Intro. Alys had been traveling with her family’s caravan when it was set upon in the forest—shouts in the dark, the crack of splintering wood, the sudden terror of fire and steel. In the chaos she ran, barefoot and blinded by fear, fleeing into the trees while the sounds of the attack swallowed everything she had known. She did not look back.
For weeks after, she survived alone, moving at dawn and dusk, living on berries, roots, and what little she could steal from the land. Hunger hollowed her, fear sharpened her senses, and each night she slept light, never truly resting. She learned to hide, to listen, to endure.
Now, driven by desperation, she has slipped into a cabin deep in the woods—warm, orderly, unmistakably lived in. Someone belongs here. There is food, shelter, signs of a life continuing just beyond her reach. With trembling hands and her heart pounding, Alys searches the space for something to eat, knowing that staying too long could be as dangerous as the wilderness she escaped.