MIDDLE OF WOODS
LATE AFTERNOON

Jada was not feeling confident.

She had headed out towards the snow-covered woods because something had told her that something important in her past had happened there, something crucial.
Jada staggered and hit the ground as her head gave a sudden and unyielding pain. It had been doing that all day, like as though the memories were trying to lead her to them with pain.
"Unhhh...OK, I think I'm close."

She raised her staff as she took a step forwards.
"Whoa!-" She had fallen into an old dirt hole, very deep and possibly having tunnels underground.

She looked up at the sky as she was falling into the hole just in time to see an old cottage at the edge of the woods.
Jada slid through the hole until she hit the bottom stomach-first. "Ow."
She straightened up and looked around. She was in a long tunnel, with no exits that she could see.
Jada then chose to try to go left until she got out.

She couldn't have made a worse choice.

INCREASINGLY WORRIED
EARLY EVENING
BURGESS

Jack was panicking.

He didn't see Jada on any of the streets or shops and had even looked in the old alley for her.
He was walking gloomily along the sidewalk, when a small hand tugged at his sleeve.
"Huh?" He looked down.
It was the little brown-haired girl from the snowball fight the other day. Maia.
"Oh, hi." "Who are you looking for?" She asked curiously. "My friend, Jada Shade. She's gone missing."
He looked up, hoping to spot Jada walking down the street.
No such luck.
"Does she have a red hoodie?" Jack was so surprised, he stumbled back.
"Yes-yes, she does. And black hair and a staff. Have you seen her?"
Maia pushed her long hair behind one ear with a gloved hand. "In a dream. She was flying around in the sky."
Jack sighed. Only in a dream.
But it was more help than he had gotten the whole day, so he rose into the air.
"OK, thanks." And he left, intent on searching the skies for Jada.
Little did he know, but Jada was a lot closer than he thought...

END OF TUNNEL
IN DECIDEDLY PITCH'S LAIR
PROBABLY EARLY EVENING

Jada was in a huge, dark area.
There were staircases and cages everywhere.
Jada immediately spotted the yetis in one of the cages.

She was just about to go free them, when an invisible force yanked her backwards.
"What?!" She was pushed to the ground.
Pitch appeared before her, laughing evilly.
"Oh, here comes the all-brave, little Guardian now," He mocked maliciously.

"Leave me alone," Jada demanded, heart pounding. "Sorry, but no." Pitch waved a hand and something knocked Jada back, smacking her into the wall.
"Unh!" She grunted in pain.

One of Jada's hands was pinned above her, bound by solid black Nightmare Sand to the wall. Her staff had fallen to the ground.
She tried to reach out for it, with no success.
Pitch stepped forwards and picked it up, waving it teasingly in front of her face.
"Rah!" She yelled, trying in vain to whack him away with her one free hand.
She struggled against her bonds, but they were too tight. Shoot.
Pitch then began his mental psyching-out routine.

"So here we are," He announced, spreading his hands around dramatically.
"I noticed,"Jada snarled. She wiggled her bound hand uselessly in her Nightmare Sand bonds.
"Now, now," He tutted, wagging his finger in her face."So, have you noticed how the Guardians will never accept you? You and I know what you fear, Jada."
"Give it your best shot," She replied scathingly.

He sighed, like as though he was an endlessly patient schoolteacher and Jada was his in-cooperative, mouthy student.
"Very well then. You are afraid of never being worthy to be a Guardian, you're afraid that you're too much of a stupid KID-" He spat out the word 'kid' like as though it was a venomous word.
"-to ever fit in. You're afraid that you will never know who you were. In fact, you don't know anything about your past, do you?"
"You don't know ANYTHING about me!" "Don't I? Oh, and that dolt of a Winter Spirit already thinks of you as just a useless kid."
"And we both know that you will never fit in. You're just too naive, too young and too underpowered to EVER belong. And-"
"No-no, you're lying," Jada panted. "Stop it, STOP IT!" "Ah, struck a nerve, have I?" He paced before her.

She swept out a foot and sent him crashing back onto the ground.
He got up, pale face twisted in rage. He raised her staff, raising his knee at the same time...
"Don't," She gasped out. "Don't do-" But he did.
SNAP!
The harsh sound was one of the worst things Jada had ever heard.
"AAAHHH!" She screamed in pain.
Pitch disappeared, leaving her broken staff behind. The Nightmare Sand binding vanished, leaving Jada lying on the cold stone floor, gasping for breath.

She stared at the remains of her staff, it was completely broken, like a trail of broken shadows, broken life, and broken dreams.

ABANDONED COTTAGE
MIDDLE OF THE WOODS
BURGESS

How she even managed to get there, Jada had no idea.

Somehow, she had found enough strength to stagger out of Pitch's lair, out of the tunnels and into the woods.
She had stumbled over to release the yetis, only to find out that Pitch had moved them once again.
Stupid frickin' Pitch.

Jada stumbled, feeling like as though Pitch had literally snapped her in half instead of just her staff.
She lurched forwards as her head gave another stupid ache.

Straightening up, she panted, standing right in front of the cottage.
Yes...This was the place. Was this her home?
Only one way to find out.

She pushed open the wooden door, wincing at the sudden and loud screech of rusty metal.
It was a very big room, it had four bed frames pushed against the wall and there was a wooden table near the center of the room.
In one wall was a big ash-covered fireplace.
Other than that, the room was bare. Dust seemed to cover every corner, every crevice, every surface.
Jada sneezed as a cloud of said dust settled down on her.

But wait...there was something else, lying on the tabletop. A piece of paper, perhaps?
She looked closer, approaching the table cautiously.
On it was a drawing of a girl, a girl sitting under the moon.
Shadows covered her face partly. It was amazingly well-drawn.
Jada looked closer. In the corner of the drawing, she spotted one more clue, just one more.
A signature. "Jade-Anna Sedarcott." She read aloud. "Well that's amazingly helpful-"
And she was stopped in sarcastic mid- sentence. Because at that ironic moment, everything became clear.
Everything.