text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, female protagonist]
  
  They say that running away from a problem never solves it, but you're skeptical about this. Since your problems seem to stem from the people of Endlemire, it just seems to make the most sense to relocate yourself. You slip out of your house one day while Father is at work. His work schedule has been the same for as long as you can remember, and you have no worries that he will return home early. This should give you enough time to get away. You are more concerned about being seen by one of the villagers. Nervously you creep away from the only home you've ever known. It doesn't take you long to reach the edge of the village, where you stop and look around.
  
  Endlemire is a quaint little place, nestled up against the mountains. A lot of men in the village mine and quarry there. Nearby there is a swamp, which has a bit of a history to it. Originally it was a swamp, but then it was cultivated. During a particularly bad flood, it was turned to a swamp again and the people never bothered cultivating it again. Then there is the road winding out of the village; it only goes in one direction. As its name suggests, Endlemire is pretty much the end of the line since the mountains were never made fully traversable.
  
  While running away seemed like a good idea at the time, you realize you've never been outside the village and you don't really know anything about life outside of it.
  
  What do you plan to do about this?
  
  > run Towards the Swamp
  You really couldn't tell yourself why you decided to head towards the swamp. It's wet, it's dark, and it's dangerous. Of course, for those same reasons, it's not likely anyone will follow you in here. Other than the peat farmers that live on the fringes, the folks of the village tend to stay out of the swamp. It wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, but that is a story for another time.
  
  Gingerly you pick your way through the swamp, carefully setting your foot forward to test the solidness of the ground before putting your full weight on it. Actually, being as small as you are is an advantage in the swamp; an adult male would easily sink in some of the places that will hold your weight. But this is really the only advantage you have. You don't know anything about surviving in the wilderness: you don't know which plants are safe to eat, you don't even know how to start a fire. You're starting to think this was a very foolish idea indeed.
  
  In this case, perhaps it is fortunate that you stumble across a shack in the swamp. It's a single-story affair with rough stone walls and a patchy, thatched roof that looks a bit thin in places. While it doesn't look very welcoming by itself, it shows that someone survived in the swamp long enough to build it, which gives you hope. However, it doesn't look very well kept, so the hope is a very small one.
  
  Unsure of whether you want to deal with people, even a hermit in a swamp, you're about to turn away from the shack when you hear a low moan coming from inside. You can't tell if it's male or female, but whoever it is sounds like they're in discomfort.
  
  How do you respond?
  
  > check out the shack.
  There could be someone in there that needs help. And while you don't have a lot of experience with others being compassionate towards you, you would like to think that there is still compassion somewhere in the world. If that compassion has to come from you in the middle of the swamp, then so be it. Cautiously you knock on the door. Another moan from inside answers you; there doesn't seem to be any discernable words in the sound.
  
  "Hello?" you venture to ask. There isn't a response. "I'm coming in," you continue to say, just so that you don't startle whoever is inside. When you don't hear an objection, you walk into the shack.
  
  It's dark inside; no fire is lit. You notice a slightly sickly smell pervading the room. Eventually your eyes adjust to the gloom inside. A woman sits slumped in an old rocking chair, which she's barely able to move. She lets out another moan. So far she hasn't really noticed you; at least, not as far as you can tell. Looking her over you think you find the reason for her near stillness. Her left leg is bound up in torn sheets, and it is oozing slightly.
  
  You're just a kid though; you don't know anything about medicine. But even you can't miss the fact that this woman is in a bad way. For a moment you even wish you hadn't come inside because then you wouldn't be faced with a dilemma over whether you should help the woman or not. However, you find you can't just leave her like this, so you put yourself to work. While you're clueless about medicine, you do know how to keep house; Father probably wouldn't have tolerated you for as long as he did if you were lazy as well.
  
  In just a short amount of time the shack is a much cheerier place. You've started a fire going and, after rummaging in some cupboards, you have put a kettle of tea on to boil. Some of the food has spoiled, and you've already taken it out of the shack, but you're able to find some preserved meat, hardtack, and dried fruit. It's hardly a feast, but it's better than going hungry. Since the woman is in such poor condition, you imagine she hasn't eaten much lately.
  
  As the shack warms up, the woman stirs again. First she just mumbles a few incoherent words, then finally opens her eyes. When she sees you, she blinks a few times, as though she isn't sure if you are real. Cautiously you hand her a cup of tea. She seems surprised when her hand successfully makes contact with the cup, and she slowly brings it to her lips and takes a tentative drink. After a few more sips she clears her throat and speaks.
  
  "Thank you, child," she says, her voice weary. She tries to stand, but then cries out in pain. Looking down, she blinks a few more times and hisses something softly under her breath.
  
  "Your leg must be pretty bad," you say timidly, feeling foolish for stating the obvious. The way the villagers shunned you hasn't exactly been good for your social skills.
  
  "It is. I tried to mend it, but the infection got the better of me."
  
  "Can I help?"
  
  "You can; I couldn't stop you anyway if you were determined to do so." The woman smiles kindly to show that she didn't mean her words in a hurtful way. "I'll walk you through it."
  
  Following the woman's instructions, you tear several strips of cloth from a sheet. One piece you tie over your mouth and nose. Then you unwind the bindings on the woman's leg. Even through the cloth you can smell the stench of the infection and you're glad for the protection, meager as it is. With a knife, you cut into the partially healed wound, and the woman whimpers slightly. Then, using your hands, you push both sides of the wound and watch the pus come out while the woman screams. You don't blame her. Despite the pain she's in, she tells you to do this several times. Each time you do so, you clean the wound with a new piece of sheet, soaked in boiling water. Finally, you bind the clean wound in more strips of cloth.
  
  The ordeal is enough that the woman passes out. Feeling a bit weak, you sit down for a few moments and just look at her. Although she doesn't look terribly old, her hair is mostly gray, with only a small amount of red to show the color her hair was in her younger days. She is terribly thin, and her eyes and forehead are quite lined. Still, you think she must have been very pretty once; you wonder what she's doing here and how long she's been living like this. As for you, you find the woman's bed and fall promptly asleep; it's been a busy day for you.
  
  When you wake up the next morning, you notice that the woman has moved; her chair is right next to the table now and she's wearing a different dress. You can only imagine how painful that must have been. With permission, you check the woman's wound again and repeat some of the process from yesterday, though you only have to squeeze the wound once. This time the woman manages to stay conscious afterwards. You make her some more tea and give her some food; the two of you share the simple meal in silence. After you tidy up, she asks you to sit with her for a while.
  
  "Thank you for your help; I probably wouldn't have lasted more than a few days if you hadn't come by," she says with a weary smile.
  
  "You're welcome." It's such a simple phrase, yet you realize that very few people have given you a reason to say it.
  
  "I don't want to impose, but I wonder if you could do something else for me," the woman asks, her tone even.
  
  "What is it?" Your mind flickers through a list of things she might possibly ask you for. Fortunately, you haven't experienced enough in life to scare yourself too badly this way.
  
  "There is a flower in the swamp, a lily, that would help my leg heal much better. I was too hurt to go get it for myself. Do you think you could do this for me? I have a book in my room that will have a picture of it."
  
  It sounds like a reasonable request, but the swamp is kind of big and you feel so very little. Are you willing to help the woman one more time?
  
  > No; you're too afraid.
  It's no wonder that you're hesitant to go back out into the swamp. The way you've been treated your whole life doesn't give you much confidence. You certainly haven't had much reason to believe you can do anything difficult or important. Your mind has already clouded over the fact that you may have very well saved this woman's life.
  
  "I'm sorry," you start to say, tumbling over your words. You try to frame a sentence to explain how you feel, but the woman holds up her hand.
  
  "It's okay; you're young and afraid. I don't blame you." The woman sounds sad, but you believe her when she says she isn't throwing blame your way.
  
  The next few days are mildly pleasant, except for the times that you have to purge the woman's wound. While the dining fare remains simple, it's nice to have company that isn't actively trying to put you down or convince you that you are worth nothing. In fact, you have never been treated so well in all your memory. Then again, you've never saved anyone's life before.
  
  Unfortunately, your saving was incomplete. Although you follow the woman's instructions everyday, she keeps getting weaker. You're not sure if it's because you've drained her leg too many times and the blood loss is getting to her, or if it's the infection. Either way, you're feeling pretty bad about not getting that flower. Still, you try to hide how you feel.
  
  Within a few weeks the woman slips into a feverish state. She mumbles a great deal of nonsense you can't make heads or tails of. One thing that is consistent is that she frequently cries about a daughter she lost. Near the end she puts her weakened hands up to your face and apologizes to you. It's the last thing you hear her say with any coherency. Two days later you wake up to an eerie silence. The woman died in her chair while you were sleeping. By the look on her face, you guess that she died in her sleep.
  
  With tears in your eyes, you drag her rocking chair out of the house and let it sink into the swamp. You never thought that you would be so sad to part with anyone, but this woman proved to you, in the short time you knew her, that people could be decent. And you couldn't even go pick a flower for her. But as you watch her body slide into the murky water, you tell yourself that indulging in self-loathing won't get you anywhere.
  
  Now that she is gone, you go over the house thoroughly. You find a lot of books, but most of them don't seem to be very useful, so you eventually use the pages as kindling. Two books you keep are about plants and animals in the swamp. She had some traps, a set of arrows with a bow, and a few hunting knives, so you're guessing she got all her own food. There's also a spindle and distaff, something you know a little bit how to use; you remember seeing flax blooms behind the shack on one of the occasions you were outside. At least your food and clothing will be taken care of.
  
  It turns out that those things are all you really need to survive. While you're lonely at first, there's a certain amount of tranquility to be found, here in the swamp. There isn't anyone to bother you and you quickly become quite self-sufficient. But solitude eventually takes its toll. Your mind becomes less than stable. A lot of the time you keep the loneliness at bay by talking to yourself; there's no one else around to care. By the time you die, your mind has gone enough that you're convinced that there are faeries living with you; in reality it was just the insects that came in due to your lapse in housekeeping. In the end you give them quite a feast.
  
  Your life has ended, too bad you lost your mind long before then.