She wandered alone in the morning mist.
A gown worn over her sleep-wear. She would have put her slippers on when she got out of bed, but one of them must have caught on something because there was only one for her to take off now.
When was it lost?
Who took it?
In amongst that cloudiness, where she couldn't see more than a metre in front of her, shaking each tree trunk that appeared one after the other, she still felt she'd been left behind.
It would have been better if they were people. In that case, she might have received some sort of hint.
Blood oozing from her bare feet, she walked without pause.
There was no way she could stop until she'd retrieved her precious possession.
"- chan."
Her cry was absorbed by the mist, not even her own voice could reach her ears any more.
Where should she go?
No matter how far she walked, it felt like she was going around in circles. The visibility always remained low.
Her feet felt distant and she had no confidence that she was properly putting one foot in front of the other.
"Ah."
Eventually she tripped over a tree root, falling down onto her hands. In that pure white landscape, only the blood spilling from the palms of her hands was a vibrant red.
"I'm."
Why was it that she was doing this?
It felt like she was searching for something. But what was it?
In a daze, she sat down on a thick tree root that protruded from the ground like a branch.
There was no way she could stop until she'd retrieved her precious possession. But having just stopped, she couldn't comprehend.
What was it she was searching for?
Where was it that she thought she should go?
"I don't know."
Should she keep going forwards, or turn back?
No matter which way she chose, the mist surrounded her on all four sides, so there was no way she could be sure that what she thought was forward was in front of her, and that what was behind her was the way she had come.
"What do I do?"
While she was still perplexed.
She could hear the sound of someone crying coming from somewhere.
It was faint, but she could definitely hear it. There was no mistaking it. She remembered her initial goal and ran in the direction of the sound.
Not even her own voice reached her ears. But despite all that. The voice grew steadily clearer, and then louder.
As though it were calling out to her. Like the shining beam from a lighthouse, guiding her way at sea.
At long last she found it.
Lying down on the fallen leaves, wrapped in pure white swaddling clothes, a tiny life-force.
"Ahh."
With trembling hands she clasped it to her breast.
She'd finally found it. They'd never be separated again.
"My … baby."
As she hugged it tight, the resistance disappeared.
The pure white swaddling clothes unraveled and what she had thought was her baby fell from her arms and pattered down on the ground.
"Ah, ah."
She frantically gathered the dry leaves that covered her knees and feet.
But they would no longer return to their original form.
"Noooo - "
Her grief-stricken cry cut through the mist.