They were gone.

In nothing but a few seconds, they were gone from her life. By some wicked twist of circumstance or stroke of luck, whichever one seemed to favour the mortified filly, she was caught up in a tree instead of on the ground. Whether more mercy was offered to the young filly, whose young and sensitive eyes now stared widely at the grisly site of her parents getting ripped limb from limb, was debatable. With the screams of her beloved mother and father, and the hungry barks and howls of the timberwolves, her life had changed.

Patches stayed up in that tree for several hours until the timberwolves left, dragging what little was left of her parents' bloody and broken bodies with them. After that, her mind that still refused to believe that this was happening, finally ****. The filly buried her face in her legs and cried, her soft cries and sobs punctuated with vain calls for her mom or dad, in some small hope that they would come back and console her with a warm hug and tell her it wasn't real. No such comfort came.

Eyes still bleary with tears, she climbed down the tree and looked around the camp, hunger forcing her to search for something. The cooler that was already broken open was mostly empty, but she did find a sandwich. As she ate it between her choked sobs, she was constantly reminded of her parents and how they were no longer there. She didn't stay at the camp, she was too terrified of the monsters returning, so she ventured out into the forest, wandering aimlessly. She did not know the way to civilization, and it hadn't yet dawned on her that she was doomed to fall to either hunger, thirst, or injury.

The filly wandered for several days, hunger, thirst, sleeplessness, exhaustion, and sorrow being the dominating factors of her journey. She was without hope, and every so often she would choke out a quiet, teary cry for her mommy or her daddy. When the pangs in her stomach became unbearable, and she cried dry tears, she curled up at the base of a tree, nuzzling up next to it as she used her hat as some sort of blanket, trying to imagine her parents embracing her and tucking her in for bed.

They weren't coming back. Patches was to die there. That realization only gave her a sad hope, at least she would see her mommy and daddy again. With a sniff and a final session of strained tears, she rolled onto her side and closed her sensitive eyes for what she thought was the final time. She did not hear the pony that approached her, slowly so as not to startle the little filly, and her head lifted in surprise to see the one she would soon call teacher.

"Now, now child, it's alright... What is your name? Why are you so far away from home? Where are your parents?"