Cinderella's Fate | 🤍 seongjoong 🤍

Chapter 16

Seonghwa's POV 

    I arrived in front of the trains station's map. I compared the two maps to get an overview of where to go, and based on the map that my dad had given me, my mother used to live close to the station. However, at the time she was not able to afford a tour ticket as she didn't get any money from her parents. So she might have walked all the way to the forest.

     I figured that she might have used a map or got direction from strangers, but I recalled that she was not trying to get to the forest. She just ended up going there, which was the furthest place from her family.

I followed the path written on the map that belonged to my dad.

    It was a long walk from the station to the forest, at some point I  had to ask a few people where certain parts of the map were, like the weeping mountain, and the smiling child. But finally I was able to get to the outskirts of it. A stranger who was trying to go up to a mountain resort by doing a bit a climbing was able to help get to the forest.

     The first part of the forest was made human friendly with a clear path going thought the major parts of it, so that a nature lover would have been able to enjoy the journey.

     However, I got lost as the map that my dad had, was outdated compared to the modifications of the path, so i ended up following the path that I realised was leading me to the river.

     The sound of water hitting the river bed's sides as the water rans down it path was clearly an indicator that he was almost there but still too far away .

     By the time that I had come to face the river, it was evening. The sky still had a bit of light coming from the sun. The colour palette of red, yellow, pink were calming, but I was too invested in looking around to see if there was something that could lead me to the house.

     Getting the hood out of my face to see better, i saw it. It was a huge tree that had a piece of wood written "Here" clearly illustrated on the map that I and been using.

All I needed was to cross to the other side of the river to get there.

But the sound of rustling leaves and snapping beaches made me halt in my tracks.

      Quickly grabbing a nearby rock about the size of my fist, i stood in position and when the figure got close enough, i threw the rock, hitting them with it. A human scream of pain came from the bushes.

"Don't throw more! "

    The voice came from a young man that looked about the same age as me. He seemed shorter than me, wearing high quality clothes on that were currently splattered with a bit of mud. I was guessing that the rock had fallen into a poodle of mud.

    I remained in the same stance, as i wasn't sure that the stranger was safe enough to let my guard down. His way of dressing might have been a way to deceive me.

    The guy tried to salvage his clothes, however the more he tried, the worse it got . As he finely looked up, he backed away, scared to be stoned.

"I-i am here for peace", he said, hands up in the air as if i was part of the police.

I narrowed my eyes and asked him of his reasons to be here.

"I ran away ", he said, still keeping his eyes on the ground, for fear that he could have said the wrong thing.

"From what?"