A dark shadow named Lili ran swiftly through the forest. Dressed in her overly large black cloak she looked like a black ghost. The cloak was in fact so large that over one-third of it was simply being dragged along the forest floor.
Soon along her path came a fallen tree which she nimbly jumped over like a parkour expert, but as her feet touched the ground on the other side of the fallen tree she felt a sudden tug at her cloak. Unprepared to meet this sudden turn of events she was quickly taken off guard and tossed on her back.
Ahh, she groaned in pain. Opening her eyes she quickly noticed that her new cloak had just gotten stuck on one of the fallen tree branches. In annoyance, she stood back up and unbound her cloak from the branch.
Quickly learning from her mistake she threw one side of the cloak over her shoulder moved it around her head and then tied the end of it to the other side of the cloak that was still hanging downwards. Now she truly looked like a black ghost with only her cute face and slender legs showing up to her knees.
Satisfied with this she then continued on her journey. After some time of running, she started to wonder just how far had the boy already managed to go. He had only had a good ten or so minutes of a head start to her and yet he was nowhere to be seen. What if the boy was not reel but a ghost or a hallucination of her mind, she wondered.
Unsure of where the boy had gone she decided to press onwards. Soon the terrain became a steep climb up a hill and she now found herself starting to sweat greatly. Had the boy truly gone this way, surely not. She reasoned to herself as she now found herself climbing up an ever-steeper and steeper hill.
Pushing away some bushes along her path she then came to a stop. Taking a moment to calm her breathing she focused and listened to her surroundings. In the distance over the hill, she could hear the faint sound of a small stream.
Holy shit. She thought to herself. She had only been going threw the forest for an hour or so and she had already discovered a potential stream. Realizing this she felt like face-palming herself. Before she only bothered to go a few hundred meters away from her home, if only she would have gone a bit further then maybe she could have actually found other people already. Although she herself did realize that even now she was pretty young and going alone so far from home even now was extremely risky.
Shaking away these thoughts from her mind she pressed onwards and over the hill. There in the far distance on the hills end she could see a small body of water on the side of the hill that seemed to be flowing downwards into the lower land below.
Making her way through the forest shrubbery she started to hear the flowing water louder and louder, it sounded like there was a small waterfall up ahead. Then it finally came to her full view. On the hillside, there truly was a small pond that was constantly sending down water to a larger mass of water below.
She figured that there must be some underground reservoir of water inside the hill that was constantly pumping up water into the small lake and had then created this small waterfall in the middle of the forest.
Crouching at the side of the clear water pond she couldnt help but take a small sip of water from there. In some beliefs, people spoke that such places were the source for long life, kind of like the water from the Holy Grail is believed to give eternal life.
Then she suddenly froze as she heard loud shouts of men down below. The men sounded aggressive which frightened Lili somewhat as she remembered what that single boy had done to her. The men were also accompanied by the sounds of something metallic, to her it sounded like the sound of men dressed in armor moving.
Going down on all fours she silently crept to the edge of the small hillside plateau and carefully peeked at the men below. Indeed there she could see a group of 7 men dressed in full chainmail armor along with metal helmets that were held on their sides leaving their white and blonde hair on display for Lili to see. They also had wooden shields, swords and spears. Over the armor, the men wore red tabards with no insignia.
The men were standing at attention as another much larger man compared to the rest came out of the forest. He had a fully enclosed helmet in his hands and a nasty scar going across his thuggish-looking face. The man looked and sounded like some gang banger as he was barking orders at the other men.
"The fuck are you doing lazying around here you bastards! Master wants those cunts found before sundown, so get to it, lads!"
In response, the men yelled, yes sir in unison and ran further into the forest where they had their horses waiting for them. Climbing atop their horses the men moved out of Lilis vision somewhere towards her left side.
Seeing the men riding horses that were seemingly effortlessly moving in the forest, trampling all the plants and bushes in their path made Lili feel jealous. She also wanted a horse like that and more specifically a white beautiful horse. But more than that she felt quite shocked by the mens way of speaking, it didnt sound like that boy or American in the least. The men sounded more like they were some kind of gangsters from the United Kingdom.
Seeing them leave out of sight Lili felt relieved. They definitely werent giving her a good feeling. People like them were best to be avoided at all costs. Only if she still had her trusty side arm and muscles then maybe she could try and talk to them, but not like this. Right now being as small as she was, she held no chance against 8 fully armed medieval British Gangsters.
Hearing no more thuggish talk in the distance, she quickly got on her feet and continued her journey. Going down the hill she came to the location those men had just been at. There she could see their horse trails moving in two directions, but there was also the stream that was leading in a third direction.
Seeing this she felt a bit conflicted. Along the two horse trails, she knew for sure that there would be people to be found there, but on the other hand, they werent the type of people she wanted to meet. With this in mind she once more just like when she was a smaller child, she decided to follow the small stream towards civilization.
Having already seen 9 people in the span of a day, Lili felt that she was now closer than ever before to finding civilization. In a small excited tone of voice, she pumped her little fist into the air and cheered.
"Here I come you medieval hamburgers or whatever it is that the people here eat."