Tal, Helga, Ayelan and Saryn are many days into a trek in search of the missing children. They are tired, sore and frustrated at having seen no sign of the children. They are however relieved to have not been attacked.

Tal: This is insane… we have been travelling for days. How do we even know we are going in the right direction? 

Helga: How many times have you journeyed into the wildland Tal? 

Tal: I did my time on the line the same as everyone Helga. 

Helga: But you never went in.

Tal: I wasn’t a ranger… no need to come into this hellscape. Just kill what comes out and burn it back.

Saryn: Right. And how many contacts would you have when you were on the line? 

Tal: How am I suppose to remember that?

Saryn: Humour me. Just an estimate.

Tal: Sometimes a couple per day. 

Helga: Right. And now we are 3 days travel beyond the line…how many times have we been attacked?

Tal: We haven’t….

Saryn: That strikes me as a good sign that we are on the right track. The things in here….they can open and close the ways… the fact that we haven’t been torn to shreds or lost our minds tells me that we are  probably still in the ways. So long as we keep to the path we should be okay. 

Tal: The things in here? Lorrin said they were people, like us. 

Saryn: There are no people living in here Tal. People like us can’t survive in here. Whatever your son saw was likely an illusion, a dream or a hallucination. 

Tal: Then why do the ways exist at all? The creatures in here don’t need to use them.

Saryn: Who knows? There could be a thousand reasons for them. Maybe they aren’t supposed to be used for travel at all. The point is, other than rumours and idle talk, there has never been any sign of people living in here…and all my experience tells me that anything that tries…would die. 

Tal: Well, with that in mind I recommend we head home…I can track Saryn. Not as well as a ranger like you…but I can track…I haven’t seen a single trace of anyone moving through here. Including the children. We haven’t slept in days, we have been pushing and pushing ourselves… and we have found nothing. We should head back.

Helga: Easy for you to say spawn. Your child has returned to you. Five children are still missing. Yav, Ten, Shadi, Leya, Shena. We are following your son’s directions… What will you tell the other families? Especially after what your boy brought back with him.

Tal: Careful with that spawn-talk witch. Snakes in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. 

Saryn: Calm it down you two. We are all tired. Tal…honestly…I would be more worried about the way back…Whilst we are following them, the ways can be trusted…there is no guarantee that the path back is still open.

Tal: Thank’s Saryn…I am filled with confidence. 

Saryn: There is a reason the Vanguard and town Amghar wouldn’t authorise a search party …and I expect it is the same reason your husband didn’t come with you. 

Helga: We all knew the risks of coming out here.

Tal: Fine. But we need to rest. 

Saryn: Sure. Let’s keep going until the path widens out a little. I don’t want us setting up camp somewhere we can wander off the path in the dark.

Tal: Fine. Lead on.

[sound of continued foot steps]

She’d been thinking about it for days… and she didn’t know how to tell Robin. They were lost. Not the kind of lost they would get playing hide and seek together in the copse inside the battlements of Kurr, when they would get so excited and wrapped up in the game that they would forget to mark trees or count steps as mother had taught her to do. No. When they were lost in the thicket, they were still in the fortification… they knew where they were. They were still home and, except for the scary snake witch, who would sometimes appear and shout at them and, the occasional nervous badger protecting its sett from optimistic burrowing children, there was not much to fear from the Wupo copse…they were not wild like the jungle outside, they did not carry the blight…thanks to the witch. Here was different…They would not be able to call for rescue here. The people of Kurr would not hear their cries…even the vanguard would not venture this far…save perhaps the rangers. They were not home. Here was a special kind of nowhere, which led to nowhere else. She and Robin had broken free of the silent and scary grownups who had ambushed them in the night and snatched them from the clearing. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten to the clearing…or why the other children were with her….all she could remember was the sweet and melodic tune which had been swimming around in her head causing her to feel soft and light….euphoric. A tune which she couldn’t shake from her mind and which Robin too would whistle softly as they drifted off to sleep. She had no idea how many of those scary willow bark portals the nasty adults had dragged them through before they made their move, but she hadn’t been able to locate a single one of them since they escaped. There had been no sign of the portals, but there had been neither hide nor hair of the other children or the nasty grown-ups either. Yav had tried to leave tracks as best as she could for someone to follow, but every time she made a mark it simply disappeared and, every time she dropped something to trace a path, it would find its way back to her by the next morning. She often wondered if she was dreaming the whole thing. The past two sleeps she had fully expected to wake up, back with the other children, marching and marching, silently toward whatever destination the nasty grownups intended. She would wake up every time in a panic and search franticly for Robin in the dark. Her dreams reminded her of those she had suffered during the sickness which has swept through Kurr years ago…the sickness which had taken her mother. The lines between sleep and waking, blurred by a nauseous confusion and disorientation, forcing wakefulness many times before it could be trusted. These twilight moments were the worst for Yav. As she searched for Robin, she would find herself alone…or worse…in the company of creatures dark and grotesque…which would watch her hungrily from the shadows. Often times she would see her late-mother…other times the husks of countless bodies littered across the duff…bodies with vast cavities rend into them…piles of teeth beside them… and at their feet, great mortar filled with half pulped hearts and other organs …sometimes she would dream that Robin was eating greedily from these…sometimes her mother…and sometimes he would be there….watching, smiling…. Caked head to toe in dark earth…his violet eyes piercing into her soul…but she would always wake again to the familiar sound of Robin sleeping at her side, his small body pushed tightly against hers for warmth and comfort. She could shake off these night-terrors…but she could not shake off those violet eyes…she felt them even when she was certain she was awake.

She’d been thinking about it for days…they were never going to escape from here. Who would come after them, now that mother was gone? Neither of their fathers seemed to care where they were or what they were doing. It was possible the horrible pair were too drunk or too busy to have noticed they were even gone…not that they’d care. She was just ‘an ungrateful mouth to feed’ and, Robin’s  father saw him much the same way. She could not remember ever visiting Robin’s home, but somehow she knew it was even worse than her own. She was glad to have someone she could talk to about it, someone who would understand, who could relate…someone who wouldn’t refuse to talk to her, or tell her to keep it to herself… like the others did. Robin had it harder than Yav in many ways… he was treated as if he barely existed at all…Robin was Yav’s closest and dearest friend, they were everything to one another, she loved him more than anyone…maybe even as much as she had loved her mother… and now…they were trapped… and she couldn’t save him from this endless haunting, wildland.

“Are you hungry, Yav?” asked the boy, the last of the berries held outstretched toward her, cupped in his small hands. “You look angry…I feel that…. when I am hungry.” He finished, nudging her elbow gently with the outstretched hand.   

She knew she would have to tell him eventually. She didn’t like keeping secrets from her best friend. “Thanks Robin. Where do you keep finding these?” she asked him idly, as she picked two of the dark red fruit and placed them in her mouth, not chewing them but rolling them around her mouth to savour them. 

“When I can’t sleep, I look for them. The jungle tells me… I know where to find them.” Robin responded, matter-of-factly correcting himself, stuffing the remaining handful of berries into his mouth and chomping gleefully, a small sliver of red liquid squirting from his lips.

Yav rounded on her friend and pulled a reproachful face, like the one she remembered mother making when she was disobedient or mischievous. “Don’t wander off on your own!” she said sternly, sounding even more like her mother as she spoke. “We use the buddy system, remember! We need to stay together.”

Robin looked scolded and hurt by Yav’s tone and responded apologetically. “Sorry”. He looked at the ground and kicked idly at the pile of leaves at his feet, which they had collected the night before to serve as a mattress. “I shouldn’t leave my buddy, I know…but you are so sad and hungry…” 

Yav softened her tone, recognising her friends’ hurt feelings. “I’m sorry…we can collect them together next time, okay?” 

Robin smiled at this and nodded emphatically. “We are very good at hide and seek aren’t we? The bad people won’t be able to find us. So, there is no need to worry. No one ever finds us! We are the very best!” 

Yav sometimes forgot how much younger Robin was, mostly because Robin didn’t know how old Robin was either. It was strange, Yav could tell that he was a good three or four years younger than her, but she couldn’t remember a time in her life when he hadn’t been there. He looked up to her more than just in terms of stature, he seemed to think she was invincible, infallible and when they were together that was exactly how she felt. They didn’t need anyone else…not that anyone wanted them. But she couldn’t keep pretending that she wasn’t tired, that she wasn’t hungry or scared. Yav had had plenty of practice of this since her mother passed into the otherworld, but for the first time in a long time…she needed someone to be strong for her… 

Yav began to weep. Softly at first, willing herself to hold back her tears, swallowing hard against the impulse and hiccoughing, but the moment Robin put his little arms around her waist, she could no longer hold back the flood. She threw her arms around Robin, pulling his head in close to her body and began sobbing uncontrollably. Robin’s body, too began to convulse as he joined in, in sympathy. They cried and cried together, falling back onto the earth and their soft leaf bedding. The tears felt like they went on forever, each of them stopping only momentarily until the other started up again. They lay there weeping and holding each other for comfort until they drifted off into exhausted slumber once more. 

When she awoke, Yav was alone. She once again found herself in a twilight stupor, once again unsure of where she was. She searched frantically for Robin, but he was nowhere to be found. Yav’s sense of panic and alarm began to surge as she noticed that Robin’s bed had been scattered. Footsteps and voices in the distance drew her attention and she immediately began to fear the worst. They had been found…those awful nasty people had got him, and she was next. They’d be punished like the others who tried to run… like Noy, Rashmi and Lorrin… she whimpered at the thought but caught herself before it became too loud. They didn’t have her yet, and maybe she could help Robin escape again. For some reason, as she tried to push away the fear and imagine her heroic rescue, she struggled to recall Robin’s face and his voice. She knew she must be panicked. It became difficult to remember things when you were frightened… that’s what some of the adults had told her anyway, when they didn’t want to hear her ‘stories’.  The voices were getting closer now, there were many of them and they didn’t sound like the bad people. Some of them were even familiar…yes she had definitely heard one of those voices before… It was the witch! The snake witch from the Wupo copse inside the fortifications. Yav crawled slowly on her belly, careful not to disturb too many leaves or break any branches as she moved herself up, over the lip of the small ditch they had camped in, peering over the bough of the fallen tree which screened their hiding place. She was right, it was the witch! But she wasn’t alone. There were others with her: She didn’t recognise the Saurian or the Ren at the front, but she’d recognise Lorrin’s dad anywhere…he stood out with his horns and his tail… they must have been looking for the children! They were saved! Just as Yav was about the begin scrambling out from behind the tree and running over to the group, she felt a hand at her leg. Yav started and turned quickly, looking down again into the frightened face of Robin. His skin was white with terror and his eyes wide.

‘Don’t….” He whispered. “Don’t let them know we are here.”

Yav’s body relaxed at seeing her friends return and she shuffled herself down toward him, embracing him once tightly, before stroking his sweaty head in comfort. 

“They are from home” said Yav, a comforting and confident smile plastered across her face. “They can take us ba-“

Robin cut her off with a tone and expression she had not seen on him before. “I don’t want to go back!” He said with a forceful whisper. “We can stay here…we don’t need to go back.” He continued, furrowing his eyebrow and crossing his arms across his chest.

“Its not safe here Robby. The bad people could find us…this is the wildland… we need shelter from the… the….” Yav hesitated.

“The what?” Robin asked forcefully…but Yav could not recall that from which she had been taught to seek shelter. “The bad people found us at home. The jungle gives food, it told me it will give us more than we ever got at home.” Robin’s voice became more insistent as he spoke, and he gestured down to his muddy and stained garb, which he had folded up to serve as a container for yet more of the dark red berries they had eaten earlier. His shirt was nearly overflowing with them and Yav struggled to comprehend how she had not seen him carrying them earlier, or how she had avoided crushing them when she had embraced him.

“I don’t want to sleep on the floor anymore, Robby.” Yav complained, turning her head and craning her neck to see if the witch’s party were coming any closer. It sounded as if they had stopped, their voices were raised and there appeared to be an argument going on…

“I found a place…I woke up there… it has food too and it has somewhere we can sleep. Everyone says the wilds are dangerous…that we must fight them…but the wilds won’t hurt us…they care about us…they want to be our friend…they want us to love them. They just want to give the whole world a big hug… they need our help…and all we have to do is play!” Robin’s voice remained as a whisper, but his eyes were wide with expectation and excitement. The sweet soft melody whistled again in Yav’s mind as Robin continued. “I don’t want to go back… I only want to play with you and the wildland…we can play together here, where no one will find us.” He began pulling at the shoulder of her clothes as he spoke. “I want the adults to go away… I want them to go away forever…The wilds want that too. They can make them all go away….forever…”
 
Yav brushed away Robin’s hand and shuffled back up the small lip to the fallen tree. Robin continued to tug frustratedly at her trouser legs from below and continued his whispered protestations. As he did so the sweet soft music continued to fill her mind, drowning her thoughts in bliss… but as Yav watched the adults, silently observing them making their way away from their hide and further down the path, she saw their shadows flickering, and the air around them darken. A pressure began to grow in Yav’s mind and her own thoughts whispered to her…Robby was right…why should they go with the witch and the spawnborn…no one had beaten them here, no one had hurt them here. Here it was only Robby and Yav and games of hide and seek for as long as they wanted. The pressure spread and the shadows around the party grew deeper and moved with yet greater violence… Maybe they were helping the bad people…maybe they were going to hurt them, just like they’d hurt the others who had run… Yav, shuffled her way back down the rise towards Robin, who maintained a look halted between fear and stubborn indignation. 

“Okay Robby… Where is this place then?” Yav asked with contrite concession in her tone.

Robin responded right away. “It’s not far… you will love it”