Ash pat a whining Snow gently on the head as she bulged her head out of his coat. He steadied his breathing as he climbed over a huge tree root, his stomach gave a low growl so primal he almost thought it was the leopard pup.

  The forest of trees in front of him only grew more dense. Lyra had been in more of an haste than she usually was and it left him a bit more out of breath than he had been before.

  He had not seen her in a while now but knew she had to be lurking somewhere in the trees, or he proposed she might be. Snow was the only thing that relieved the loneliness he felt even by a little but not having anyone to talk to for the time being proved detrimental to his mind and body.

  Ash's thoughts slowly drifted back to the day his world crumbled, he tried to forget it all; the cries from that day but that was not the person he was.

  Since the day of the incident he seemed to be overwhelmed by the chaos for days that nothing made sense, he had even tried to take his own life. But of recent everything was starting to become more clearer, as positive as it should have been it was quite the opposite.

  Now that he could think a bit better, his mind replayed the events of that day. The visual was very hazy and hard to make out aside from the colour of flames and what possibly was blood, he could also recall a scent. The forest currently had a cold scent of life and lush green but the smell he remembered was warm, and putrid. He could smell burnt flesh, charred and roasted. It felt similar to the smell of roasted flesh cooked over fire only more burnt.

  If that was not any distressing enough, his hearing went back to that day and filtered all of the distorted noise. It made it clear to hear voices he could not hear that day, he could single out a few voices of friends and family in them.

  His stomach felt like a cold pit, there was a battle in their depths. A struggle between discomfort and hunger. After a while it felt that hunger had fully won the struggle.

  "I feel really bad down there." He said to the himself.

  He felt his heart thumping in his chest, and it made him shiver. Unintentionally he gripped his heart and squeezed it tight, "I can feel another heart beating underneath."

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  Snow whined again, she seemed to sense the unease growing in him or she sensed something else. But he did not react, his attention was else where.

  Ash's thoughts grew more distant that he forgot he was heading somewhere and simply stood in one spot. "I can feel something growing in me. And what does this have to do with a mother I never knew?"

  Still lost in thought everything that happened around he seemed oblivious to anything that happened around him and it would take something remarkable to shake him from that. And that just happened.

  A man's scream shook the forest and reached all the way to where his was, shaking him out of his mind trap. Birds left their safety in the canopy of the trees and took to the skies for safety. Ash looked up sharply, his heart palpitated and his still struggling mind tried to recover enough to move.

  Then like it never happened the forest went silent, and the afternoon sun simply beamed down gracefully on the world. Ash looked around him with confused eyes, Snow sank deeper into his coat and whined fearfully. "Was that a man's scream?" He asked but his pet companion was not in the mood to answer, that left the wind to carry his question into the air.

  He wondered which was more worrisome, the fact that the scream had vanished just as it had arrived or the fact that his elf companion was still nowhere to be seen.

  He panicked thinking that she was in trouble, but it was a male scream. "Is she in trouble, she must need my help." Before he finished his thoughts he was already sprinting through the forest. The fear that she had encountered the bandits from earlier was blossoming in his mind. He did not know where the sound had come from but he knew one thing for sure; it did not come from behind.

  Ash moved with deliberate effort, desperate at first but slowly his pace grew faster and more meticulous. His body moved on instinct, jumping and dodging thick branches. It almost felt like he was back home racing through the first like he did with his friends.

  "No, fool. Stop thinking about your home." He shook his head violently and lost his balance because of it. He slammed into a tree branch causing him to trip and fall forward, a low groan escaped his lungs. His whole body heaved heavily and his face burned from the stinging pain, Snow quickly used this moment to hop out of his coat and whine at him.

  Ash pushed himself to his feet, he could feel sweat trickling down his face and the exasperation taking over him. "Oww, I'm sorry Snow."

  But now was not facing him, the little leopard pup was looking in another direction and whining. Sensing her discomfort he turned and looked in that direction, he could see a number of huge trees with thick branches and leaves. Beyond that was only more trees.

  But something did catch his eyes...

  There was— smoke!

  And smoke only meant one thing.

  Somewhere ahead, there was a fire, and where there was fire there would be at least people.

  "Is that where you are, Lyra?" He did not waste much time on his thoughts before picking up the pup, despite it's attempt to get away from him in the light of their recent accident.

  As he made his way towards the source of the smoke, he broke into a light jog and tried not to trip this time.

  A fire would give some explanation to the reason why the elf that never once let him out of her sights suddenly vanished. He was afraid for her and why that was had him a bit puzzled; in one hand he cared about her safety a bit, and in the other she was the key to him knowing what he was and where is mother was.

  He soon got closer to the source of the fire and he slowed down gradually. He could hear sounds ahead of men, and that was how he knew it. The bandits were back!