She ran like hell.
Branches tore at her clothes, thorns bit into her ankles, and the cold night air sliced through her lungs like glass. But she didn't stop. She couldn't.
Not with her baby in her arms.
He was barely a month old—warm against her chest, wrapped in whatever fabric she could find. His tiny fingers clenched the air, his lips trembling, but he didn't cry. Not yet. Maybe he understood, on some deep, primal level, that silence was the only thing keeping them alive.
Behind her, the roar of engines shattered the stillness of the forest. The gang was close—too close. The whine of bike tires skidding over wet leaves, the wild, distorted laughter echoing through the trees—it felt unreal, like a nightmare that refused to end.
She stumbled into a clearing and froze.
There it was. The waterfall.
Tall. Violent. Unforgiving.
No time to think.
She bolted for it, slipping on moss-slick rocks, scrambling upward with one hand while holding her child with the other. Water crashed down beside her, deafening. The headlights behind her flickered through the trees like searchlights.
One more step—
Her foot slipped.
Everything spun.
She twisted midair, instinctively shielding her baby as they slammed into the rocks below. Pain exploded through her skull. Her vision went white, then red, then nothing at all.
Time fractured.
Somewhere in the haze, she felt herself coughing, choking on blood. Her body screamed, but her arms still held him. He was crying now—small, desperate wails that cut straight through her soul.
She knew she was dying.
And yet… she moved.
Hands trembling, she unclasped the bracelet on her wrist—simple silver, almost unnoticeable. She popped it open. Inside, a tiny folded note, barely big enough for a sentence. She pressed it to her lips for a second, then slid it back in and snapped it shut.
No one could find it unless they knew where to look.
She looked at her son. His face, scrunched and red, was the only thing in the world that mattered. With what little strength she had left, she wrapped him in her scarf and tucked him into the roots of a tree, covering him against the cold night air.
She leaned in, her voice a fragile whisper:
"Forgive this world, baby. Even if it never deserves it."
Then her head fell back, eyes wide and unseeing.
The engines cut out.
Footsteps crunched on the edge of the clearing. But no one approached the baby. Not yet.
In the silence, beneath the howl of the waterfall, a single scream ripped through the forest.
But no one would remember it.
At least, not yet.