The air still throbbed with the meteor’s impact, a deep hum beneath Xiao Yue’s small feet. Smoke clawed at the pre-dawn sky, twisting around the shattered remains of the forest she’d always known. Her breath hitched in her throat, raw and cold. She clutched her wooden doll, its painted eyes staring blankly ahead, a silent companion in a world suddenly turned hostile. Where am I going? she thought, the question a tiny, desperate cry in her mind. Her village, her home, was behind her, a place of splinters and fear, a place where dark figures had wanted to take her.
Her small legs burned, pushed beyond their usual limits. She stumbled over roots, scraped her knees on loose stones, but she didn’t stop. The hunting knife, a small, cold weight in her other hand, felt alien, a symbol of a brutal
