text: Your secret friendship with Rose develops quite a fair bit. You have quite a bit of time to play with her. Due to your success at “hunting”, father seems more than happy to leave you in charge of the hunting. Everyday, you head out to do the snares, Rose awaits with a string of hares for you. Then, you have a while to play and have fun, before you need to head home to avoid arising suspicion. You gift Rose with a few luxuries that she can’t scavenge from the woods such as preserves, a blanket and a few other man-made goods. Father notices your rise in behavior, but he simply dismisses it as you enjoying the woods and all the time you’re spending in it. Like you, Rose assures you that it’s best you never meet with her parents. When asking if her parents even know of the friendship or whether they’re in the dark like yours, she vaguely implies that her mother does know, and watches you two playing occasionally. You never see her, mother, but you don’t mind. For now, all is good.
  
  
  You run through the undergrowth desperately with all your speed, but like always, Rose is much faster than you. She taps you in the shoulder before speeidng away in the blink of an eye, stopping by a tree to lean against it for you to catch up.
  
  
  “You’re too fast!” you complain.
  
  
  “You’re too slow,” Rose says, sticking out her tongue. 
  
  
  “Let’s play another game,” you say.
  
  
  “Hide and seek?” she asks.
  
  
  Despite Rose’s unnatural ability to find you during hide and seek, by what she claims to be “sniffing” despite her being far away, you have much more of a chance of success in hide and seek rather than trying to outpace her. She’s faster than a deer, you’ll never beat her in that field.
  
  
  “Yeah, let’s do hide and seek,” she says. “I’ll be on first, if you want.”
  
  
  You nod eagerly, as  she spins around on the balls of her bare feet, clasping her hands over her eyes.
  
  
  “One, two, three…” she begins to count, as you turn and sprint off into the woods.
  
  
  You have a few places in mind that would make a good hiding spot. There’s a little den underneath one of the trees that you could hide in. It should be easy enough to crawl into, although you’ve had similar hiding spots before. Still, it’s one of the best spots you have, and the closest one.
  
  
  There’s also a more risky choice. The burnt out cottage that here mother supposedly lives in is close by. Rose says she only uses it for sleeping in, so you could hide out in there.
  
  
  There’s also her father’s cave. It’s slightly father away, but Rose seems to have an aversion to it. You could get to it if you run past enough, and hide away in there. There’s been no reports of trappers in the area and Rose hasn’t mentioned seeing him in a while, so you should be able to hide out there.
  > You hide in the cave
  You quickly head up to the cave, running as fast as you can. You run as fast as your legs can carry you, eventually reaching the incline leading up to it. Which you quickly clamber up. You climb up the rocks and reach the mouth of the cave, turning only briefly to stare at the forest around you. You feel a certain cold chill run through you as you stare at into the darkness inside, wondering if you should enter.