By the time he dug up the grave, it was well after midnight.

His hands were trembling, and his back ached from the unbearable load. But he still had to drag everyone into the pit and cover the dead with earth ...

Cres groped for a stump in the darkness and tried to sit up, no longer expecting to get up, let alone continue the overwork, which, nevertheless, he undertook to do in order to do at least something. But he was brazenly pulled out of his thoughts by a sharp gust of wind - the forest spoke, grumbled and moved. It seemed to Kres that even the earth was in motion. Many different rustles, chuckles and whispers reached his ears. He was surprised, but many of them walked from under his feet.

- ... so ... so ... so, - the earth rattled, pulsated. Cres stood up and listened, inwardly growing cold and shrinking into a trembling ball from indistinguishable sounds. “…yaso…yaso…yaso…meat…meat…”

He squeezed out some kind of doomed, plaintive groan, as if he were a lamb, on the trail of wh