The wind felt cold as it blew it against her. October rolled by in soft breezes that prickled the fine hairs along the skin, causing it to rise in bumps. It carried the pleasant smell of pines and old oak trees that had witnessed many things over the years and very faintly whispered them to the air. The air returned in kind, bringing the sound of laughter and chit chat of the nearby neighborhood.

She, however, walked the railroad tracks. Alone and lost, the cold steel bit into her feet with a fierceness that brushed against her soul. It pulled at her heart, reminding her of the harshness she tried hard to forget.

Shadows of bark and leaves darkened the path ahead and despite all the world telling her of the dark, the damp, and the alone, she found herself more afraid of the light she left behind.

Easily people are deceived as easily as they deceive. This time, she knew that the dark, the damp, and the alone weren’t something to fear but something to be sympathetic towards. She suffered with the forest’s shadows. Both of them out casted by the light of society.

In this, she found her home.