The girl slept through the many sounds and movements that inhabit a forest at night. She awoke with a yawn and a stretch by the days first light. Granted, she was stiff and cold from sleeping on the ground, but she was alive and rested, and the day felt filled to the brim with possibilities. She stumbled down to the lake and waded into the water. Of course she made sure to look for more pig-otters, but she hadn’t seen any signs of them at all. Perhaps they were solitary predators.

The lake was shallow by the shore but quickly grew deeper. Its water was bitingly cold but the girl was used to it by now and the sun was already growing warm. Rather than taking a refreshing morning swim, the girls aim was to secure breakfast. She figured that some of the clams that grew in the creek ought to also grow in the lake. Her theory proved correct, in a shallow and rocky part of the lake they grew in abundance. She pried a bunch of them loose and brought them back to the camp. Eating the clams for breakfast gave of a nostalgic feel as the taste was similar to the eggs and cheap caviar she usually ate. Sadly it also got her stomach started and sent her off into the woods. As she sat under the branches the girl ponder one of the bigger questions in life: In a forest of pine and fir, how the hell do you substitute toilet paper?

A while later the girl returned to her camp. Her spear was sharp enough to hurt someone, but it still hadn’t dried and was uncomfortable to hold. She would have to continuing work on it as she went. She grabbed the skin and unrolled it. It was stiff and smelly, but it hadn’t begun to rot, so she must have done something right. Using her blade she carved a hole large enough to squeeze her head through. She put the makeshift poncho on and felt an unexpected wave of relief. Apparently having a layer between yourself and the great unknown did wonders for your sense of security.

The skin was fat and sticky against her own skin, but the fur on its outside was thick and would probably also keep some water out. The girl wasn’t very large, and the skin just about reached down to her knees. It was somewhat restrictive to her arms’ movement when she reached above her shoulders, but the girl didn’t care. The constant exposure to the wind had stopped, and in its stead was an unfamiliar but wonderful warmth and cosiness.

The girl went over to the creek’s outlet into the lake and drank as much as she could stomach. She picked her stuff up and had to carry the blade and the spear in the same hand in order to bring some of the clams with her. It was annoying but ultimately worth it. Having no reason to stay and no clear goal to walk towards, the girl chose a direction at random and took off.

She walked during most of the day. Until now the forest didn’t provide much of a change in scenery. She had eaten her clams along the way, so at least she didn’t have to carry them anymore. Her feet was tired and she was once again hungry. There hadn’t been any signs of drinkable water on the way, and if there was any wildlife it didn’t want to be seen by her. The day had been filled with thoughts of the past, and the monotone forest had done its best to assist her. The girl dreaded thinking about it, she felt with certainty that she faced a difficult mental tightrope-walk. At the moment she was coping fine with her trials and hardship, but it seemed as if one single unfortunate thought could spiral her into despair.

Her mother had always told her to think less, that one grew mad from thinking too much. The girl reckoned she was both right and wrong. Thinking much was surely good, but thinking in the wrong way or with the wrong timing could prove to be devastating. In order to push away the mountain of negativity and despair that she felt looming over her shoulder, she focused on sorting out a more practical question: How the hell had she ended up here? She had crisp and clear memories of her time in the army, right up to the night by the fire and the silly assignment of introspection she had gotten. She remembered the falling star, then a whole lot of blackness. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force any more details than that. Something that struck her as interesting was that the gap in her memory felt different from the kind you got while sleeping. It wasn’t as if she had fallen asleep there and woken up here. Time had definitely passed, and for whatever reason, she was unable to remember it.

After a long time of pondering, the thought struck her that she hadn’t worried over her family for a second. This process was typical for her. The norms and values that was practically law to most people was for her an afterthought, something she realized that you should or shouldn’t do when it was already too late. To the girl, keeping within the confines of social normality was like sticking to the rules of a board game. It was definitely possible but required conscious thought and knowledge of the rules.

The girl knew she ought to worry about loved ones and friends, but she didn’t. She knew it was weird, but she had always known in her heart that she was different from most people. She had felt a lifelong melancholic mixture of pride and shame due to the fact that other people didn’t really matter to her. It wasn’t like she completely lacked empathy or something. If she knew someone was suffering, she intellectually wished for them that it would eventually stop. But she never felt it, at least not in the way it seemed like other people did. She didn’t miss people, and she never felt sorry if she had hurt someone. The girl didn’t think that it made her a bad person. In her opinion it was what you did, not wat you felt or meant, that determined if you were good or bad.

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Also, not caring about people had some definite upsides. She never had to bother with the low self-esteem that seemed to plague every other teenager. And the detachment gave her some kind of social edge. To the girl, most people were walking around with huge signs on their foreheads, advertising in bold font their needs and wants. Once you knew what someone wanted to hear it was easy to give it or withhold it as you saw fit.

This meant that she had always been comfortable in solitude. Other people was to her mostly a chore rather than a boon. But now she found herself longing for people. Not their company per say, but rather what came with them. Safety, help, advice, answers. Not to mention warmth and a cooked meal.  And right now, the promise of all of this stood before her like a mirage. Her heart was beating nervously and she was constantly shifting the spear in her hands as she moved as quietly as possible. A short while ago she had spotted a fire far off in between the trees. She would never have seen it if not for the encroaching darkness that had followed the departing sun.

Her careful and slow steps had brought her ever closer to the fire and she could almost hear the cracking of the wood as it burned. A couple of trees covered her approach, and she was betting on them to hide her as she snuck closes to the fire. A young man was sitting by the fire, his face partly revealed by the light. He was aimlessly poking around in the fire with a stick, as if he had nothing better to do. He was sort of handsome, at least he probably would be in couple of years. Now he looked a bit to boyish for her taste, and his fuzzy attempt at sideburns only made it worse. Still, sitting by the fire, alone in the woods, he sort of had a rugged appeal.

The man suddenly stopped poking the fire and dropped the stick. Shit, thought the girl, as she felt her body tense up, her hear beating rapidly. He was reaching for something… And then he reached it, and the girl immediately regretted her previous assessment. His index finger was buried deep in his nose, and he was sort of rummaging around, franticly searching for something. The girl figured she ought to jump in before he found whatever it was that he was looking for.

“Find anything?” She asked, as she stepped forth from the shadows with a crocked smile on her face.

The boy’s scream filled the night as he fell over. As it ebbed out, the forest was for a moment filled with the sound of fleeing animals. His face had a terrified look as he tried to get away from her, fumbling for his knife.

Since her entrance had been quite a bit more dramatic then she had hoped for, the girl simply leaned on her spear, trying to give the poor guy some space. It took him a while, but as the moment went by his breathing eventually calmed. He had both his hands wrapped around his knife and kept it steadily pointed at her.

The boy took a few more breaths before he finally got his tongue back. “Who are you?” He asked.

The girl sighed. What kind of stupid question was that?

“Look, buddy”, she said. “I’m not dangerous, ok?”

When the boy only tightened his grip on the knife in return, she settled on a more practical approach, tossing her spear to the ground.

“See?” She said, and took a step towards the fire. Maybe it was the spear that did the trick, or the fact that her face was lit up by the fire, but the boy finally lowered his knife and got up.

“Ok”, he said. It sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. “For a moment I thought you were…”

“What?” Asked the girl, as she sat down and made herself comfortable by the fire.

“Never mind”, he said in a low voice, obviously thinking about something.

“Look, you can’t just sneak up on people in the middle of the night. It’s not… polite” he added.

“Sorry”, said the girl, and she genuinely meant it. The poor guy was still shaking a bit as he carefully made his way back to the fire. He moved cautiously as if he feared she would spring upon him at any moment, and as he sat down he made sure to keep as much of the fire between them as possible.

“Sorry if I startled you, I just saw your fire and figured you could help me”.

The boy didn’t reply at first. He took his time studying her through narrowed eyes, seemingly struggling with how to approach the situation. Eventually is face mellowed, and his decision was further empathised with a sigh.

“How can I help?” He asked.

It was a stupid question, and the girl couldn’t really stop herself from making a disapproving face as she made a sweeping motion with her arms, trying to convey her general lack of clothing and food. As the boy only sat there blinking, apparently not getting the message, she articulated her question.

“Do you have maybe some spare clothes and some dinner?”

Her words apparently brought realization to the boy, because he snapped out of his daze and begun rummaging in his bag. The girl couldn’t help but smile when she noticed the redness on his cheeks as he eventually handed her a pair of trousers, trying his best to look away as he did so. She grabbed the pants with a thanks, and stood up to put them on. The boys was very carefully looking the other way, and the girl could practically feel the heat radiating from his checks. It was kind of sweet.

The pants she had gotten were made from a rough leather, and had strings instead of buttons, functioning pretty much the same way as shoelaces. The girl fumbled with the for a little while before she got it right and cleared her throat.

“Okay, you can turn around know”, she said, with only the lightest touch of mockery in her voice. She studied the boy as he hesitantly turned around. He was wearing something that looked like a homemade leather jacket, but it was thick and rugged, closer to some kind of medieval armour than something from a store. His pants were identical to the ones she had gotten, the only differences was that his was quite dirty. As he came face to face with her, her eyes swept over his sparse facial hair and his dirty blonde hair, settling on his blue eyes that was now curiously studying her. They stood there looking at each other for a second and the mood got weird.

“Erh… I’m Hanna”, the girl said, very carefully not offering to shake his hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Olof”, said the boy.