Chapter 13

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Under the pressure of her agitation, Mai left the house behind her, the sound of the guards' terrified footsteps and her grandfather's screams still echoing in her ears. She did not look back once, as if even turning around meant returning to the cage that had been locked around her. Mai rushed with heavy steps, her feet violently trampling the leaves, making an angry path over the ground. 

She wasn't thinking about where she was going or what lay ahead. All she could think about now was getting away. Just moving forward.

Anger was her motivation, and random steps were her only outlet.

"I don't want to stay there!" she thought sharply, the phrase repeating itself in her mind as if to reinforce her decision to escape.

With each step forward, the space around her began to change. The cold air hit her face firmly, carrying with it the scents of damp soil and fallen leaves. The sounds of hustle and bustle gradually died down, giving way to the whispers of nature—the rustling of leaves, the chirping of birds, and the cautious steps of animals hiding in the trees.

She raised her head to find the tall trees overlooking her with their long shadows and the sunlight gently penetrating their leaves, as if the forest was opening its arms to welcome her. For a moment, she felt as if the forest was embracing her anger, giving it space to grow, but it also whispered quietly, trying to calm the turmoil in her chest.

"Why do I feel this way?" Mai thought, the contradiction tearing at her. Her desire for freedom clashed with her need to feel safe. Her steps gradually slowed, as if the forest were asking her to stop, to think.

But she refused. "This is unreasonable!" 

The forest stretched out before her with no apparent end, filled with quiet sounds: the gurgling of water, the rustling of leaves. But it seemed loud to Mai's ears, who could only see and hear her own anger. 

Branches were blocking her way, but she nonchalantly brushed them aside and continued on her way without noticing that she was going deeper into the forest. 

As she walked, her mind went back to the past few hours, the room was a mess. Toys strewn across the floor, a small bed with its covers missing, and a pile of torn papers that Mai had scribbled angrily on before she decided to run away.

She was standing by the window, her little feet almost touching the edge, her eyes watching the guards roaming below. She was waiting for an opportunity, her little heart beating unusually fast, as if each beat was urging her to hurry up.

"One, two… now!" she whispered to herself as she carefully opened the window. The slight creak of the window made her pause for a moment, but she pursed her lips and continued.

Mai's small body made the task easier, but it wasn't without its difficulties. Her thin limbs were shivering with cold and dread, and her arms could barely support her weight.

As she jumped to the ground, she let out a faint groan despite her caution. She fell to her knees, and froze in place as one of the guards turned towards her.

"What is this?" the guard said, looking towards the open window.

Mai held her breath, her small body pressed against the wall. It felt like the whole world had stopped with her.

"Nothing, maybe it was the wind." Another guard replied, smiling.

Mai waited until they were far away. Her big eyes watched warily, and when she felt safe, she crawled gingerly across the ground. She crawled slowly, as if she was afraid the ground itself would catch her.

When she passed the perimeter of the house, she breathed a sigh of relief, but she couldn't resist her desire to win. She raised her head toward the high window and waved her little hand, then stuck out her tongue in childish defiance and made a sarcastic expression.

At that moment, she was screaming inside proudly, "I did it!"

But the sound of her grandfather screaming in the background quickly interrupted her moment of triumph. "Mai?! Where are you?!"

"Huh, now you'll know how serious I am!" Mai thought as she ran towards the forest, her anger erupting and burning inside her chest like burning embers and her laughter gradually fading with each step that took her further away from the house.

Step by step, Mai continued to advance for a while. Her little feet began to weaken, and little by little her momentum faded. The grumbling in her head subsided, and her anger began to fade as a heavier feeling rushed through her. It was only when her ability to move vanished that Mai realized she was lost. 

She finally stopped at a large rock in the middle of the dense forest, a tired look written all over her face. She lay down on the rock, stretched out as if the earth had weighed her down.

"I can't go on like this…" She thought quietly, staring at the sky above her. Her heavy sighs were her only outlet at that moment. She decided to calm herself down.

She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. Meditation… focusing on her breathing, allowing all the conflicting emotions to fade away, if only for a moment. Her anger, her anxiety, even her fatigue, all faded away to the sound of nature surrounding her.

When she finally opened her eyes, she felt a bit of clarity. But she soon realized that she was not only angry, but also lost. Questions crowded her little head:

"Where am I? What do I do now?"

Mai looked around for any familiar sight in her memory or any clue to where she was, but her feeling of confusion and anxiety only grew the more she noticed the details of the place. 

"I have no idea how to get back… It's not like I'm going back though." 

Her stomach joined in the discussion, rumbling loudly, announcing its need for food. Mai sat up, put her hands on her stomach, and smiled lightly despite everything.

"Well, let's take one problem at a time..." she muttered as she looked around, searching her little eyes for anything edible. 

***

"Red, crimson decorates the trees~"

Small raspberries are adorned with round, bright red beads. 

"Under the sun it shines and make harmony~"

It sparkles in the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees. 

"A sparkling jewel picked by my own hands~"

The morning dew drops still clung to the surface of the grains, like jewels studded on a carpet of nature. Mai was sitting on her knees, her little hands gently gathering the grains and placing them in her skirt. Every now and then, she would hum a childish song, her voice soft but in harmony with the quiet of the forest.

"Fragrant~ and sweet..."

But her humming stopped suddenly when the sound of snapping branches pierced the quiet air. The sounds were faint at first, then gradually grew louder, the guards exchanging calls as they surveyed the area.

A few steps away, a patrol of guards was moving through the trees, their eyes scanning the ground, Mai's small footprints evident in the damp soil. "She was here... Look, her footprints!" one of them said as he bent down to touch the ground.

But Mai wasn't there. After minutes of searching, the guards decided to continue tracking her, getting closer to her previous location.

Mai, who had already left, was running madly through the forest. Her little feet were thumping the ground rhythmically, and tension dominated her facial expression. Her heart was beating like war drums, and her little hand was shaking as she clutched onto a tree branch as she slid down a small muddy slope.

"I can't let them catch me!" she thought desperately, her ears picking up the echo of the guards' harmonious voices, their heavy footsteps scraping the ground behind her, like a small earthquake relentlessly pursuing her.

Mai slipped again as she stepped over a protruding tree root, but this time she fell to the ground, her hands and knees scraped by gravel and dirt. She bit her lip, quickly getting up despite the pain, and kept running.

She climbed a low branch of a tree to cross a small stream, leapt steadily to the other side, but felt her feet slip a little in the mud. The voices behind her grew closer.

"Hurry up, she's near here!" one of the guards shouted in a firm voice, and Mai felt a tremor in her heart.

As she emerged from the thick trees, she suddenly found herself in an open field, where several horse-drawn carriages were lined up on the side of the road. Without thinking, Mai rushed towards one of the carriages, jumping inside, and cowering in the corner, trying to hold her breath.

The guards were very close, the sound of their heavy footsteps intermingling with their rapid conversation. They approached the charioteers, and one of the guards asked them:

"Have you seen a little girl? Blonde hair, wearing a simple white dress, looking... lost?"

"A child?" one of the drivers said, shaking his head. "We didn't see anyone."

The guards passed by the carriage where Mai was hiding, but she remained silent, her arms wrapped around her knees, trying hard not to make a sound.

After the guards left, Mai felt a brief sense of relief. But soon the carriage began to move. She felt the vibrations beneath her little feet, and anxiety began to overwhelm her.

"Where is this carriage taking me?" she thought, clinging to the wall of the carriage, her eyes filled with a mixture of fear and dread.

The road ahead seemed unknown, and the silence that had been reassuring before became heavy and unsettling.