Midnight Jester Leap

The leap begins before thought can cage it—knees coiled, claws spread, a grin tearing wide as the forest churns with breathless spores. Lantern-windows burn inside the tower behind him, ochre fires nesting in stone like secrets too loud to confess. But the trees hum their question in acid letters: *WHERE VOJTA?* They have etched it deep, not for us alone but for watchers hunched beyond the glow, eyes drinking every twitch in his silhouette. He stamps the ritual rhythm on a mushroom crown, soft as flesh, drumming the hidden code into the moss-veined floor. Spore sparks whirl like broken constellations, branding the dark with frantic green. Each jump stokes a victory older than memory, though every triumph tastes of absence. The tower’s windows do not blink; the night tilts heavier; his dance coils tighter as if summoning marrow from emptiness. We read the tree again and swallow doubt—we still hunt inside this echoing gloom, and Vojta does not surface.