It’s been few hours now, anxiety was growing. Raelynn hasn’t seen any signs of civilization, she came to conclusion she have some kind brain damage due to difficulty seeing colours. Thinking about it made her only more nervous, the chances of staying alive weren’t in her favour. Her mind went back when she was home with friends, when she was studying to satisfy her curiosity.

It made Raelynn feel better for a moment but then she started thinking that she could possibly never come back to that life, she might freeze to death or be eaten by animal. Raelynn started breathing faster, she didn’t want to die she just wanted to go back home and forget everything that happened. Her body felt numb. After everything she had done she will end up as a corpse but why? Why can’t she just live happily. Breathing heavily Raelynn sat down and leaned against tree. Her field of view decreased and Raelynn felt sharp pain in her chest. The fear and thoughts of dying wouldn’t go away.

Raelynn couldn’t stop thinking about dying, she looked at the sky, comforting colour started slowly calming her down. The pain in chest faded away, taking deep breaths mind started to clear, with tunnel vision and headache Raelynn decided to take break. Still stressed she closed her eyes and took deep breathes through nose and breathe out through mouth, now much more calm her vision returned to normal and her head no longer hurt. She stayed in this spot to rest more

- Ok, I’m calm. Panicking doesn’t help. I’m calm now – Raelynn reassured herself - Alright, I need to take breaks. Phew, ok the only thing I need is to find people and I will be good.

After a while Raelynn got her strength back and continued marching in random direction focused on her goal trying to reject any intrusive thoughts. To focus on something else she stopped for a moment and picked up some black leaf analyzing it thoroughly, it was rough and stiff in touch. Leaf on its own was tongue shaped with primary vein going through center and many densely packed secondary veins going outwards.

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- This tells me… absolutely nothing. Cool leaf though.

She put it in her pocket. Raelynn continued her journey, not having anything to eat for hours she was becoming hungry. Slowly it was becoming significantly darker. Suddenly she heard rustling of leaves nearby, it was coming from multiple directions at once and these things rustling in leaves were approaching. Raelynn’s heart started beating faster, her skin became pale when she heard something like hyena laughs but higher pitched. She turned around to maybe run away but she was surrounded. What shocked her was when one of the critters showed up. It wasn’t a normal anima, it had small posture with long bushy tail, not so small triangular ears and black nose. The fur was mainly purple with pale yellow area on thin muzzle, it reminded her of a fox with weird colours.

Raelynn was stunned, soon other fox like creatures came out in front of her, they circled around Raelynn, when she tried to move they started to “laugh” louder. Standing for a while one of the creatures decided to carefully approach. It was slowly walking towards Raelynn keeping body close to the ground. Raelynn wasn’t sure if she can run away so the only option was to fight. She raised her shoulders, put arms sideways to make her look bigger and started yelling. Fox-like creature stopped and hissed towards her. There has been standoff with either side refusing to give up, based on their behaviour it looked like they’re more curious than hungry but Raelynn didn’t know if her knowledge about animals applies in this weird place with weird animals. Her scare tactics wasn’t working as well after some time and critter came closer and closer while others stayed back observing.

Finally weird fox was at her feet and like a cat smacked quickly her boot with paw

- Maybe you really are just curious – Raelynn thought loudly

She crouched while critter back away at the same time, Raelynn extended her hand towards animal, it sniffed towards her from a distance and slapped her hand.