Tia had a wonderful life. She lived with her mother and father in the woods near town. She had a nice home, a loving family, but not the adventure she sought in her heart. One day, her excitement rose when she saw three travelers come up the forest path to her house. One woman, one big man, and one little man. Her parents were kind enough for the visitors to spend the night. As Tia readied for bed, she saw the first snow of winter fall. Her father had said it would be a storm tonight, and Tia could already see the wind howl and rage. Knowing it would be cold, mother lit the furnace for the night.
It was midnight when little Tia woke from her bed. She heard a scream from her parent's room. She got up and slowly and fearfully walked down the seemingly endless hall. The door to her parent's bedroom was slightly ajar. She peered inside. The visitors that had arrived that morning were in the room, each had a knife. Tia's father was on the floor, dead. Her mother was slaughtered right before Tia's eyes.
The little girl screamed and ran. The visitors, who were obviously bandits, chased her. The first bandit, the woman, ordered her comrades to guard all the exits. The woman chased Tia into the boiler room. There was an emergency door right next to the furnace, and Tia knew well that if she attempted to escape the woman would have the knife in her back in seconds. Instead of taking her chances with the door, Tia kicked the furnace open, and the flames billowed out, blocking the bandit's path to where Tia was now opening the door. If the furnace had not been lit that day, or had gone out in the night, she would have been killed.
Tia ran through the forest path and saw that the second and third bandits were chasing her. She leapt away from the path and into the thicket of vines and branches. The branches scratched up the larger of the bandits, and he ran into a low thick tree branch and was out cold with blood trickling down his brow. If the tree had not been there, she would have been killed.
The smaller of the bandits was able to dodge the tree branch, and eventually Tia found herself trapped. She heard twigs snapping all around, the snow was blowing in every direction. She had no way of knowing where the bandit would strike. Suddenly, the first crack of lightning lighting up the trees and revealing where the bandit stood with knife raised. Tia had just enough time to run in the opposite direction before the lightning dimmed down, having blinded the bandit. The following thunder overlapped the sound of snapping twins as Tia ran, and the bandit had no idea which way she had gone. If the lightning had not struck, she would have been killed.
Tia found herself running through the snow. She could not return home in fear of running into the two bandits. She could stand it no longer. She collapsed and blacked out. The next morning, four-year-old Rex was playing in the outskirts of town when he saw footprints that had not been covered by snow. He followed them to find a girl sleeping. He ran up to her and dragged her back home where his parents raised her as their own. If it had been Spring or Summer, there would have been no tracks in the snow for Rex to follow, and Tia would have never been found.
