She awoke.

It was so dark she didn’t know if she was really there.

She inhaled.

Her face full of the metallic earth, all mud, and rain, and rot.

She twitched.

Her fingers grasped the crisp mulch that seeped into her clothes.

She rose.

It was so dark her eyes could only make out shades of black and blue.

She felt.

Her hand reached up to her matted hair and pulled at a leaf.

She blinked.

The shadows became giants, then trees so tall they scraped the sky.

She noticed.

How much more she could see if she stopped and waited.

She discovered.

The moon shone between the holes in the canopy providing just enough.

She moved.

Clambering to her feet she stretched her damp limbs.

She listened.

Around her the world was slow but more noisy than she ever knew.

She considered.

The path ahead was her way out, why she had come here; to die.

She turned.

The path back from where she came still remained.

She paused.

As she did her eye caught sight of a tree; clusters of flowers as bright as the stars.

She was drawn.

It seemed to become the night sky, full of hope in the dark.

She neared.

And walked with open arms into the mass of branches discovering thorns sharp and true.

She cried.

Each snare snatched at her clothes and tore at her skin, but she pushed forward.

She persisted.

Feeling something ok was on the other side, knowing it was something different.

She emerged.

On the other side of the hawthorn there was a path she hadn’t seen before.

She bravely walked.

With leaves in her hair, the moon in her eyes, and blood on her skin.

She began.

A new life on a path she didn’t know but one that could never be the one she’d trod before.