The boy beneath the trees
The girl POV
The forest had a heartbeat.
At least, that was what the little girl believed.
Every time the wind slipped between the trees, the branches groaned like tired old men. Leaves whispered secrets to one another, and somewhere in the distance, something howled—a sound so strange that she couldn't decide whether it belonged to an animal or something that had never been given a name.
She hugged her little cardigan closer to her chest.
“Mama?”
Her voice disappeared into the trees.
She tried again, louder this time.
“Mama!”
Nothing.
The last thing she remembered was following a butterfly with wings as blue as the summer sky. It had fluttered past the narrow path, teasing her with every step, until the path disappeared and the trees grew taller than anything she had ever seen.
Now the butterfly was gone.
And so was everyone else.
The little girl wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She wasn't supposed to cry. Her mother had told her that brave girls didn't cry over little things.
But this wasn't a little thing.
The sky above the forest had turned the color of bruised plums. The setting sun barely reached the ground, and the shadows between the trees had begun to look like people standing very, very still.
She took one step forward.
Then another.
A twig snapped behind her.
She froze.
“Who's there?”
Something moved in the darkness.
The girl turned and ran.
Branches scratched her arms. Roots caught her shoes. She stumbled down a slope and landed hard against the damp earth, knocking the breath from her lungs.
For a moment, she couldn't move.
Then she heard it.
A low, ragged sound.
Not behind her.
Ahead.
She lifted her head.
Between two enormous trees, beneath a curtain of twisted roots, lay something that looked almost like a boy.
Almost.
He was curled on his side, one arm pressed against his stomach. Dark blood stained the earth beneath him. His clothes were torn, and his skin was so pale that it seemed to glow faintly in the dying light.
His hair fell across his face.
But it was the things protruding from either side of his head that made her stop breathing.
Two small, curved horns.
The girl stared.
She had seen monsters in picture books. Monsters beneath beds. Monsters in stories told to frighten children into behaving.
But those monsters had never looked so terribly alone.
The creature stirred.
His fingers dug into the soil.
“Stay…” he rasped.
The girl blinked.
He hadn't looked at her.
“Stay away.”
His voice sounded as though every word hurt him.
She should have run.
Somewhere deep inside her, a sensible little voice insisted that she should turn around, find the path, and never look back.
Instead, she took one cautious step toward him.
“Are you hurt?”
The creature went still.
Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head.
His eyes opened.
They were not the eyes of any boy she had ever seen.
They were a strange, luminous gold.
And they looked at her with such fierce hatred that she stumbled backward.
“Human,” he whispered.
The word sounded like a curse.
The girl swallowed.
“Yes.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the creature bared his teeth.
“Then go.”
She looked at the blood spreading beneath him.
“But you're going to die.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Something colder.
“Good.”
The girl didn't understand how anyone could say that about themselves.
She crouched beside him, keeping a careful distance between them.
“My mama says people shouldn't be left alone when they're hurt.”
“I am not a person.”
She considered this.
Then she shrugged, with the solemn certainty only a child could possess.
“You still look hurt.”
She reached toward him.
He snapped his teeth at her hand.
She jerked back with a frightened squeak, clutching her fingers against her chest.
The creature watched her.
Waiting.
He knew what came next.
The screaming. The running. The tears. The familiar promises of pain.
Instead, the little girl rubbed her injured palm against her cardigan and frowned at him.
“That was mean.”
He stared at her.
She frowned harder.
“And you need help.”
For the first time in a very long while, the creature had no answer.
The forest shifted around them. Somewhere beyond the trees, thunder rolled across the sky.
The girl looked up.
Then she looked back at him.
“I'm lost,” she confessed in a small voice. “And I don't know how to get home.”
The creature's golden eyes narrowed.
Of all the things she could have said, that was the one he understood.
To be lost.
To have nowhere to go.
To belong to a world that would sooner destroy you than allow you to exist within it.
He closed his eyes.
“Then we are both unfortunate.”
The girl sniffed.
“What's unfortunate?”
“Meeting me.”
She thought about that for a moment.
Then, very carefully, she sat down beside him.
“I don't think so.”
The creature opened his eyes again.
The little girl folded her hands in her lap and looked toward the darkening sky.
“I think meeting you is better than being alone.”
And beneath the ancient trees, in a forest where even the wind seemed afraid to linger, something that had forgotten the meaning of mercy looked at a child who had never learned to fear him.
He did not know her name.
He would not know it for a long time.
But years from that evening, when kingdoms burned and blood stained the ground once more, when the monsters of his world whispered of war and the humans of hers begged for salvation, he would remember the first thing she had ever given him.
Not a weapon.
Not a promise.
Not even hope.
Just the quiet, impossible kindness of staying.
And he would remember her.
