Ficlets

Walk in the Woods

Elenore walked slowly through the moonlit forest. She brushed her dark hair from her eyes, large and searching in the dim silver light. Shadows flickered around her as the trees groaned in the noisy wind. Leafless branches rattled against one another, their macabre silhouettes fighting on the ground below. Her simple shift billowed around her legs, her arms hung at her sides. She continued her determined march into the depths of the wood.

She stopped, suddenly, as an owl plunged low before her feet, the squeak of its prey made her shudder awake. She looked around her, at the forest, then the moon. Her upturned face was pale in the moon’s poor light, tears spilled down her cheeks as she sank to her knees.

Not again, she could not have lost herself again this night. She bent her head to the ground, her hair mingled with rotting leaves and moss. She crawled forward, praying to find the beach, hoping it would be the one she knew, that she could find her way home again. She sobbed alone in the dark.

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