They sleep beneath the open sky for two nights after the hush dies.
The first night, they don't dare close their eyes at once. They lie side by side on a bed of needles and leaf litter, flinching at every creak of branch and scurry of small things in the underbrush. But no voice curls around them now, no cold roots slip beneath their spines.
When sleep does take them, it's heavy and dreamless, a mercy they didn't know they still deserved.
By the second dawn, hunger sharpens them awake. Rafi's stomach cramps around the hollow where camp bread and thin soup used to sit. The braid girl's lips are cracked; she licks morning dew off her own sleeve just to wet them.
They move slowly, conserving their battered bodies. Sometimes they laugh — hoarse, startled little barks that dissolve into coughing fits. But the laughter comes easier now, as if the hush, in dying, left a small hole that hope can crawl through.
On the third day, while they sit crouched under a pine's wide boughs gnawing bitter bark, a dog finds them first.
It bursts out of the ferns, a rangy shape with mud on its fur and ribs showing sharp. It freezes, head low, eyes bright. Rafi freezes too — half expecting the hush to wear the dog's shape and drag him back under the roots.
But the dog only whines. It takes a step closer, nose twitching at the salt of their skin.
A voice calls out — sharp, human, unmistakable. A shout that cracks the spell of feral quiet they've wrapped around themselves.
Rafi's eyes fill with tears so sudden he can't swallow them down. The braid girl turns to him, her hand finding his wrist, gripping tight enough to bruise. Neither moves as a figure pushes through the brush behind the dog: a woman wrapped in a patched parka, dirt-streaked but real, alive, carrying a radio that hisses softly with other voices.
The dog barks once, tail wagging hard enough to smack the girl's ankle.
The woman kneels when she sees them — two kids pressed against a pine trunk, filthy, gaunt, eyes too big for their faces but shining with stubborn life.
She says something — maybe a name, maybe a question — but the words wash past like rain over stone. Rafi can't hear over the pounding in his ears.
Hands reach for them: gentle, warm. A water bottle pressed to Rafi's lips. He gulps until he chokes. The braid girl drinks too, shuddering as cold sweetness drips from her chin.
More people appear — shapes moving careful and slow, as if afraid to spook wild animals. A blanket settles over the girl's shoulders. Fingers brush twigs from Rafi's hair. Someone coaxes the dog away so it doesn't lick the raw scabs on his wrists.
The forest stands behind them, tall and hushed — but not the hush they fought. Just trees. Just wind.
Someone murmurs they're safe now. That help is here. That they'll be taken back.
Rafi does not quite believe it. The braid girl's eyes say she doesn't either. They've been alone so long they've grown new skins, armored and fragile at once. But they lean into the warmth, let themselves be led away, step by shuffling step.
They do not let go of each other's hands. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Behind them, the forest closes its shadows around the hollow's scar. Some secrets it will keep forever. But these two secrets walk free now, blinking under the honest sun.