"Sian! Sian wait!"

„If you're gonna dawdle like this, we're never going to make it back before sunset, and you know what my father is going to do to us then!" I stopped urging my friend for a moment, to hop over a tree root.

"But it was your idea to go and find the herd!"

"And who was it that didn't give me a moments peace because of 'the beautiful deer she saw in the morning'?!" I wanted to turn around for a second to stick my tongue out at her, but stopped in my tracks.

There was a noise, a rustle too unnatural against the sounds of the forest, to be simply caused by the wind. I stopped in the middle of the path, causing a cloud of dust to raise from it, and looked around. In the shadows of the trees I could make out the silhouettes of men.

"Sian!" from the panic in her voice, it was obvious, that she spotted them as well.

"Ethia run!"

"But...!"

"Please listen to me at least this once and run!!"

I heard some strange noise behind my back and suddenly, I couldn't breathe. The last thing I heard was Ethia's voice:

"Sian!!!"

~

Do you know what it's like, when someone you trust with your life leads you right into a trap?

When you blindly follow them, because that's what you're used to doing, and it never before backfired for you?

Because a thought of mistrusting them never even crossed your mind, because how could someone who is supposed to be protecting you with their own life could ever destroy you beyond repair?

And only years after, you realize that you have been led into an inescapable prison, that, out of trust, you allowed them to build walls so high and thick that no force can break you out of it?

Well, I do...