Bab 419: I'm not lost, I'm on a journey [R18]

Isabelle stood, alone in the forest.

It was quiet.

Not the eerie quiet of a ghost town, but the peaceful silence of a place where time seems to have stopped, and life itself has retreated back to its source.

Birds were chirping, wind was rustling through the trees, and rays of sunlight filtered through the branches above her, but somehow, the tranquility of it all felt like a distant memory, fading away as she stared out at the desolate landscape around her.

She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes.

The smells of autumn lingered on her palate. The sharp, crisp smell of fallen leaves, the hint of moisture in the air, the faint aroma of freshly baked bread and spices drifting over from the nearby village.

It was peaceful.

Something about the way everything blended together... it reminded her of something from long ago... a fragment of a childhood memory.

Was it the life she remembered? Or the one as Isabelle that she couldn't?