A stone was kicked into the air; it was launched several feet before it fell back to earth with a thud. A sigh followed shortly after, signaling that of boredom and despair. A young girl was the culprit of both actions; she had not had the best week if her facial expression was anything to judge it on. The girl followed the rock solemnly, the sadness faded a bit as she focused her attention and kicked the small stone again.
 She gasped a bit when she did not hear the typical sound, but a tiny yelp instead. Apologizing and chiding herself furiously, she slowly but purposefully made her way over to the location where the rock had landed. What she found was a several month old fox kit, their ears were curled back in fear and the kit moved back as the girl advanced.
 “Don’t touch them!” A voice boomed from behind her, it scared both the girl and the fox kit, who scampered off immediately.
 “Hey!” The girl started to protest, “I just wanted to console the little fox, I didn’t mean to hurt them with the rock!”
 “You know the rules, Kat, those foxes are mysterious creatures. You’ve heard the legends of people who’ve touched foxes, every one of them have vanished without a trace. That’s why it has always been a rule to never touch them, you understand? Never.” An older boy scolded her accusatorially.
 “I know, I know…” Kat trailed off, the sadness from earlier starting to return. “I won’t touch them. I promise.” She finished, adding a silent comment to herself about doing the opposite of her promise. She wasn’t just going to bow down to the superstitions and laws of the adults!
 “Don’t think that I won’t keep an eye on you. I know that you always find some way to get into trouble…” He warned, giving her a look that showed he meant what he said.
 “I said that I wouldn’t touch them, so I won’t touch them. Stop being such a meanie, Josh!” Kat called at him as she turned around and started to walk away. She continued forward a few steps before turning around and sticking her tongue out at him.
 Josh rolled his eyes with annoyance, but when he focused on her again, she had taken off running. He started to follow in hot pursuit, although despite being a young girl, she was surprisingly fast. The teen let a sigh roll and started to head back to the village, trusting that some way or another she’d come back by nightfall, like always.
 Kat was seething, for some reason that tiny conversation had really gotten her mad, nobody trusted her! First her cat had run away and then this, she just couldn’t take it, this week had been horrible for her. Although she was starting to get a bit worried as she looked around, she couldn’t recognize any of her surroundings. The young girl looked behind her and found only trees, then she looked to each side and then forward, finding the same trees in every direction. She found a log nearby and sat down, looking around in dismay to see if the landscape had changed since she had checked a few moments before, they hadn’t.
 A forest of redwoods laid all around her, their tall trunks leading the way up to bridge the gap between the earth and sky. The leafy branches extended all around from the trunks, covering the area in an overcast of green. On the ground laid a light network of underbrush filled with moss, celandine and spots of grass. A seemingly endless network of the green matter was all the eye could see in every direction. Although a constant and faint roar sounded off in the distance, an educated guess by the girl was that it was a river. For she often went to the river near her village, and she thought they sounded very similar.
 Kat felt somewhat better after focusing on all that she could see for a few moments. That didn’t stop her from crying softly for a time as the magnitude of the situation sunk in. "Why me?" She asked herself as her eyes leaked the salty tears that had been trapped within. "Why did Josh have to be such a jerk and cause all this?" Was her next burning question, she knew that the blame for all this could only and solely rest on his shoulders. A sudden snap broke her train of thought, when she looked up her body tumbled backwards and landed in a bundle behind the log.
The result was a noise from the source of her shock, it sounded like laughter, but that was impossible. She contorted herself in such a way that she righted herself, they were still there; much to her shock. “You’re the fox from earlier!” She exclaimed excitedly, although kept her voice at reasonable levels to make sure she didn’t scare it off. In response the fox sat down and tilted its head slightly, it was almost as if the fox knew what she said.
 The girl was entranced by the fox, she stared at their eyes and as she gazed into them, they seemed so understanding. She could tell that this fox knew that she had been hurt emotionally and they wanted to help. That was the only explanation that her young mind could come up with, so she knew it was true. Slowly Kat got to her feet and walked towards the fox, prepared to stop if the fox got scared, although it didn’t, unlike earlier.
Just before she reached the fox, she stopped. "Am I really going to break the rule that had been enacted so long ago?" Kat asked herself, she admitted that she did not want to disappear without a trace, but the fox seemed so knowing, so caring and so kind. She was starting to wonder if she could hold herself back from letting the tiny fox console her even if she wanted to uphold the rule.
 The fox simply gazed back at her and whined softly, enticing the girl to embrace them and let them heal all of her hurts. Kat could hold back no longer, she bent down and hugged the beloved creature; she received an affectionate lick on the cheek in response. She embraced the fox for a long time, crying softly into their soft fur, although the tears soon ran dry. The creature had soaked up all of her hurts and sadness and then replaced the feelings with those of happiness. It was as if the fox radiated joy and happiness to the girl, not the fear and tragedy that she had been lead to believe by those around her. Although, then she again realized that she was hopelessly lost, her subsequent realization was that the fox was the reason. But she didn’t care anymore that her village would think she disappeared without a trace, she only cared that the fox took away all her sadness and hurt.