Descendants of Mother Nature

The Run

I didn’t wait.

The moment her eyes dropped back to her daughter’s pale face, I turned and ran.

Out the kitchen.

Out the house.

Out of the life that had been choking me in silence for far too long.

My breath tore out of me in panicked bursts. My feet pounded the earth, slipping over stones, splashing through puddles. I didn’t stop to grab shoes or a shawl. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had to get away from them, from that look in my aunt’s eyes, and most of all... from me.

What did I do? What did I become?

I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t try to. It just… happened.

It came out of me like fire from a spark I didn’t know I carried.

I ducked through the clotheslines behind the house sheets flapping like ghosts in the wind and sprinted past the stream. The same stream where I washed clothes for strangers while my aunt pocketed every coin and called it a roof over my head.

The same stream where I’d whispered to the water when no one else would listen.

But even that familiar path began to twist.

The trees changed first. Taller. Wilder. Their branches knotted like arms raised in dance .. or warning. The wind shifted too, cooler somehow. Sharper. The light began to filter through the leaves like gold dust instead of sunlight.

I slowed, chest heaving. My knees trembled under me.

And then… I stopped.

I didn’t know when the path disappeared.

I didn’t know when I crossed the line from “home” to... here.

I turned slowly, realizing I was surrounded by trees I’d never seen before. Their trunks shimmered faintly, and little glowing specks floated in the air like fireflies, but not.

This wasn’t the woods behind the village.

This was... something else.

“Where… am I?

The words came out in a whisper.

The breeze stirred. It curled around me warm, strange, almost familiar. Like something was watching. Not with malice, but curiosity. Recognition.

And for the first time since the teacup shattered, I wasn’t just scared.

I was awake.