7

They meant that she shouldn't be trusting this person. So why would she do so? This is exactly the kind of situation that she had been trying to avoid for years. And yet...she hesitated a little longer before answering, "I'm sorry, Sir Knight…but I don't know how to answer your question properly. I don' know where I came from or why, and my parents never told me. They never came back home either, ever since I woke up here on this island."

He was silent for a moment, pondering over her words, and then she heard his voice again. "What about the people in town? Have you seen them?" he asked in a calm, concerned tone.

"No. No one has been living here for over ten years," she replied quietly, taking a step back, "There's nobody here, except for us two. I'm sorry, but I wish I knew where the people who lived here were now."

"Then perhaps we could go together? To the village."

Slowly she shook her head, still crouching behind her bush behind the big oak tree. "I'm sorry. But it would be dangerous…for both of us. And besides, I don' think they want strangers to go near their homes anymore. You're probably already aware of that from hearing about our fight with the soldiers yesterday," she replied nervously, biting her lip. Her heart was racing. Why couldn't she think of another reason as to why he shouldn't leave? What did he want?

"Well, why do you think we shouldn't visit? Maybe we can ask the villagers if they know where anyone went missing. Do you have any idea where they might've gone?" he questioned softly, his voice quiet. His words sounded sincere, almost as though he truly cared about the wellbeing of the people, but that didn' mean that she trusted him. After all, why should she believe anything he said? He was a knight, wasn't he? Who knows what sort of monsters lurked within those forests? "If someone disappeared, we need to investigate it, don't you agree?"

She frowned, considering his words carefully. 'What if it were just the people of the village?' She tried to convince herself. 'Or what if the people from the castle were kidnapped too?' she added silently. 'Maybe the Knights were ordered to protect everyone from the dangers of the forest.' Yet again, she couldn't quite understand why he didn't seem to mind, why he didn't care if he ended up getting hurt himself by going into these woods, why he was just willing to go along with her plans. Maybe he was a selfish bastard, or maybe he didn't care one bit, maybe the Knights weren't ordered to protect the people. She wasn't sure. As far as she knew, he was only supposed to help, so how could he decide what was best to keep and what was best to let happen? How did he even manage to survive on his own, with his sword, without anybody helping him? "Sir, you may go," she muttered finally, pushing herself off of the branch she was hiding behind, "and please, don't get in my way!"

Before the knight had time to react, the girl quickly grabbed the bag and ran out of the woods. She kept her eyes glued to the ground and avoided eye contact with anybody as she continued running down the path, hoping that no one saw her. The rain had stopped falling, but it was still raining gently, and there was hardly any wind, which helped to keep the clouds that had formed over her head out of sight and prevent anyone from spotting her. It didn't matter if she didn't look where she was going - it wasn' as if anyone was going to try to stop her anyway. For some reason, her legs carried her towards the road she had passed earlier. After leaving the forest behind, she headed west. In the distance, she could see a small cluster of houses with lights coming from the windows and she realised that she hadn't thought about her parents for almost a month. She was worried about them, and it occurred to her that she needed to find them as fast as possible, or else she feared that she might not be able to find them again. The village was close enough to walk there, but she also felt that walking across country to reach the village would take several hours. She decided that.