Morning light filtered through the cracks in the tattered roof of the treehouse, casting weak, patchy shadows on the wooden floor. Her stomach twisted with hunger once more, but today she was determined. She had to find a way to make it stop.
She sat cross-legged at the corner, considering the few items left: pieces of wood, fragments of stone that had broken, and iron tools rusted as they were taken from ruins on the forest floor. The edges of the woods pressed sharp against her fingertips as she tried to fashion these into something useful. She was still left with a couple of arrows that were broken but could be repaired, thus giving her a chance at boar hunting.
"I've done worse with less…" she thought, glancing over the broken pieces with a frown. "This will work...It has to!"
Her hands were stiff, but the work came naturally to her now. She glued the arrowheads back onto the shafts with crude adhesive made from tree sap, testing each one by rubbing them against her thumb. They were rough, but I have to do it.
"If I can just get a shot, it's all I need," she assured herself. "This is how it's supposed to be. Hard. No easy way out."
She finally strung the bow, took a deep breath, and then headed into the woods. The trees whispered their secrets to her, and she moved through them as if part of them now. Every crunch of the forest floor beneath her feet felt like a reminder of the stakes. If she failed today, she wasn't sure how long her resolve would last.
Minutes passed, then hours, before she finally spotted her target: a boar, a big one, though not as big as she had expected, rooting in the underbrush, oblivious to her approach.
"This is it. Focus…" she thought, her heart beginning to race.
She drew an arrow out of her quiver in her own sweet time and knocked it onto the string of her homemade bow. Her breath caught in her throat as she drew the bow back, held the tension, and then waited for just that perfect moment. She steadied her aim.
"Come on...Come on…" she urged herself. "Don't miss. This is it."
The boar raised its head, and those dark eyes scanned the forest. She knew it was now or never.
And then she released. The arrow flew true, sinking deep into the boar's side. It squealed in a high-pitched tone with pain and turned, running off into the trees, but she wasn't far behind. Her legs moved fast, her breath coming in spurts, but she didn't let up.
"Don't let it get away." she thought. "It's just a little farther."
Finally, she found it again and collapsed in the underbrush, struggling to rise. She approached carefully, her heart still racing, and drove another arrow into its throat. The creature went still.
"I did it…I actually did it?!"
She had weak legs as she kneeled beside the boar and stared at it, the weight of the kill slowly settling in her chest as she couldn't help a small flicker of pride—she had hunted.
Back at the treehouse, she started a fire with trembling hands, the boar roasting on a spit over the flames. She had never cooked meat before, but it didn't matter. It smelled delicious, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she felt her hunger begin to subside.
"Finally, I've got food." she muttered, stirring the fire. "I can get a sure source of food from this."
As the fire burned hot, her mind turned to something else—the ravens—always watching her from on high, always around the treetop home, and she had never taken the time to really communicate with them. Could she do it?
She rose and went to the window where the ravens were perched on the ledge, their black eyes gleaming in the firelight.
"What do you want?" she asked in a low, murmuring voice, though she wasn't sure if they would understand her.
One cocked its head; the rest did the same. But none of them moved.
"Great," she thought, crossing her arms. "All this time, I thought maybe they could do something more. But I guess not."
She turned to walk away, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. A raven swooped down toward her.
"Wait, what the—"
Before she could react, another raven followed, then another, until a whole flock descended, filling the space around her.
She froze, her breath catching in her throat.
"What the hell?"
One of them settled onto her outstretched arm, its tiny talons digging into her skin. Her heart skipped a beat. This was. different.
"What are you doing?" she whispered in furtive amazement, frozen.
Those razor-sharp eyes had locked on hers, its head cocked to one side as if weighing up. A surge of energy seemed to pulse through her, a foreign warmth spreading through her body.
Can you hear me? "She thought, in such a way that somehow the question reached it.
And then something inside of her clicked. She could feel it—like a spark, a connection, something deeper than the surface. She didn't know how she knew, but it was there.
She reached out instinctively and laid her hand on the raven's gleaming black feathers. The moment her fingers touched its soft body, the feeling struck her like a bolt of thunder.
"What…What is this?
Her vision spun, a dizzying whirl of colors and sensations: the raven's wings, the rush of the wind, the rush of something new. The forest stretched out before her like never before.
"No! What's happening?!"
The world shifted beneath her. She was falling or flying, and then—boom. Everything went dark.
"No, no, no, no!" Panic swirled in her mind. Her body felt as if it were pulled in two directions at once.
"What's happening to me?"
The sensation of flying, of not being herself, was overpowering. She couldn't think. The world—the bird's world—poured into her senses, drowning her in noise and motion.
"I-can't…"
Her head spun. Her chest tightened. Her hands were shaking, as if she were losing herself, as if she were disappearing.
She felt the ground beneath her, her body falling as if gravity had become too much. The pain was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the chaos in her head.
Then—everything went black.
When she awoke, heaving for air, she was lying on the chill, hard floor of the treehouse. Her chest heaved; her body felt weak and strange.
"What in the world happened?" She struggled to sit, her mind still racing. Her fingers tingled as she tried to fathom it.
The raven, where had that gone?
Slowly, her head turned, her heart racing, and she saw that the raven had flown away. It perched on the edge of the treehouse, watching her, its eyes glinting in the dim light.
She tried to reach for it, but the raven took flight, vanishing into the trees.
"Did it reject me?"
She stumbled to her feet, still feeling disoriented, her heart thumping erratically in her chest.
"What the hell is going on?"
She laid the quivering hands on her forehead, as if still dazed from the event that had just occurred.
"I have to figure this out," she thought, with the mind working through chaos. "But why—why did it leave?"