She was roaming the woods, leaves crackled and broke beneath her feet. There was not a single tinkle of laughter like the ones she used to hear years ago. She guessed even the people who once went there changed. Just like the birds who no longer homed and chirped in the trees and even the snakes that hissed and slithered around.
Amidst the silence was where she heard the slow trickling and flowing. It started faintly and then grew louder, beckoning her, waiting to be found.
Run, she did, her head turning around like a cat with perked up ears. She looked through the leaves, atop the fallen logs, and in between branches her eyes could take sight of.
But there was nothing.
And then, just like that, the sun poured in. Beckoning. Waiting. Leading. Then she got there. Where she sat at a dislodged branch and watched the ripple of the cool water smile at her. She smiled at it, too.
Photo by: Nessa Kessinger
