They moved on. Ash took the vanguard once more, but Muu, for all her tears, was the one who travelled the fastest amongst them all, her own body the least injured. She lent her shoulder to Ash as they both trailblazed, the huntress’s leg damp with blood, a fresh spike of pain shooting up with each step. She could feel it burning, the flesh becoming feverish. Behind them, Matteo stumbled as well. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t have been capable of running anyways, not when his headache continued to drill buckets of nausea into his lower intestines. Moving was a necessity though. They were leaving behind a trail of blood for any curious monsters to follow, but moving was still a necessity. If they took another break, they wouldn’t be able to get up again.

Forward. Onwards towards death and rebirth, as nails drove themselves one by one into the casket. Around them, the forest darkened, the sun setting early in the mountainous region around them. More nocturnal predators began to stir. From somewhere, they could hear the chirping of a dozen hundred bats taking flight. From somewhere, they could hear the hunting cries of beasts. And occasionally, they could hear that same guttural ‘hraccc hraccc’ that had sounded fifteen minutes ago, a whole eternity ago. If they tried to pick up the pace, they wouldn’t be able to, no matter how slowly they currently did. The part of their brains that unleashed adrenaline could not force those numbing, accelerating chemicals into their bodies.

This wasn’t a sprint. This was a grind. And they were losing precious light, precious blood, precious warmth.

Ash’s experience with the wilderness would teach her, at least, that they had maybe an hour left before the sun would become obscured by the mountain ranges of the west. A small comfort of sunlight, compared to the more pressing problem that was the fact that they had been romping around the forest for far too long now, having not stumbled across a single path.

Another way of saying this?

They were lost, all memories of the path they had taken to get to the river having been wiped away by the trauma of the ambush.