Serenya's POV
The trek back was slow, a deliberate, agonizing counter-march against the desperate need pounding in my temples. Every weary step was an act of forced hope. The sun, already beginning its gentle descent, filtered through the dense canopy in fractured, golden shafts, illuminating the immediate patch of earth but doing little to pierce the deepening shadows of my despair. I kept my gaze perpetually lowered, sweeping the forest floor with a meticulous, almost frantic intensity.
Perhaps the woods were not the final resting place of my treasure. Perhaps, in the sheer chaos of my flight, it had slipped from my finger not amidst the gnarled roots and damp earth of the wilderness, but on the clearer, less-traveled route leading back towards the deceptive safety of the apartment com
