II. Young Footprints {A Short Story}

The rain slows, then stops. There are trees as far as you can see. You sit down on a log and squeeze the water from your hair. It trickles like a shiver down the back of your neck. Has night fallen? Your aching body and sleepy eyes decide it has. The forest is as bright as ever. 

You sleep on the ground with your backpack for a pillow. 

When you wake, the air is sticky and warm. Your skin is covered in dust, marked with indentations of the sticks and acorns that you slept on. The forest hasn't aged a moment. 

There is nothing for breakfast in your backpack. You search a second time and find only the same dead leaves and tissues that you found the first time, as well as the watch that should have been on your wrist. It says the time is 4:00. You furrow your brow and wait for the second hand to tick, counting to sixty before deciding that it isn't going to. You drop all of the items back into your bag. Your stomach cries for food; your mouth begs for water. You promise you'll get home quickly, and then you can have both. 

You must have gotten lost in the rain last night, because the only way out of this clearing is the trail you came in on. You retrace your steps more confidently than is wise. In a forest, one should never be sure of where they are going. Nature plays tricks on the certain. 

Certainty blinds as you wander between unfamiliar trees. You stumble down a hill. Rocks poke at your bare feet. The branches that hang low across the path grab your skin. You stop in front of a tree growing where the trail should be, but you can't seem to find where it continues. You step over the undergrowth to the other side of the tree, and then you see why the trail ended. 

The land drops away into a gorge with a swirling river at the bottom. Light dances on the rapids. The music of the bubbling water makes you thirstier. You drop your backpack on the side of the trail. You scout out the safest way down to the water, then forge your own trail towards it. The forest resists, but you push on through the branches that grab your arms and legs. We did not ask for blood, but you leave it behind anyway. 

When you reach the bottom, you discover that, only a short walk along the narrow bank, the gorge opens up into a meadow. Across the water, the sun shines and tall grass ripples in the wind. You kneel next to the river and drink from cupped hands. The water is cold and sweet, but sand settles lightly on your tongue. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you catch sight of a piece of your reflection, too broken by rocks and rapids to be recognizable. You run a hand across your face and wonder what it looks like. 

You don’t mean to give in to the siren song of the river. It’s just your feet at first, dipping one and then the other, but as anyone who's washed their feet in a river knows, your efforts are undone as soon as you step out of the water. So you step in with both feet. A second later the current is rushing around your knees.

Water tugs at your shorts as you walk deeper and deeper until there is no choice but to swim. The river is wider and rockier than it looked. You fight through the powerful current tugging you downstream. A rapid pushes your head under, and with a gasping breath when you surface, you feel your burdens wash away. You stumble onto the sand of the other bank, shake the water out of your hair, and turn towards the unobscured sun for the first time in days. 

We watch you disappear into the meadow. Wait—will you come back and tell us of the castle? We have never seen the castle, and we have never walked the trails you have. We do not know if these things are or aren't. Our old eyes have never seen beyond the forest.

♡ ♡ ♡

Hello again! This part took longer to post because I got my wisdom teeth out last week. I can eat again, which is great. I have motivation and energy to do things again, haha. I've got some more things planned for this month (Happy pride!!) so stay tuned for those. I hope you're doing well.