Memoir of Xayah - The lost sparrow and the lonley fox

[8];[9]

[8] She was running inside an unknown forest, followed by ethereal enemies. She had never seen that place in her whole life. It could not be real. Dry trees could not have purple leaves, and the earth could not be black as coal.

She wanted to stop, take a breath, but she knew she had no other choice but ran away. The shadows around her became thicker. They wrapped themselves around the trees like snakes. Suddenly, one jumped close to her. It looked like a dog with vibrant red eyes.

She turned left and avoided it, but others came with their deep barks ready to follow her. She could attack them, she was also wanted that, but her body just let her move her legs inside that labyrinthine forest.

She felt her chasers more and nearer; their heavy steps ripped pieces of soil. Anguish raised meter by meter, and she did not see any way out from that nightmare. She often turned her head, and every time their eyes were more intense and their fangs shinier.

She swallowed and tried to distance them, but she stumbled on an exposed root, falling in a pool of water dirty as mud. When the shadows reached her, she backed off, but her back met a huge rock. She was trapped, and the predators were already looking forward to their pray from the border.

She had to act. She could still attack. In the beginning, she could use one feather and then all the others.

She reached shacking her wing with her right arm, but a shooting pain stopped her. She wanted to scream, but she bit her tongue. She looked to her limb, worried. A big bloodstain was growing bigger and bigger, and it did not stop.

Terrified, she tried to clean it with the water, turning it vermilion red. Fear took over and made her fall into the oblivion.

[9] She flinched, waking up from that nightmare. She did not have the time to remember her bad dream; a flare-up hooked her onto reality. She had few fragments about the past day, but she could not forget the sound of her broken arm.

The fall was terrible, and she had to thank that she was still alive. She did a rash action jumping down from that window, and now it was right to pay the consequences.

She looked down to witness the damage. It was bloated, maybe too much, and it pulsed like a thousand hammers hitting her skin. She bit her lips to ease the pain, noticing something significant. Two blocks of wood splinted her arm and were tied together with worn-out fabrics.

Someone had picked her up. There was no other explanation.

She observed the surroundings and realized that she was an idiot: she had just noticed that she was not in the forest. She was in a cave, enlightened by a hole on the roof. There was also a pool of water with blue reflections.

She tried to move her neck and saw a bowl full with that fresh liquid. And she wanted to quench her dry throat. She stretched out her good arm to reach it, but a stitch blocked her, and she risked to spill it.

She took a deep breath, biting her lips, and she tried again. She was able to lift the border and to stuff her hand under the bowl. She brought it to her mouth and drunk it hungrily. Her dry throat asked for more and she would have been able to please it soon, if she had not a splinted arm.

A simple movement had triggered the pain, if she had stood up and tried to drink from the border of the pool, probably she would have screamed.

She was not in a good situation, at the mercy of her healers. But this time she looked alone and abandoned inside that cave. She needed the whole picture to think about a plan.

The broken arm, the one she used to throw her feathers, was a big problem.

She had to hope that her saviors had the same mind as Zakai's gang. So, if they were healing her, they did not have bad intentions.

She looked around and had no doubts; someone lived in that place. On some rocks, there were stubs of candles, and a simple table filled space badly. Next to it, there was a thing similar to a sideboard: it was a wooden board leaned on a protruding rock near the wall. On it, there were some bowls.

An extinguished campfire was close, and she could still notice some smoke. She had been alone a short while.

And only time would have brought her to her savior.