The Fox and The Forest (EDITING)

The boathouse (1.1)

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Inside, the boathouse was empty. 

All that remained were the faded blankets that the four once young children would curl up in, when the world had treated them cruelly. Which was almost always in The Lake District. 

Kate Marsh, Tom Darshana, Jasmine Belewa and Flynn Ealdwine found a haven in the un-monitored shack, which the Government guards had presumed was untouched.

Kate breathed a sigh of relief, she felt safer away from the other Lake District dwellers. 

She pulled the oxygen mask from her face easily - it felt as if it was too big for her now. She choked on emotion in the back of her throat, a substitute for air, perhaps.

Knowing or living? Kate pondered this to herself as the metal bolted suit she had seen just an hour ago had left a permanent shell in her mind. Like a snake shedding it's skin, the truth about the Purifiers escaped from Kate's grasp. Only a skeleton had been left behind.  

One thing was for sure. Kate wanted both... The ability to know and live. 

Though she wouldn't have either unless she found out the truth surrounding the Purifiers. About what had been implied but never explained.

The room smelt of rotting timber; it was being worn down by the noxious atmosphere. They did this... Kate thought bitterly as she eyed the wrecked walls of the boathouse. And now we have to suffer for our ancestor's greed.

Kate wanted to punish someone. For everything. Her mother- for abandoning her. Her father for doing the same. Most of all the Government. The ones who had mutilated her body and stolen her human soul.

The soft texture of Jasmine's patterned blanket, felt like both a comfort and a loss, as she held it between her fingers. A condolence maybe? Kate shook the thought from her head, refusing to consider that she might not ever see Jasmine, Flynn or Tom again.

Wrapping the warm gentle material around her shoulders, Kate thought about Tom and imagined him safe with his brother. Jack would promise to protect him, like she remembered him saying before he'd left Tom at the school gates once. Kate had noticed the affection between them even then, unlike her parents, who were too busy arguing to notice much at all. 

With Kate's father and mother separated she was still awarded little attention. Only yesterday, when she had returned to her Mother after 4 years, had she received substantial affection. Though by then it was too late. Sorry wasn't enough for Kate anymore. 

In anger, refined by jealousy, Kate kicked the wall beside her. But the boathouse bit back, leaving her big toe throbbing.

"You know that the big bad wolf blew the house down from the outside right? So if you're planning on knocking it down just kicking it isn't going to work," Tom announced. Kate located Tom in the corner of the room, hidden underneath a grey blanket, a burrow. 

"Ha. Ha," Kate replied sarcastically, stung by being compared to such a monster. The big bad wolf was one of the only creatures she knew about. Tom had read it to the rest of them before they knew anything about the Last Forest. In a time when accepting the stars for the unobtainable riddles of dappled light that they were was enough for the children. 

"Why aren't you in your mansion?" Kate inquired, careful not to reveal her relief of his presence in her tone of voice. "I'll give that a good kicking too if you aren't careful," she continued. "I've just seen Mum. She's all fine and dandy by the way," Kate lied.

"By all means be my guest. Kick as hard as you like," Tom told her sourly. 

Oh the hard life of the upper class Kate thought to herself.