The whole situation was an excessive mess; if nothing made sense, it only worsened.

The boy tried to explain his situation, but that person had no intention of listening.

"P-Please, I just..."

"Shut your mouth." snarled that voice with a gritted hate.

He soon realized that the voice belonged to a young and furious girl. So, he remained silent without much choice as his fear only grew.

Showing up somewhere, not knowing who he is or where he is, and being threatened by someone. The world had gone crazy.

"Turn around, slowly," she ordered in a threatening tone. "One weird move, and I'll put an arrow through you."

The boy nodded quickly and fearfully. Then, slowly, he turned on his spot. Shaking like a leaf about to fall, the boy had a significant and perceptible fear.

Before his eyes was a sharp, metallic arrowhead pointed directly at his face. He sensed that it would cross his face at any moment and with any lousy movement he made. The boy stared straight at the tip for a few moments until finally, he dared to look up. In this way, he saw the face of his aggressor.

A pale, ragged, messy girl looked at him with piercing black eyes and a scowl of complete mistrust. The girl firmly held her bow, and with two fingers, she took the string that would seal his fate at any moment.

"Did they send you?" the girl inquired as she gritted her teeth before brushing a strand of her long, silky black hair out of her eye with a breath.

If the boy was confused before, now he was even more so. His lower lip trembled with fear mixed with doubt.

"'T-They'?" a slight stutter of fear escaped his lips.

"Yes or no!?" the girl insisted with a gasp of fury, ready to shoot. "Answer, now!"

"N-No!" he exclaimed quickly, feeling how his hands and whole body trembled. "No one sent me here! I swear! I'm alone!

"Right, Do you think I am stupid?" spat the girl. The distrust in her voice and stare was evident.

"I swear-" shouted the boy.

"That's what one of them would say! Do you think you're smart enough to lie to my face?"

The boy felt his lip tremble as tears tried to well up in his eyes.

The boy begged, "P-Please... I don't know what I'm doing here..."

Finally, he let out a couple of silent tears as the situation was already over him.

The girl watched him for a moment, but soon her eyes swept around. For her, that must have been a mere act.

Gripped by fear and confusion, he wanted this girl not to hurt him. So the boy closed his eyes once more and squeezed them tightly, hoping he would wake up. However, when he opened his eyes, instead of waking up, he was still there, but thanks to that, he noticed something.

The girl wore a frayed green cloak and a tattered, worn white attire, just as he did. But, with that sweep of her gaze over her, she was alert.

"I told you don't move," she shouted, angry.

The boy took a shaky breath. Then, bravely put together the words he would say next.

"Y-You," the boy started, "D-Do you know who you are?"

Those words confused the girl, "What?".

"Do you know who you are?" he asked again, holding onto his own clothes, insisting on his questions.

That question seemed to do something in her as she soon lightened the tension in her bow.

"You don't know who you are, too?" asked the boy again.

"W-What are you trying?" The girl lost the tension in her bow after his words soaked into her head.

Then, due to her keen eyesight, something caught her attention.

At that moment, the boy's words didn't affect much, but what he did was something that she had seen. The girl noticed how the back of the boy's hand had a symbol. Then, she turned her look to her right hand, holding the bowstring.

The symbol was the same.

She quickly asked him, "W-What do you know about this?"

The boy continued to sob silently as she lowered her bow.

"Speak!" she shouted.

"Nothing, p-please!"

"Is it some trick?" she replied, breathing hard as she got even angrier.

He stuttered, still fearfully insisting repeatedly, "I don't know anything! Please! I don't know what's going on here..."

"You must be lying," she shouted again.

In her view, it could be all part of a decoy. However, something was odd...

The boy still sobbed silently, "I don't know anything, please..."

"B-But, you must know something about yourself!" she stuttered.

"I don't know anything about me!" he insisted again while holding his rags. "I just appeared in a cave!"

The girl herself began to tremble with fear and doubt, "Y-You're lying!"

"Why do you think I'm lying?!" he cried, desperate.

The girl's guard was down; she was now consumed by the moment's disbelief.

A mutual silence washed over them, where only the sound of creatures like birds or the wind swaying the trees could be heard.

"This is..." she tried to finish her sentence.

The girl looked at the boy at her feet, who, with closed eyes, was crying silently. Then, the girl looked up, trying to clear her mind by seeing the movement of the trees; its branches swayed high, and birds perched on them. She then gazed at a bird with spotted brown plumage.

The girl was exhausted, so she loosely held her bow and arrow in hand. She finally brushed the unruly strands from her face with her other hand and tucked it behind her pointed ear.

The girl clicked her tongue, "This is too much; it doesn't make sense..."

The crack of a branch snapped her out of her trance. The pointy-eared girl quickly pointed her bow at where she heard the noise.

"Who's there!?"

The boy took a long stride over the small stream, and soon his feet were moving with great speed again.

"W-Wait!" exclaimed the girl, who soon saw the boy run away.

She turned in the direction he was escaping but soon had to look the other way as a shout was heard from among the trees.

"Now!" shouted a voice, and then, more than half a dozen men came out of their hiding places.

The girl with long black hair didn't hesitate long, and after quickly drawing her bow, she shot an arrow at the nearest one.

One of them lunged at her, directing his mallet at the girl's head. In this way, the arrow swiftly pierced her arm, and a scream of pain was heard.

When two others tried to approach her, the girl took a swift leap between them. The jump was incredible; she just took a step and crossed a great distance away from them.

When the girl tried to prepare another arrow in her bow, she dodged another club that one of them attempted to use against her. Then, a second man, much more fierce, tried to cut her with the edge of an ax, but she, with another step, retreated far away.

"Grab the monster!" shouted one of the men.

One of the men nearly caught her, but she soon jumped on him, knocking him off her.

"Get away!" she screamed, taking another big hop away from them; once again, her masterful dexterity was unique.

"Fuck! Get that akajsi whore!" shouted another of the woodcutters.

Seeing herself outnumbered, the girl tried to run away from that situation.

She did so in the direction the marked boy went. However, one of those men she had lost sight of appeared at her side as she did it; When she saw him was late as the man charged at her and threw her to the ground.

"Got her!" shouted the lumberjack.

The girl writhed on the ground, "Don't touch me!"

The girl was trying to get rid of him, digging her dirty nails into his face, but that only made him hold her tighter.

"Stop moving, demon-whore!" Said the man. Finally, he punched her hard with his other fist after grabbing the girl's arm.

The girl was shaken by that blow that darkened her gaze instantly, but soon she screamed from the punch in desperation.

That woodcutter held her pressed against the ground with his own weight. She kicked him and tried to free herself from it, but everything was in vain.

"Don't touch me!" the pointed-eared girl cried out in desperation, trying to wrench one arm free from his grip.

"Stop moving, you prick-eared devil!" said that guy with disdain under his breath and smiling. "Come on, girl, it will be easier if you stop moving."

She refused to stop, and then he punched her again, trying to stop her once and for all.

She moved frantically. The man gave her a couple of blows, but they just hit the ground, causing the man to become even more fed up. The girl seemed slippery, and soon it looked like she would slip out of his hands.

"Hurry up!" the man shouted as he called his friends a long distance away.

The moment's pressure and desperation were getting the better of them. The girl shrieked and screamed in distress, and that man of dubious intentions laughed as he waited for his companions to approach.

Between scratches of her fingers against the man's waist, she felt the handle of an object. Her fingers touched the object's grip as she watched the men get closer.

There wasn't much time.

The boy ran through the forest aimlessly, without following an apparent path. He ran until his heart needed a rest again, running through bushes, jumping stones, and fallen logs. He didn't look back. He just ran.

The boy ran aimlessly through the forest without following an apparent path; he just ran and ran.

He ran until his heart needed a break again, running through bushes, skipping stones and fallen logs. Then, he didn't look back; he just ran.

The marked boy hid among tall trees and bushes when he finally fell, utterly exhausted. However, his long race was not in vain.

As the boy stopped and leaned against a tree to rest, the sounds of the animals filled his ears.

The sounds were not wild animals or birds nesting in the trees. Instead, the squawking and cackling of chickens alerted the boy, looking up ahead. After crawling into the bush, the boy realized that he had heard the sound of farm animals.

He could see a rudimentary fence belonging to a corral where these small animals were kept.

As he swallowed saliva and his lungs burned, he caught a peek of the rest of the place. There was a stable next to the small fence where the neighing of horses could be heard. But, more importantly, there was a hut that someone seemed to be coming out of.

Resolutely, he came out of hiding.

"Help! Help!" the young man shouted loudly.

At the hut door, a woman came out to do her housework. She was prepared for a short trip to the river with her basket in hand; morning washing clothes awaited her as the food was slowly cooked by the warmth of the fire. The woman hummed, immersed in her thoughts of another ordinary day, when that shout made her turn abruptly.

The girl was startled and alarmed when she saw a ragged boy running toward her.

Far from civilization, the woman couldn't help but be startled by a visitor, causing her to gasp as she saw him running toward her.

She soon feared the worst, some bandits or deranged men roaming the farms and houses.

"Help, please!" the boy exclaimed in desperation.

Startled but careful, the woman pressed her back against the door of her house, ready to rush inside it as her heart was in her mouth and her throat was ready to scream.

"W-What do you want?" she asked with a trembling and cautious voice.

Stammering, the boy could not express his sentences, so he began to cry with long tears running down his face. He couldn't explain what was happening; the pressure and panic brought out the worst in him. He soon fell to his knees as he pleaded with enormous suffering.

"Help! Help! Help...!" The boy just shouted and cried.

The woman hesitated when seeing that boy; she saw him gesturing too much, he looked like he was trying to explain something, but he couldn't do it. She looked into his hazel eyes, which were soon flooded with tears.

Finally, the woman felt he was a harmless boy, barely old enough to do farm chores.

What was a boy doing in the place? It was clear that something had happened to him.

She didn't know what to do. Her husband was far away, deep in the woods on another hard day's work with his partners.

In front of her was a tearful young man who must be a few years away from adulthood who even still had the face of a beardless child.

Still hesitant, the woman couldn't help but empathize with this boy.

She approached him and tried to calm him down.

"Come on, my boy, don't cry," the woman tried to relieve him and soon opened the door to her house behind her. "Come in, eat something. Then tell me what happened."