A branch snaps. In a dense forest, a young girl walks through the brush. On her back she carries a pack stuffed with trinkets. There’s a hairbrush, a knife, some jars, and a bundle of tinder. A bedroll is strapped to the backpack. The girl, dressed in a thick red woolen scarf, a dark colored skirt, and an oversized t-shirt, finds herself standing atop a branch. She looks down and sees it broken under her worn shoes. The girl steps off the broken branch and picks up the two halves. She tries to put the branch back together, seeing what it would have looked like if it were still whole. The branch was considerably thick in its prime. Strong too. It must’ve begun to rot after falling, which is why it snapped so easily. It was a sizable length. The girl imagines herself swinging it about like a sword. She tries to do it now, but the broken, rotted halves don’t make adequate toys anymore. They break easily, and the bark bites into her palms. She tosses them to the side and then continues walking. There is no path that she follows, but she appears to have a set direction. Maybe some kind of heuristic.

The girl finds herself by a rushing stream. The water aggressively rams into rocks jutting out from the bed, creating large splashes. It’s too wide to hop over the water, and too dangerous to skip over the rocks. The girl looks around the stream, but sees no safe passage over. The sky’s orange hue reflects off of the water onto the girl’s face. It’s getting late. She decides to face the rapids in the morning. She removes the strap of her backpack and sets it down by a tree. The girl removes the bedroll and lays it out on the grass, making sure it would be moderately comfortable. The girl sits down on the bedroll and watches the stream. She wonders where it’s going, and where it came from. She wonders if it has a plan or if it’s following fate.

A rumbling noise. It’s her stomach. She reaches for her bag and pulls it over by the straps. She looks inside to see if she has any leftover food. There’s a piece of bread, maybe an inch thick and tall. It’s gotten hard since she first got it. No mold yet. One of the jars used to have jam in it, and it still does, but she’ll have to scrape it off the walls. It would add a bit of extra flavor to make it more palatable. She takes the bread and sticks it in the jar, rubbing it along its walls. When she takes it out, there is less jam than she’d hoped for. It seems some of what she had thought to be jam was just the stained color of the glass. She lifts the bread to her mouth and takes small bites. It’s best to savor it as much as possible. She chews slowly. The jam barely moistened the bread. Perhaps adding water might help soften it. The girl grabs another jar and walks over to the stream. She holds out the jar and dips it into the water. The current nearly ripped the jar out of her hand, but she managed to keep it held. She takes the jar out of the stream. The water appears quite clear, how lucky. The girl dips a corner of her bread into the jar and takes a bite. It certainly is softer, but now it is also mushy. The jam’s flavor is diluted as well. Bad idea. She’ll keep the water to drink later.

The girl walks back towards where she put her backpack and bedroll. It’s getting darker, so she’ll likely go right to bed. She decides not to eat the entire piece of bread. The rest would make a good breakfast. The girl puts the bread away and lies down in her bedroll. The last remaining light of the sun slowly drifts away. It is dark now. The girl lies awake in her bedroll. She looks up at the canopies and then around at the bases of the trees. This is a common routine for her. Always check to make sure no one is following you. It’s basic survival practice. The coast seemed clear the first time she checked, but she would check four more times following, just to be safe. On the fifth check, she thinks she saw something. A light perhaps. It was distant and hard to make out, but it seemed like something was glowing in the distance. She sits up. She thinks about going over to check it out. 

Then she hears a noise.