A voice behind her grumbled, “This is madness.” Another added, “This is pointless, that bunny must be dead by now.” The words landed like punches. Samantha didn’t respond—she couldn’t. She bit down hard, swallowing the sting of heartbreak. Still, she moved forward, determined not to let their doubt slow her down.
Slowly, people peeled away. Silently, the two volunteers disappeared into the fog, heading back. When Samantha looked ahead, there was no one by her side except Alex. And yet she pushed ahead, legs aching, lungs burning. She couldn’t give up. Not when Pablo still needed her. Not without getting closure.
As the sun pushed through the mist, the trees thinned just enough to reveal a marshy dip in the forest floor—a wide, shallow ditch, thick with mud and tangled brush. Samantha blinked through the haze. Then her flashlight caught a flash of white, barely visible through the grime.
Heart racing, she stumbled forward, boots squelching in the wet earth as she reached the edge of the ditch. Her breath snagged. A scrap of fur—mud-soaked, matted, unmistakably white—lay half-buried in the muck. Blood streaked the ground around it. She sank to her knees, the weight of hope shattering all at once.