Word Count → 375 :: Out of Character text.
Sophie continued to whimper quietly to herself, and had nearly worked up the courage to make a run for it, back the way she'd come, when sounds echoed from farther down the hall, a place she couldn't see. She froze, her heart trembling like a frightened rabbit's, and held her breath, her ears flattened against her skull as she tried her best to remain unnoticed. The sound of a bottle rolling along the stone floor caught her attention, and she squeezed her eyes shut, repeating her chant in her head, too frightened to say it aloud. "I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid," She thought mindlessly, and had very nearly convinced herself it was nothing when the sound of someone moving reached her ears. She made a small, frightened noise, and it must have caught their attention, as she heard the clicking of claws on the stone floor soon after.
The words startled her, even more so than the claw-clicks had, and she cried out again, bending her head to cover it with her paws. She tried to fold herself into the pelt she wore, in an attempt to hide from the voice, but she couldn't, and finally decided that shuffling deeper into the rubble pile would have to be enough. "I'm not scared!" She shouted, and curled against the stones supporting most of the pile, staring at the small hole that lead out into the hallway. After a moment of quiet hesitation, she added more softly, " 'M...'M not scared. I'm lost..." She was scared, though, especially being so far from home, with a stranger out there. He could be anybody; he could do anything to her. Leon was too far away to hear her howling if she called out now. She realized she shouldn't have wandered off, and felt a little whimper building up in the back of her throat, as her eyes became glazed-over and glassy, filled with unshed tears. "I don't know where I am," She added, and curled in on herself a bit, trembling a little. "I was...following the fairies..."
But they were gone now, too, and she was left with a stranger who could turn out to be a troll for all she knew.
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.sophly p {text-indent:25px; padding:5px 20px; margin:0px;}
.sophly {width:485px; margin:0 auto; background-color:#a19fc4; background-image:url(http://i.imgur.com/DujCo.png); background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:1px solid #000000; padding:200px 0px 5px 0px; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size:12px; color:#352b37; line-height:16px; letter-spacing:.5px;}
</style>[/html]