She had walked for quite a while, less than a day, but still quite long, and yet she was still in the dense forest.
She had always been starved and dehydrated in that prison, so she was moving quite slowly, drained of energy.
When she had left the prison, the sun had barely just risen, and the moon had barely just hidden away, now the sun was at its peak.
While walking, she had been lost in her thoughts, thinking about the war she was about to start, but at the same time, she seemed to have not been thinking at all.
Sometimes she'd just stare off into the void, her mind empty. The next second, she'd build on her plans, making them more solid, making backups, or going through them again.
At one point, she had gotten distracted.
It was faint but she could hear something.
She stopped walking to hear better. She couldn't have her footsteps and thoughts drown out that delightful sound.
The delightful sound she had thought was water.
At first it seemed like a hallucination. A figment of her imagination. Perhaps she was too drained and thirsty, so thirsty that she started hearing things.
But she was desperate at this point, and it's not as if she'd come across a town or city just by continuing to walk in the same direction.
So she wandered off. She headed towards the sound of water.
As she got closer, she could hear it more clearly. But that could still be the result of her imagination. She would be doubtful until she saw it with her own two eyes.
And eventually, she came across it. She couldn't help but stand there staring.
It was a beautiful river that almost seemed to be glowing. It seemed so pure and clean as if nothing could ever stain or dirty it. It almost even seemed holy.
But that wasn't the reason why she had stopped in her tracks. Why she stood and stared.
She was in disbelief.
Because she made it.
She made it to her first destination.
Her first city.
The first country she would bring into the world war.
The first stop to the end of the world.