The morning light filtering through the leaves felt like a betrayal. How dare the sun shine so peacefully after everything that had happened? My body ached as consciousness returned, each muscle screaming from our desperate flight through the forest.
Reality crashed back like a physical blow. The orphanage. Ms. Clementine. Micah. Gone. All gone.
I forced myself to sit up, fighting waves of dizziness. Rowan lay curled nearby, his face twisted in what must have been troubled dreams. Maya hadn't moved from where we'd placed her, her breathing shallow but steady.
"Maya," I whispered, gently touching her shoulder. "Maya, can you hear me?"
Her eyes fluttered open, confusion giving way to pain. "K-Kai?" She tried to move and immediately winced. "Everything hurts."
"Don't try to move," I said, my voice breaking. "You're pretty badly hurt."
Her eyes widened as memory returned. "The wolf... Ms. Clementine... Micah..." Tears began streaming down her face. "They're all..."
I couldn't find words to comfort her. What could anyone say in the face of such loss?
Rowan stirred, awakened by our voices. His eyes were red and swollen – he must have cried in his sleep. "What do we do now?" he asked, his voice small and scared.
It was a question I'd been dreading. We were three children alone in the wilderness. Maya was seriously injured. We had no food, no water, no shelter. And somewhere out there, a monster wolf might still be hunting us.
"We need to find help," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "There must be a village or town nearby."
"Even if there was, we don't know where we are," Maya said, grimacing as she tried to sit up.
"Maybe we should try to find some berries or something to eat first," Rowan suggested. "And water. We need water."
I nodded, grateful for the practical suggestion. "Okay. Rowan, you stay with Maya. I'll look around—"
"No!" They both shouted at once, fear evident in their voices.
"We stay together," Maya insisted, forcing herself to stand despite the pain. "No matter what."
She swayed dangerously, and Rowan rushed to support her. Looking at them – Maya's determined face masked with pain, Rowan's worried eyes – I felt something shift inside me. These weren't just my friends anymore. They were all I had left in this world, and I would protect them no matter what.
"Together," I agreed. "But Maya, you need to lean on us. No pushing yourself."
We began walking, choosing a direction that seemed to slope downward, hoping it would lead to water. The forest was eerily quiet, as if all the normal woodland creatures sensed something wrong. Every snapping twig made us freeze. Every shadow looked like a monster ready to pounce.
After about an hour, we heard the blessed sound of running water. A small stream cut through the forest, its clear water promising relief from our thirst. We drank deeply, the cool water washing away some of our exhaustion.
"Look," Rowan said suddenly, pointing downstream. "Smoke."
A thin line of smoke rose above the trees in the distance – perhaps a mile away. Where there was smoke, there were people.
Hope bloomed in my chest, but caution tempered it. "It could be dangerous," I warned. "We don't know who's out here."
Maya's face hardened with determination. "Whatever's there has to be better than dying in this forest. And if it's dangerous..." Her hand sparked weakly with flame. "We'll face it together."
I looked at my two friends – my family now – and nodded. Together, we began making our way toward the smoke, each step taking us further from our past and toward an uncertain future.
The memory of burning ruby eyes still haunted us, but we were alive. And as long as we were alive, we could keep moving forward.
For Micah. For Ms. Clementine. For everyone we'd lost.
We would survive.