She glanced up at the sky as thunder rumbled overhead. She looked forward again, not really caring. She didn’t care about anything. She didn’t care that the clouds were grey and hanging low with storm, that branches and the like were whipping her face and arms, that she was constantly stumbling and tripping, but never falling over. She always regained her footing at the last moment, as she always did. Her feet were sure over the uneven forest ground, but she wasn’t concentrating on it. She wasn’t concentrating on anything. It was just something that she did instinctively, subconsciously.

Her thoughts were all jumbled, merged. Her head was a whirlwind of despair as her feet pounded through the thick bush. She was making swift time considering her disarray and the heavy bag on her back. She closed her eyes momentarily to clear her blurred vision. She felt frustrated that she could barely see. Everything was a blemished and smudged together from the wetness in her eyes. They stung painfully, though more with emotion rather than physically.

She thought back to her last conversation before she had climbed down the tree and ran down the street to reach the edge of the forest.

Anaya continued to speed through the forest as she pulled the mobile from her pocket. She looked at it for a moment before pulling her bag around from her back to her side, painstakingly unzipping the small side pocket and pushing the mobile inside, amongst unused tissues. She wasn’t sure whether it would rain or not, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

There was a bright flash of lightning, enough to momentarily blind her. She tripped, stumbled and fell hard to the ground. She gasped in surprise, multiple things scratching her skin and an arm hitting the trunk of a tree. She dragged herself up, wincing in pain just as the thunder rumbled across the dark sky overhead. A pang of homesickness entered her, but after a moment’s thought she realised that she didn’t want to go back home. Not back there. She wanted to be anywhere but there.

So she carried onwards.

The day was getting even darker now. Not from the storm clouds, but because the sun would be setting. Another flash lit up the darkness. The wind howled around her, goosebumps rising on her arms. In her haste she hadn’t thought to pack a jumper because of the relative humidity from the storm and the fact that it was the last month of summer, so it was still warm most of the time.

Flash!

She stumbled and narrowly missed a tree.

Flash!

She missed a path of soil and instead stepped on a loose stone. Her foot slipped to the side and she went down with a cry, pain shooting through her ankle. No, don’t tell me it’s twisted… She went to stand again, putting slight weight on that foot. She didn’t feel any pain, so she put a little more on. It immediately began to throb.

Ayana cursed, pausing to regain her breath. As she rested she thought. The more she thought about what she was doing, the more ludicrous it seemed. She thought about going back, returning. Then anger entered her. She didn’t belong to them. She was going to live her won life now. And the humiliation of going back would be too much. She didn’t want to fail. She didn’t want to show them that she was weak, that she needed them.

So she ignored the pain and walked.

The thunder was rolling across the sky so often and erratically it had Ayana jogging about in a frenzy, half just wanting to run with the pain and hopelessness she felt, half wanting to stop and collapse to the ground in tears. She hadn’t cried yet. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to cry because if they ever found out they might take satisfaction in it. She never wanted them to have that knowledge.

So she ran.

There was a short bout of thin rain that splashed over her, and her instincts told her to find shelter. Only then did it enter her mind that she was lost.

Suddenly she heard something. It was different from the claps of thunder, the wind in the trees. It was the roars of a Pokemon. Nearby, so close she jumped in surprise and instinctive fear. They were aggressive roars, territorial maybe? No, she eliminated the possibility in her mind. Then there were growls, that of a different Pokemon. Then the sounds of a fight.

She decided it would be best to go in the opposite direction.

It was then that it happened. There was an enormous flash of lightning, then there was a spark of red high atop a tree nearby. Ayana flinched as she felt tiny currents zapping her body, then a massive rumble of thunder echoed and reverberated in her ears. It was massive, and she cowered where she was, staring at the small flames as it grew and ate away at the branches and leaves, climbing higher, eating it’s way down. The flames leapt to another tree, lapping at it hungrily, consuming it in it’s heat and redness in the dusk.

There was a final flash of lightning then Ayana was running, running hard as she could in her panic and fear. She felt like a scared, vulnerable creature like the Pokemon crying out and moving in the forest around her. She caught glimpses of a few Rattata, Sentret, even a Stantler. She didn’t stop to think about why it was here when she had never heard of Stantler living in the forest in this area. But then she realised for the second time that she didn’t know where she was.

The forest fire was raging around her now, flickering flames of red and orange and gold, eating everything they could find. Something past in front of her face, a Pidgey she assumed. She glanced over she shoulder. A mistake. A whiff of smoke entered her nostrils and she couldn’t see. She slowed to a blind stumble with a short scream, holding her eyes that were erupting in waves of pain and stinging heat. She scrambled blindly around her, trying to rub the smoke from her eyes, but her efforts were futile. They burned as she ran in no particular direction, desperately wrenching her eyes open long enough every few moments to gather her bearings and make sure she wasn’t about to run into anything.

Then suddenly her legs ran into something, sending her sprawling over it in a heap. Her arms hit hot ash and she screamed in the burning heat, scrambling about to find her feet. She spun around and tore her eyes open long enough to see what it was she had fallen over. She choked in shock. It was the dead, charred body of a Pokemon. A big one at that, a bulky black thing that lay lifeless on the scorched ground. Flames flickered into her vision and she snapped out of it, taking off again in the opposite direction of the fire. She could keep her eyes open for as long as a second now before having to blink, but the smoke was obscuring her vision so it was an almost pointless achievement. Then something caught her eye. A nest, in the corner of a few boulders. It was large and round, made from various branches and leaves. And it was just catching fire.

Panic lanced her as she recognised a large egg sitting in it, one and half times larger than her own head. Next to it another egg, crushed into the nest. Automatically and without thinking, her hands shot through the flames against all logic and seized the egg, lifting it back to her before running again. She was surprised at its weight, it not looking too heavy, and she dragged in a ragged breath of smoke that resulted in a stream of coughs, her throat stinging, her breath raking harshly. The heat was unbearable. She could see nothing in the smoke. A few Pokemon that hadn’t gotten away sped around in all directions, trying to get away.

Then she saw it. A cave, hidden amongst the rocks and boulders behind the Pokemon nest. She gathered her courage and stepped through some flames to dive down into it, rolling down a slope into darkness. She hit a wall and came to a stop, laying there, gasping for breath and pain, momentarily delayed erupting up her burnt legs. She lay still for a moment longer in the darkness, a red glow emitting from the cave mouth up above her, before slipping off her bag with a degree of pain and unzipping it, rummaging about until she found her water bottle. She fumbled the lid off before pouring it over her left leg. She screamed as fresh pain simmered across it, then quickly poured some over the other. Then on her slightly burnt hands and wrists. Then into her parched mouth. She even poured a little trickle over the egg she cradled in the crook of one arm for fear the heat might kill anything inside, but she wasn’t sure at all. She smelt smoke and grabbed the first thing that came to her hand. A spare shirt.

She soaked a patch of it and tied it around her face, loose enough to breath through and lay down as low as she could get, her arms wrapped around the egg. She hoped nothing burning would fall in, but nothing did. She wasn’t sure whether or not the cave would fill with smoke, she wasn’t sure of anything. She knew nothing about anything she thought, the hopelessness threatening to surface again. But it was overridden by her fear, and she continued to lay in wait.

It must have been hours she lay there, not able to sleep, too shocked and afraid to move. For hours all her thoughts had whirled around in her head mindlessly, and all she wanted was to think of absolutely nothing, but it wasn’t possible. She just couldn’t stop thinking. It was then that she noticed the light coming from the mouth of the cave. A Dark blue. Dawn.

She packed her bag with what she had taken out and pulled it onto her back, took up the large egg that put strain on her exhausted muscles running thick with lactic acid, her legs most of all as she stood. Then she collapsed again to the hard, cold rocky bottom again, her legs simply crumpling underneath her. She gasped in pain, touching the burnt skin. Pain stabbed where the tip of her finger had touched. Kneeling in throbbing pain, she struggled to grasp a reason to try again. She was hungry, fatigued and exhausted. What reason was there to even try to climb up to the entrance?

Then she looked at the egg sitting in her lap. She ran a hand over the surface, smooth but slightly course. It was a pale ruddy brown colour from what she could make out in the poor lighting, but had a tinge of another colour to it. Slowly running her hands over it aimlessly she sighed in resignation. A tiny smile lifted a corner of her mouth, and she stood, cradling the egg tight as she dared. And she climbed up the rocks with one hand, finally clambering through the mouth after a few minutes of slow, painful exertion. Outside it had lightened a little more, the horizon a clear rich blue, fading upwards and into dark blue, then an even darker shade. A few stars were even eminent in the sky. The sun hadn’t peaked out yet. Anaya was glad to see there were no more clouds, except for one small one.

Then she looked about at the wreckage around her.

Black trees were stripped of leaves and many branches; ash littered the ground, swathing her shoes and legs as she walked. The boulders nearby were scorched black. Bodies of Pokemon lay here and there. She threw up.

When she was finished she looked about a bit, a little confused. It didn’t look like it had rained; yet there was no signs of the fire still roaring around. She looked at the sky again out of pure speculation and her spirit fell. That one tiny little cloud was growing again and stretching closer. But luckily it wasn’t a storm cloud, she could tell. Lucky? Maybe not.

Minutes later she found herself wandering aimlessly in a black and blue wonderland of emptiness. The life from the forest was gone all the way to the horizon toward which she treaded, where there lay a thin line of greenery. About half an hour later it was raining. It started off heavy at first, but didn’t last very long, slowing to light drizzle that went on for the rest of however long Ayana was awake.

Hours later she was thoroughly soaked, tired and every part of her body screamed for release. The egg was like a lead weight in her arms, and every time she shifted the weight they felt like they were falling off. It was like when she played sport at school, she never knew how spent she was until she stopped. She was practically asleep on her feet, her eyes remaining closed most of the time, opening only to make sure she wasn’t about to run into a tree. Her steps were a rhythmic pounding on the damp ground, the grey ashes now plastered to her legs, as well as the stray small leaf blown over from the areas where the fire hadn’t destroyed all. She was constantly shivering, her teeth chattering with cold. She hadn’t expected it to rain, not in the summer. Well that’s what you got in Sherwood. More cold than hot, its weather was as unpredictable as a winding mountain river.

Her attire didn’t help. In a short denim skirt and a thin wet white shirt that would have been as much use off as it was on she wasn’t a happy camper.

Then, out of the mist and drizzle, rose a grey shadow in the distance, flitting it’s way through the trees. A flame burned at it’s chest, and in her sleep-deprived state she couldn’t make it out through her teary, blurred vision and simply stared at it, awed, in wonder. A feeling of security, peacefulness washed over her, and the white day went black.