Ao-ao's footsteps became fainter and fainter, and Samantha could only hope that her friend was headed to safety. Feeling her breath hitch in her chest, she realized that she didn't have much time left herself to make sure that her own needs would be seen to. There was no way to tell how long she would spend in the foxhole Ao-ao had made, so she would just prepare for as much of the future as she could. Crying could, and would, come later, so Samantha practiced breathing to refuel her energy and calm herself. 'Smell the roses,' she thought to herself, inhaling deeply through her nose while imagining herself smelling the sweetness of the flowers, 'and blow out the birthday candles,' she finished, again putting images in her mind, this time of blowing out as many candles as she could while exhaling through her mouth. She repeated this exercise a number of times, feeling calmness seep into her bones, replacing the exhaustion and anxiety that had been there before. For the first time, she felt hunger well up in her stomach, indicating both a need that she could not meet, but also the fact that the breathing she had done had been successful in wiping away the unmet needs that had overshadowed the hunger she felt now.

As she scrambled to sit up, Samantha's hand landed on a pile of soft cloth that was uniquely familiar. Her pajamas were stacked next to the pile of furs she had made, and only Ao-ao could have put them there. She felt around for her panties and nearly cried out of the sheer gratitude to have them back. Unfortunately, there was no way for Samantha to create makeshift pads from her pajamas now that it was completely dark, so she shrugged back into her comfy t-shirt, put her panties around her legs, and fumbled around with her pajama pants until she was able to thread one of the flannel legs through her panties, scrunching up some extra fabric between the lips of her v*lva for good measure and tying the rest of the garment around her hips and legs. Hopefully this would last for a while, either until she died or until she was able to give her clothing a good wash. Smelling her shirt, Samantha was relatively sure that Ao-ao had somehow washed her laundry for her once already, so she didn't worry as much about the fabric between her legs as she might have otherwise.

Unfortunately, Samantha's preparations weren't even close to complete, and she wasn't sure how much time had passed or how much time she had before whatever it was that Ao-ao had feared would come to pass. Feeling her way in the dark while trying her hardest to remember what the place had looked like when illuminated, Samantha tried to find her way to the tree branch that Ao-ao had procured for her. Although she had neither eaten nor drunk for some time, it was likely she would need to relieve herself while she was underground, so she broke off a couple of sturdy sticks from the branch that felt strong enough to dig with. She felt her way to a wall far from the pile of furs that would be her bed and made a few small holes alongside it, with the dirt from them in neat piles in front of each hole. She left the sticks that hadn't broken during this process next to the last hole she had dug, in case she needed to make any more.

This had taken a fair amount of energy, so Samantha had to take yet another break. She used the same breathing exercise as before, but also scanned her body from her toes to the crown of her head, looking for aches that could be alleviated through stretching. Samantha had carried a huge amount of tension in her muscles for her entire life, and had spent years of her life in a game-changing dance class. She learned there how to stretch almost any muscle that ailed her, so when she had finished her body scan, she went through the stretches that were generally most helpful to her, focusing on the simultaneous pain and relief that came with stretching each bundle of muscles. Her back, shoulders, and neck were a common problem area, so she usually started and finished with those; however, she noticed that her arms, hands, and thighs were also feeling some strain from her undertakings, so she gave those areas generous stretches as well, using the dirt walls and floor to aid her as needed.

After this, Samantha returned to the heavy pile of furs that she and Ao-ao had slept upon. As tempted as she was to leave them bundled up, she knew that she would be more comfortable if they were laid out and folded. She would need every ounce of comfort that she could get later, so she felt the thickness of each fur and set them all in ascending order as best she could. She took the lightest, second-heaviest, and a mid-weight fur and put them aside, taking the other furs and beginning to fold them into themselves. Samantha was reminded that Ao-ao wouldn't be needing any space on them anymore, and although the thought put a weight of sadness around her, Samantha determinedly folded the furs to match her own size. She put a thin fur layer on the bottom and the thickest layer on top, and sandwiched the other folded furs in between them.

Laying down on her makeshift mattress, Samantha was satisfied that it couldn't get much more comfortable than it already was. She took the thinnest fur that she had set aside and placed it face-down on top of the pile; the heaviest fur set aside went above this one, and the remaining fur was just being folded near the bottom to be pulled up as needed when all hell broke loose above her. Samantha crawled into her newly-made fur bed, covered herself with the thin fur and the thick fur, and closed her eyes in an attempt to listen more closely to whatever was going on outside her home.

It was mostly screaming, but there were also thuds as bodies fell to the ground, and crashes from what sounded like weapons collided with one another. The screams sounded human and animal, and many of them contained such agony that Samantha wept in fear and empathy. She heard the voices of men shouting at one another, challenging others to battle to lay claim to "the female". A sense of dread filled Samantha's chest and throat as she came to realize that she was very likely this female, and that both people and animals were being murdered above her so that the victor or victors could claim her for themselves. It seemed like there were hundreds of voices crying out, shouting, letting out cries of battle.

Try as she might, Samantha could not think of a single good reason for this massacre; she was certain that she knew none of the combatants any more than they knew her. She had not seen hundreds of inhabitants, much less male inhabitants, in this forest, and yet here they were, fighting to the death just to gain entrance to the humble foxhole in which she was hiding. Samantha felt certain that if she tried to escape, she would only be discovered more quickly, so she tried to keep her breathing slow and quiet as she saved her energy for whatever would come next.

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Author's Note:

Thanks so much for everyone who has given me so much encouragement thus far! I've recovered pretty well from the vaccine shot I got on Tuesday afternoon, and I'm very glad to be back to writing this story! Thank you again for your patience, and until next time!