They landed with a loud thump and twin cries of pain. A little bit away from them, the creature landed in a river, making a loud splash and spraying water over Anne and Fei Fei. In a way, Fei Fei was almost glad. Maybe she'd just imagined it, but that creature had the look of a demon, and even though it was for sure dead, Fei Fei wasn't sure that she wanted to face it again.

They wanted for a long time. Well, not waited, exactly, they were... hesitating. Anne's hand felt like it was broken. Fei Fei's back hurt. They stared at the small bits of blue in through the trees above them, and neither wanted to move. Maybe they even fell asleep. They weren't sure.

All the two of them knew was that as the moon started peeking over the trees, Fei Fei forced herself up, wincing as pain shot through her back.

"Ow..." Anne whined, the first thing said in a long while. "I... can't believe that didn't work."

"I can't believe we even did it," Fei Fei replied. "Come on. We should move."

"Move to a safer place so we can sleep, right?" Anne asked her, and Fei Fei gave her a confused look. "We ARE sleeping, right?"

"No, we-." Fei Fei cut herself off as she stood up, nearly falling over again. "...We should rest."

"Oh, good," Anne sighed, relieved. As she moved her wrist, she winced. Probably not broken, but definitely sprained. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"My back."

"Only that, huh?" Anne asked, and Fei Fei glanced down at her.

"Is something hurt with you?" Fei Fei asked her, and Anne raised her right wrist in answer. Fei Fei frowned.

"Oh no..."

"Just sprained," Anne assured her. "I think."

"We should treat it," Fei Fei decided, despite the fact that they had none of the tools of which to do that, nor any idea of how to use them if they did. "Yes, you're right, we should find a safe place to sleep."

"Nice, nice," Anne said, and with her good hand, she pointed to the cliff. "Over there looks safe."

Fei Fei looked. "The-The dirt cave, you mean?"

"Uh huh."

Fei Fei looked from the cave to Anne and then back, trying to figure out if she was joking. "Really? Is that safe?"

Anne shrugged. "I don't know. The only reason I'm really pointing it out is because it looks cool, if I'm gonna be honest."

Fei Fei frowned, looked back to the dirt cave, and then shrugged. It did look cool.

Fei Fei helped Anne to her feet, despite the fact that her back screamed in pain and that there was nothing wrong with Anne other than her wrist, and together, they made their way to the dirt cave. But as they got closer, Fei Fei started to have doubts. Anne, too, but unlike Fei Fei she kept those hidden.

"This doesn't look like a dirt cave anymore," Fei Fei remarked. "More like a dirt tunnel."

"Huh," Anne said. She and Fei Fei shared a quick glance before the both of them shrugged. "It'll work."

"I'm too sore to go anywhere else anyway," Fei Fei groaned. The two stumbled into the entrance, and sat along the walls with a sigh of satisfaction. The walls were rocky and dirty, with pebbles falling on them every time they shifted positions, but despite the fact that the two barely did any walking, they were exhausted. They sat in silence for a long time.

Eventually, Anne sat up, rubbing at her arms. "It's kind of cold in here, isn't it?"

"I don't know."

Anne frowned at Fei Fei. "...Aren't you feeling cold?"

"I guess. But more tired."

"...Alright, fair," Anne stood up. "I'll get the firewood and also the fire."

Fei Fei didn't argue, and also didn't offer to help. After waiting for either of those things, Anne eventually gave up, going outside. Her wrist hurt, her back hurt, but less, her legs felt like jelly, but also, she was kind of cold, so she was ignored the rest of that and started collecting sticks and leaves.

Anne bundled it all up into her arms. It was pretty dark by now, and Anne couldn't see two feet in front of her. She had to feel in front of her for the things she needed, and more than once her finger painfully poked into something sharp.

"Gah, ow, how-Did something glass break out here or something!?" Anne cried. "What the heck is going-?!"

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt

Anne froze up before dropping all the sticks she had found, falling to her knees and hunkering down. Lucky, the buzzing passed over her, fading away. However, the noise did not die down after that. Anne hadn't noticed before, but the forest was alive with sounds from all kinds of creatures that Anne couldn't see, but that probably could see her.

The next time Anne got up, it was a lot slower and cautiously. She needed to be quiet, it probably wasn't worth alerting any of the creatures around her. Keeping a wary eye on her surroundings, Anne started gathering up the wood around her, but some must have rolled away in the dark.

'Ugh,' Anne thought as she started feeling around again. This time, when she felt the sharp pricks of pain in her fingers, she gritted her teeth and bore it silently. 'This would be a lot easier with a light.'

As if the universe was listening in, something shone in the corner of her eye. Just a pinprick, but, like a moth to a flame, Anne walked towards it, clutching the wood close.

Perhaps it was a trap, but Anne wasn't completely stupid, as soon as she could see it clearly, she stopped, carefully hidden within a bush that was three times the size of her. Didn't really matter, however, because no matter where she was, she would have stopped in her tracks in shock.

Anne hadn't realized she had been lost until it occurred to her that she had arrived back at the dirt cliff. If she looked, Anne could see the cave Fei Fei was still in, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the massive door in front of her, not quite as tall as the trees that surrounded them, but still huge. Anne would appear like a small bird next to it, and when she saw it, she could imagine man eating giants living in there, easily opening the door that would be a wall to Anne and Fei Fei. There was a window in the door, too, but Anne couldn't see anything in it other than yellow, shining from some unseen light.

The light illuminated a pile of logs and sticks by the door, many of them big enough for whatever was behind that door, but some smaller, small enough that Anne could pick them up and use them.

Well. That makes things easier. Anne glanced to the left and the right, carefully checking for enimies, before she ran out of the bush, sprinting over to the pile of logs. As fast as she could, Anne started gathering up the logs.

Once she got a good, sizable pile in her arms (she had to hold them kind of awkwardly, to keep her wrist out of the way), she stared up at the door. Giants, huh? People-eating giants? Probably a good thing to keep in mind. Anne watched it carefully as she ran past it, towards the small cave where Fei Fei was waiting. It was only after she was inside that she let out a breath of relief.

"I'm back!" she called. Fei Fei mumbled something that Anne couldn't hear in response. Fei Fei was on her side, doing something that Anne couldn't see. "What?"

"I said hi. Are you hungry?"

Anne cocked her head. "Now that you mention it, yeah, I really am."

Fei Fei nodded to the place beside her, where there was a pile of... something there. "I got food."

"Oh, really? Thanks-." Anne dropped the wood she was carry and went to grab one, before she did she paused, frowning. "I thought your back hurt."

Fei Fei shrugged. "It got better. The apples are good."

Anne sighed and at her wrist that still hurt. "Ok. Wait, how do you know they're not poisonous."

"Kipo wrote about them in her letter," Fei Fei replied easily, and when she turned over, Anne saw that she was reading the letter Kipo gave them. Well, trying to, anyway. Fei Fei was still trying to read the greeting. Not only could she not see it very well, but also, she couldn't really figure out the stuff she could see. "By the way, I need you to read this to me."

"Yeah, yeah, alright, I will," Anne agreed. She picked up a stick and a log. "Just let me get some light first."

Fei Fei waited patiently as Anne got started. The two of them have made fires a lot in the past, mostly when they were traveling around, and on the first attempt, it took a lot of trial and error. On the second try, it also took a lot of trial and error because they forgot how they did it the first time. The third time, it, once again, took trial and error, but less, because by then, they were learning. And now, on their fiftieth attempt, they were beginning to figure it out.

This time, it only took Anne two tries! But she didn't get to celebrate her victory before Fei Fei was tossing over the letter to her, and Anne had to quickly lean forward, desperately snatching the paper out of the air before it would fall into the fire.

"Can you read it now?" Fei Fei asked quickly, before Anne could chastise her. Fei Fei's face was turned away from her, so Anne couldn't read her expression. Anne rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, just let me eat first," Anne sighed.

"You can do both!" Fei Fei pointed out, and Anne couldn't argue with that logic, so she grabbed one of the fruits and bit down on it, settling down to read the letter, tilting it so it was lit by the fire light. But before she started, something suddenly occurred to her.

"Oh, by the way..." Anne started, and she ignored the 'Anne, just READ it already!' Fei Fei threw at her by continuing. "There's a place around here, a doorway that looks like a monster lives in it, so I think we would be about to find some dead bodies, and flowers, in there."

Fei Fei stayed quiet for a long time, almost long enough that Anne thought she fell asleep, but eventually, Fei Fei shook her head. "I-We can think about that tomorrow. Read the letter now, please?"

Anne frowned. "Do you think it's important somehow?"

Fei Fei didn't answer, so eventually, Anne just started.

"'Dear Anne and Fei Fei'," she read, but almost immediately Fei Fei was interrupting her.

"Not the start, about the flowers," she told Anne. "The part about Adam and Wirt."

"Oh... ok," Anne agreed, and after a minute of trying to find that part in the wall of writing Kipo gave them, Anne found it. "Here it is: 'At first, Wirt and I tried to avoid the forest, because the fog was obviously dangerous, but eventually we were forced in because of the bone dragon. Like you two, we collapsed, and something came by when we were passed out to help us. I didn't catch what it was, though, sorry, but from this we can probably guess that it helps anyone who finds themselves in the forest without preparation. It would have been nice to know that earlier, though, Wirt lost a lot of sleep wondering if his brother had stumbled into the forest and- well, you know-, anyway, inside the forest, we met-."

"Do you think Wirt's brother is here?" Fei Fei suddenly interrupted, and Anne looked up at her from the letter. Fei Fei's face was... well, she looked worried, and guilty, and like she was trying not to cry, but also like she couldn't cry even if she wanted to. Fei Fei was worried about Wirt's brother... no, that wasn't exactly it. Anne thought back to one of their earlier conversations.

"You... have a brother, right?" Anne asked, softly. "At home?"

"I thought... I know..." Fei Fei turned away from Anne guiltily. "How could I know he's safe and at home? It never even occurred to me to wonder if he came here with me! What if he's-."

"Fei Fei, come on," Anne said softly. Spring and Polly popped into her head, but Anne shook those thoughts away. "They're-he's-probably not here."

"Probably?"

"Definitely," Anne corrected. "Think about it. Kipo never saw it with her special rock thingy, which seemed to be meant to tell us where everyone like us was, or something like that, and we could never find him when we were looking, so..."

"Yes..." Fei Fei said, but even with all the evidence pointing to the fact that Chin almost certainly was still at her, and dark worry wormed in her stomach. Now that the idea had taken hold, it wouldn't be dissuaded so easily.

Anne understood. Like Fei Fei, she hadn't even considered the fact that her friends, surrogate family, really, would be here, too. And really, what if it wasn't just Sprig and Polly? Were Sasha and Marcy here, too? Hop Pop? Her parents?

How would they know. The two of them had travelled far, finding Mira, Kai, Mabel, Noman and Tulip, but there was so much of the world they hadn't found. Even OTHER worlds that apparently now existed, as they had found out thanks to Kipo. And really, who knew what Kipo's crystal had been showing them? They didn't know if it would skip some people or not.

"It's late," Fei Fei noted. "I'm tired."

Anne snapped to attention. "Oh, y-yeah, you're right. Uh, goodnight, Fei Fei."

Fei Fei mumbled a tired agreement, and Anne lodged the piece of letter under a spare log to make sure it didn't fly off from wind, or fall into the fire. After that, Anne settled down on the floor, across the fir from Fei Fei.

As the two laid down, thoughts swirled around their heads. Before, the two hadn't wanted anything less than to leave this place, because even if it was fun and new, it was also dangerous, and the two had been homesick many times throughout their time here. But now, that want was accompanied with a worry: when they left this place, what if they were leaving someone behind?

Anne and Fei Fei didn't get much sleep that night.