universe-famous! Long story. But I want to continue her research. Give me some time with the Flamefeaster and I will find a solution. I have this armor to protect myself.”

The sloths had removed their wishes. They now simply accepted the Curse was there and wouldn’t go away. Something told Sotho that a human would never do that. A wish is a goal, and progress is all that matters.

They’d have to discuss this. But Sotho felt certain that glassman would get permission.

For when he looked a little longer, through the window, all he saw were happily sleeping sloths all over Slumberland. Him and Lothan yawned too and knew a blissful, content nap was coming.

Jacintah laughed at them. “It was one of the final wisdoms Ardex wrote down, before he …”

She rubbed her eyes and struggled to remember the precise words.

“Don’t feel sad for those who work tirelessly all day, who try and fail, and stumble forward in uncertainty. Feel sadness for those who sit around doing nothing, leading very comfortable lives of very little note. No rest without unrest, no sleep without dance.”

Her gaze became distant. “Many times in our history, beings wanted to change the world but concluded society was not ready yet. Not ready to treat everyone equally. Not ready to think critically instead of burning random women as witches.”

“They did that?” Sotho asked incredulously.

Jacintah nodded, but didn’t look at him. “Well, society is ready now. The humans live in immense wealth and comfort. They could feed everyone if they wanted and have more than enough space—so why do half of them wish to destroy forests, while the other half wishes to simply not starve?”

She shook her fur, as if she wanted to get rid of filth.

“Bah! I’m starting to sound like my sister. Now I have to figure out where miss white panda is hanging out!”

The sloths waved her away and took, for the hundredth time that day, joined by the young giggling sloths, the swerving slides that brought them to the ground level. They

And so it was that life continued …