the pure child

"What are you doing?" A young, soft voice sends a chill down Vaelyn's back. She had no idea that someone was following close behind her, an ocean wave chasing the wind. She pulls her head from the loop, several strands of her hair still weaved with the rope, and spins her cold, drained eyes at the little girl staring at her from behind. The child's footsteps were ones of tranquility.

Her movements were swift and sly, and Vaelyn is unsure of how long this young girl has been following Vaelyn in her last moments. Shivering from the cold of her tears, Vaelyn freezes in shock at the sight of the innocence before her. The young girl has a white polo shirt tucked in bright blue shorts, her short blonde hair dancing against the winds with a white lotus fitted under her strands.

"Go away, kid, you're not supposed to be here," Vaelyn coughs to her, looking past her gentle skin for anyone else that may be looking for her. She can't be seen like this. If anyone finds her even holding onto one of these ropes again, she'll be trapped right back in the same prison she left just hours ago. She releases the rope, trying to toss it back up to the branch where it came from, but it limply drops back to hit her in the head in response.

The little girl tilts her head. "What's that?"

"It's nothing, go away!" Vaelyn growls, frantically trying again to hide it. The little girl walks closer, observing the rope, and looks back into the brush. Vaelyn turns to her, then looks out past the trees with her in fear. "Is there someone with you?"

The little girl shakes her head. "No," she turns back to Vaelyn, "I'm by myself."

Vaelyn grips the loop in the rope as it swings tightly around the branch again. She ties it to the tree with a promise that she'll return, hesitant to release the fibres from her grip once again. She looks at the child, checks to see if what she said was true, and then approaches her with a fake, light smile.

"How old are you?" Vaelyn kneels to the flower.

"I'm seven," the blossomed petal responds.

"You shouldn't be out here by yourself," Vaelyn suggests. The child looks up to the rope, and Vaelyn tilts her head back down.

"What is the rope for?" The child asks.

"Where are your parents?" Vaelyn ignores her question and holds onto her arms.

"They said I could go for a walk and be back before lunch time," she tells Vaelyn cheerily.

Vaelyn shakes her head. "That's dangerous. You're too young."

"I'm a big girl," she responds, furrowing her brows. Vaelyn smiles a little wider.

"I'm sure you are, but even I'm not old enough to be roaming around in the forests all alone," Vaelyn tells her. The little girl tilts her head back up to the rope, a little slower this time, and stares at the coiled threat without any knowledge of its capabilities.

"Here we are anyway, huh?" The little girl shrugs. Vaelyn tilts the girl's head back down again, rises to obscure the view of the rope with her face, and puts her hand on the back of the child. She guides the flower back to the path where she strayed from, a petal drifting with the leaves, and holds her hand as she starts to walk further away from where she thought would be her last steps on the earth.

"What's your name?" Vaelyn asks the child, distracting the child of what she saw. The petal speaks over the faded tweets of social birds in the distance.

"My full name is Katherine, but you can call me Kitty," she says. Vaelyn helps her feet back onto the path, and they both walk further into the forest.

Vaelyn shakes her head. "I'm not calling you Kitty."

The child looks up to Vaelyn and pouts. "Why not?"

Their footsteps crush autumn leaves and cause small wildlife to dash away from their constant pace towards the city.

"Because," Vaelyn squeezes her hand, "That's what animals are named." She looks down at the child, not finding an ounce of worry in her sea blue eyes. "Are you an animal?"

The little girl stares off into the leaves above her head. "Oh, no. It's just what my parents like to call me."

Vaelyn laughs gently. "What, do they treat you like one, too?"

"You sure looked like one when you were playing with that rope, you know," Katherine mentions. Vaelyn bites her lip, thinking she had the child distracted with the scenery. "You're not a monkey."

"Man, I sure thought I could've been," Vaelyn jokes. A gentle pause passes with the breeze. "How about Kit?"

"Kit-kat!" The child jumps. Vaelyn laughs with her, smiling completely for the first time since she walked out of her prison.

"No, nothing with cats!" She says.

"That's a candy bar," the little girl mentions. They start to leave the brush behind, and the branches start to weave themselves out to show the hazy clouds of the morning.

"I know," Vaelyn says sweetly. They both stray away from the path once again, climbing over a stump to follow a gleaming hint of the city ahead. The bright mirrors of glass that reflect the gray clouds peer over the leaves of natural beauty, and the tips of modern architecture serve as compasses to the two wandering souls.

Vaelyn steps out of the forest to meet an open field of tall grass, the thin growth reaching up to her knees, and tightens her grip to make sure she doesn't lose the purity next to her. She looks out to the surroundings, breathing in the fresh air that she wished she could have kept before. Her freedom isn't as limited as it was when she was locked behind metal doors, hidden in the shadows of her own nightmares. The child that found her has forced her to accept the gifts of serenity that the world wanted to drown her in, the stars close behind as they glossed her eyes in their sparkles. One more day, she considered, would be the last chance she'd give for the universe to prove to her that it still wanted her breaths to spiral with the earth in orbit.

"Let's get you home, okay? Show me the way," Vaelyn tells Kit, her gentle voice as soft as the flowers that brush against their heels.

"I know the way," Kit responds. Vaelyn meets her eyes again.

"I know you do, but I don't want you to be alone," she tells the child. She looks out to the sun as it desperately beams out to the world it watches, for as long as time exists, always cradling its life with the nutrients of its shine. "Alone is bad."

They step into the field, trusting blindly in each other when they can't see what lurks in front of them.