Found
1020 Words
“Is that a lady?”
The question froze the world around me.
I was certain I’d imagined it at first—my mind playing tricks on me the way hunger and fear often did. But then I felt it: the shift in the air, the presence of others close enough that I could almost hear their breathing.
Slowly, I lifted my head.
Three figures stood before me.
The first thing that struck me was how still they were. Not startled. Not tense. Just… watchful. Like hunters who had already decided I wasn’t prey—yet.
The voice had come from the lady.
She stood slightly apart from the two men, her head tilted as though she were listening to something beneath the forest floor rather than looking at me. Her feet were bare, planted firmly against the soil, toes curling faintly as if testing the ground itself. Her eyes were open, but unfocused. They didn’t land on me.
She wasn’t looking at me.
The realization sent a strange chill through my spine.
“Yes,” one of the men answered after a pause. His voice was sharp, edged with disbelief. “She is.”
His gaze locked onto mine immediately.
I flinched under its weight.
He looked… stunned. Not softened. Not sympathetic. As though my existence had disrupted something he believed was absolute.
“A survivor,” he muttered. “Impossible.”
I tightened my grip on the bark behind me, forcing myself upright despite the pain screaming through my ankle. I wouldn’t let them see me weak. Wouldn’t let them see me begging.
The second man said nothing at first. His eyes, however, moved quickly—too quickly—taking in my torn dress, my dirt-streaked skin, the way my injured leg barely touched the ground.
I followed his gaze and immediately looked away.
“Stay where you are,” the first man said.
His tone wasn’t cruel. It was commanding. Accustomed to obedience.
“I don’t want trouble,” I said quickly. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears—thin, hoarse, trembling despite my effort. “I’ll leave.”
“You won’t make it far like that,” the quiet man said.
I ignored him and shifted my weight.
Pain detonated through my leg.
My breath hitched, and I hissed despite myself. I hated that they saw it. Hated the way the quiet man’s expression changed instantly.
“She’s hurt,” he said.
The girl took a small step forward, her foot pressing into the ground. Her brow furrowed slightly.
“She’s in pain,” she said. Not accusing. Just stating a fact.
My chest tightened.
“How did you escape?” the sharp-voiced man asked, eyes narrowing. “There’s nothing left alive out here.”
I swallowed hard.
“I ran,” I said. “I hid.”
“That wouldn’t be enough.”
“It was for me.”
The lie tasted bitter. I couldn’t tell them the truth. Couldn’t tell them I’d been cast out, abandoned, foolish enough to return. Shame burned hotter than fear.
The sharp-voiced man studied me for a long moment, then scoffed softly. “You expect us to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
Silence followed.
The quiet man exhaled slowly, as if trying not to escalate something fragile. “You should sit.”
“I don’t need your help.”
I turned away from them then, pride clawing desperately for control. I took one step—
—and my foot struck a loose stone.
The pain came too fast, too sharp.
I cried out as my ankle folded beneath me. The forest spun violently, the ground rushing up to meet me as I fell hard onto my side. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, and suddenly everything hurt—my leg, my ribs, my head, my heart.
Before I could scramble away, hands were on me.
“Easy,” the quiet man said urgently. “Don’t move.”
“Don’t touch me—!” I tried to shove him, but my arms shook uselessly.
The sharp-voiced man cursed under his breath. “You’re going to worsen it.”
The lady knelt nearby, her hands hovering uncertainly, her feet pressing into the earth again.
“She’s scared,” she said softly.
Something inside me broke.
The quiet man lifted my leg carefully, his movements gentle but precise. When he unwound the cloth I’d torn from my dress, his jaw tightened.
“This is broken,” he said.
“I know,” I whispered.
“You’ve been walking on it?”
“I had to.”
He didn’t argue. He simply reached into his pack and pulled out clean bandages.
When he set the bone properly, the pain tore a scream from my throat. Tears spilled freely now, blurring my vision as my body shook with sobs I could no longer contain.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I know it hurts.”
When it was done, when the pain dulled into something bearable, I collapsed back against the ground, exhausted beyond words.
“I thought I was going to die,” I said quietly. “In that ditch. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream."
No one interrupted me.
“I was hungry. So hungry,” I continued, my voice cracking. “I had to find something to eat. I heard footsteps and thought it was the end. I thought—” My breath hitched. “I thought I’d rather die running than alone.”
The sharp-voiced man said nothing, but his expression had changed—hardness giving way to something darker, heavier.
The quiet man stayed beside me, steady and silent.
The lady shifted slightly closer, her feet pressing gently into the ground near me.
“You survived,” she said. “That matters.”
I stared up at the canopy above, tears slipping silently into my hair.
For the first time since I had woken in that ditch, I wasn’t running.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel completely alone.
- Writer
