Strike out in to the woods

Inventory: A Reminder of Home: A small selection of gifts from your family. A comfort in hard times

Gender: Female

You recall sitting by the roadside for a hour just crying like a child. Somehow all the uncertainty about your path hit you all at once in that moment. Eventually you where out of tears, taking a deep breath you pull yourself up off the ground and consider the options.

Somehow the idea of walking after the caravan doesn’t appeal, the idea of running into the back of them is just too much to think of. You got away luckily last time and you get the feeling they might follow through on the threat to turn you into the camp whore.

Instead you remember striking out into the woods. From the roadside they had not looked too bad, a little overgrown but nothing too bad. Once you got inside and lost sight of the road it was a whole other story. The trees seemed to grow larger as you moved nearer to them, seeming to loom over you. As if threatening to descend on you at any second.

Where you grew up the only trees where about three feet tall, knife thin things that clung to the sea swept land for grim ****. These things were unlike anything you had seen before, the leave blocked out the sky, casting everything in a constant strange half light that played tricks on you. Many times as you walked through the forest you recall seeing what you were sure was a person only for it to turn out to be a trick of the shadows.

You walked for most of the rest of the day, as night started to come in a cold rain began to fall. Luckily it was broken up by the thick canopy and you were able to stay mostly dry by huddling at the foot of a tree. You remember the moment when you noticed the strange thing about these woods. The whole time you had been walking through them you had neither heard nor seen a single animal. Not so much as a bird call or insect in the air.

The thought of why that was was enough to banish any hope you had of sleep that night. Instead you sat staring out from the base of the tree, sure that every drop of water hitting the ground was some horrible beast coming to tear you to shreds.

The night was horribly long for you, the rain never stopped and it kept getting colder. When the sky started to lighten you were shaking like a leaf. Any joy you felt from the rise of the sun was quickly wiped out when you heard the sure sound of branches snapping, pressing yourself down into the dip in the ground you could hear them coming closer. A definite snap snap of sticks as someone or something approached you.

Wracking your mind, panic running up and down your spin, your tried to think of what to do.