The initial search party had been unsuccessful. The one after that was the same. It had been days since anyone had seen or heard from Annalise, and everyone had assumed that she had died, murdered by the Fearlings or by the brutal conditions in the forest.
However, they would be wrong. Annalise had not perished. Not yet anyway. The soldier that had escorted her had. A Fearing had ambushed them on their way home, and he pushed her away, telling her to run as fast as she could away from here. Blind with fear, she took off running into an unfamiliar part of the forest.
It had been days now that she had wandered, trying to find something familiar to her. She had met with one family, who had given her food and shelter for a while, but that was nearly 3 days ago. She needed to find something.
She had been retracing her steps, and was now (hopefully) close to camp. Annalise was returning much thinner and frailer than before, her tiny frame the victim of starvation and the cold weather moving on. The girl propped herself up by a tree, looking around for any sign of danger or help. Out of the corner of her eye, for a split second, she could have swore that she saw the cape of a General...