The white spot sprinted fast, blinking in between the bushes and moving forward with a frightening speed. She followed it with her swift legs, giving chase within the broken roads of the forest, that appeared and disappeared as if it had a mind of its own. Her feet stomped the grass but no leaves rustled. Stealthy and quick, her steel eyes, wooden bow and arrow zeroed in on the rabbit simultaneously.

The right side of her lip quivered upwards as the rabbit foolishly stood still, thinking that it had found a safe spot, while its predator sat quietly behind the large berry bush, even her breaths releasing no sound.

Her bow stretched against her thumb and her eyes narrowed.

The creature's eyes widened as it realized an arrow was flying towards it from nowhere.

A soft thud sounded on the leaves as it fell unconscious.

Kylith revealed herself from behind the bushes and approached the snowy corpse with a blunt feeling of remorse. The kind of feeling which comes on strong when you feel it the first couple of times, but the more times it happens, it grows duller and duller. Like a new sword wielded too much, like a broken heart that breaks again before it heals. Her soft and slender hands— soft except for the insides of her fingers, which had way too many cuts from the abrasion of hard strings— stroked the rabbits fur as her lips which smirked earlier now moved slowly in a prayer of gratitude.

As the quiet ritual took place and the rabbit's fur shed on the ground, soaked in blood, the sun retreated into the horizon. As soon as the last rays of its light went out, Kylith birthed a fire with wood and stones. The hot flames cooked the warm flesh as it simultaneously cast beautiful red and orange lights and jet-black shadows against the planes of her face. She let out a sigh, and the flames wavered in the slightest.

As the last bits of her dinner disappeared into her stomach, her eyes started showing signs of sleep. But she didn't want to go to sleep. It felt like a dangerous night was about to come, unlike all the other nights, as she had heard a few too many howls and a few too less crickets chirping. Her instincts, that had been built within her in the three months she had been trapped in her, poked at her, telling her: "Something foreign has entered the forest."

As a single person, with no particular theory on how to survive in the wild, except her recent experiences, her heart thumped in growing fear.

So she started singing, but not very loud. Just loud enough that her nerves would hear and hopefully calm down. Just with enough sound so that the flames in front of her could listen and dance to the raw rhythm.

She sang of her home. The one her ancestors back in the main kingdom made, and passed down for generations, just like this song was passed down to her from her mom. It talked of the myriads of flowers in front of the grand Eastern palace, and also the brownish blackish birds that fly by over the common city streets. It talked of the children that run around in the gardens of houses and parks and of the guardian owls that hoot as the day turns into night. But most of all, its choruses sang about the hearth, and the warmth of the people you love and how they dispel the chill of the winters. Their kingdom was not a stranger to snow showers when he seasons turned.

She sang for a long time, her restless heart calming down, as it always did when she sang. She sang with such ardent passion, that her voice went higher notch by notch, getting louder each time with the pain of not having those things, and soon the forest was reverberating with her sound above all. Flame-orange tears streaked her cheeks as she closed her eyes and let herself be vulnerable for the first time in three months. She had been alert for so long, and holding in everything that for once, she felt like letting go, even just for a bit.

Maybe the foreign presence in the forest was a blessing. Deep down, she wondered if someone had come to save her from all of this.

The leaves rustled nearby and that's when her music came to a sudden halt, like an unravelling thread suddenly being snipped.

"Who's there?" She croaked, wiping off the tears with the back of her hand and instantly holding out her jagged knife. She had found it lying on the ground only less than two weeks ago, allowing her to hunt with ease now.

Her feet shifted stance as she leaned towards the ground to get her bow ready. She sniffed for scent, her ears perked to catch any noise at all and the hair on her skin stood up in attention to feel for any strange winds blow past. All her senses were jolted awake.

And she hated every second of it, she hated how she was required to always be awake, even when she was asleep. Always fearing death, her heart never rested. It was always pounding. Sometimes she wondered if she should just give up trying to survive and give up hope that she will be allowed back in the real world. Once, she even let a wild tigress even come 5 inches short of her hair, all because she stood still, doing nothing. Fully wishing for the tigress to just eat her up. But to her misfortune, the tigress was not hungry that day, just exploring around the island.

What she didn't know was, the tigress was in the middle of trespassing to another one's territory, so it had no reason to attack Kylith either, they were both trespassers on some third tiger's area. So the enemy of an enemy would be a friend, by tiger logic at least.

A light flickered about quarter a mile in front of her, according to a calculated guess. She leaned down and prepared her bow and moved to the side quietly. She then moved forward, the moving flickering light now on her north-east. Facing it head-on would make her end up in danger. But assessing it from the side, and then hopefully getting behind it, could help her live one more day.

She continued singing the song inside her head, her only hope at being calm right now.

Soon, there was only a few feet of distance between her and the flickering light— no, a flame-torch.

It's rugged wooden sconce was held by strong hands that led to a shoulder and a hooded face.

Classification: Human

She assessed the new guest with the same eyes she assessed an animal she would spot. The torch was only bright enough to light the way in front of him… no, she wasn't sure if it was a man or woman or a hybrid. The hand structure gave away nothing. So she bided her time, following the light from behind as planned, until the human came out into the clearing where she had once been sitting and singing. The human let out a gasp of relief and rummaged through her makeshift tent, the logs around the fire and the thrown out rabbit bits.

"You were here," the human spoke.

Oh that was definitely a man. Kylith's heart thumped, a rare feeling bursting through her. It was a familiar man.

He parked the flame-torch on the ground and after looking around, let his hood drop. The dancing fire flames hit his face, painting his face orange. Her hands around the bow tightened for two seconds, and then went loose again.

The bow dropped, and so did she on her knees.

The man turned back instantaneously and let out a long exasperated laugh that sounded like a sigh too.

"Kylith," he got up from the ground and knelt in front of her. "Quite the hiding place."

She looked up, shaking her head. "How long have you been looking?"

"Exactly three months and thirteen days."

Hearing that in words felt like she had just gotten slapped by the absurd reality of it all. Her body shivered as she hugged him tight, the cloth on his shoulder pooling with teary wetness. Her head fell limp on his shoulder. His humanly warmth felt much more delightful than the heat any of the fire she had made. Her hands wrapped around him, not wanting to let go.

He hugged her back, enveloping her protectively. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry I couldn't find you quicker." He paused for a while, and then said, "I was always bad at hide and seek."

The brought out a chuckle from her, successfully. She looked up at him through blurry eyes. "Thanks, brother. Take me back home. Please."

He let out a playful scoff. "You only call me brother when I do something for you."

She sniffled, wiping the snot from her nose, "Well yeah, you're an asshole otherwise."

"There's a boat outside. Let's get you back home."

She clutched his coat tightly. "You left the boat on shore?"

"Yes…?"

"You idiot, there are dipper piranhas patrolling the entire coast of this island. They'll eat anything from wood to flesh."

He lifted an eyebrow. "If that was true, I should have been eaten alive when I docked in."

Kylith was silent during the entire walk back to shore, just like the night, which was also eerily silent. Like someone shushed the entire forest so that she could have a peaceful exit. Or she was being paranoid.

"I'm definitely being paranoid," she told herself as her brothers flame-torch guided their way.

"Hmm?" Her brother looked back at her. "Did you say something?"

"Oh? No— Hey look out!" She screamed, reaching out for his arm to pull him back from the ropes she just spotted. But his legs had already been caught by them and the moment she pulled him back, he got pulled upwards instead, his eyes instantly shifting to see the forest upside down. Blood quickly rushed down his head and the flame-torch fell from his hand. The flames escaped the scone and started spreading, the dark green leaves surrounded by slowly growing flames.

Kylith let out another scream as the fire started drifting towards her feet.

"Kylith run before the fire gets to you!" he screamed through clenched teeth. He struggled within the ropes, trying to slip free.

Her feet moved quickly, acting of the self-preserving instinct she had been so use to, and she ran fast towards the shore, where a boat and the sweet promise of safety awaited. But midway, her knees trembled. She turned back and the largeness of the fire met with the fear glinting in her eyes. If she ran away now, maybe all that she would dream about then on would be those fires, and her brother's face burning in them.

Kylith's brother whipped his head around at the quick rustling sound and sighed. "I told you to run!"

Around them both, the fire expanded outwards, swallowing everything in its way. She didn't understand-- "Why would there be a forest fire in a damp place like this?" A strong wind blew, and she was reminded that the winds that visited this island were nothing short of humid.

"I'm not abandoning you!" She wrapped her nimble, but strong limbs around the tree bark and climbed. Flames slapped at her face, the heat making her forehead sweat. She was hundred percent positive her face was burnt and scarred disgustingly. When she reached the top, she made a rookie mistake. She looked at the very base of tree, so tiny from up there, and it looked like the head of a matchstick. A well-lit one. And fire had started to eat away the wood.

"Oh this is bad," she exhaled as she took out the knife and started cutting away at the mysterious rope that had appeared from nowhere.

"Faster, Kylith! My head hurts, I... think I'm going to black out!" Her brother screamed from below. She held her breath in her hands as she worked as fast as she could. The knife jarred against the thick rope like nails scratching on walls. She moved the knife to a more unused area and tried, the results were slightly better. In a while, the ties came loose and her brother tumbled to the ground with a thud.

The tree bark start to swing from side to side. "Brother!" she screamed. He caught a glimpse of her small face among the thick canopy. "Jump! I'll catch you!"

"I don't trust you!" But they both knew that she didn't have a choice. She tucked her knife back in her pocket and muttered a silent prayer to the gods of their kingdom. Her eyes opened and she got a final glance at the top view of the whole island. An entire half of greenery was swallowed up and now burning ghost black, except for a few areas. What was even weirder was that the oddly unburnt areas within the charred greenery spelt two largely written words:

"PLEASE STAY"