It was a misty November morning with a light drizzle sprinkling the ground. Soap gazed out her window, a slight chill in her bones. It was a peaceful morning, with the dull gray sky that loomed above. Barefoot, she walked into her utility room and unlocked the backdoor. She found her dog snoozing in her dog house. Not wanting to disturb her, she tip-toed past her pup and walked onto the matted grass. It was damp and bits of it stuck to her feet, but Soap didn’t mind. Drops dripped from the sky and landed on her face. She stared into the wood that unfurled behind her house, wishing she could explore it.

Ah yes, the woods. Soap had always loved the tall pine trees and the vines that constricted everything. She loved the secrets that were hiding themselves from humans, for they dealt with nature, and many humans didn’t understand the way the wind whispered to the leaves that clinged to the branches or how sun brought life to everything growing in there. Most humans might admire the woods, but never… understand it.

She crossed the wet lawn and onto the patio. The concrete was grimy, but felt cool underneath Soap’s feet. She looked down and traced the cracks forming in the ground with her eyes. Her gaze flickered to her toes, then to her toenails, and she made a mental note to repaint them.

The thought struck her as odd. She never painted her toenails. The only thing that she had ever wanted to paint was canvas, and now the more she looked at it, the peeling fence that guarded her yard. No, the only reason why she had painted her toenails was because she, Soap, had actually gone to her school’s homecoming dance that year.

Soap was not what most people consider to be a teenage girl. She had no desire of gossiping. She had no desire of spending endless hours at the mall. And she had no desire of wanting to date as many guys as possible. No, Soap was a quiet, thoughtful girl who enjoyed drawing and occasionally writing. And she liked to know the secrets of the woods.

Soap sighed and felt the rain getting stronger. Beads of water formed on her body, and she shivered. Without thinking, she walked over to a tree that divided her and her neighbor’s yard. Unlike most of the trees sprouting out of the grass, it was a fairly fat tree. She placed a pale hand on its bark, admiring of how old it seemed. It was a pine tree. A pine tree that should be remembered because it had held its ground in a hurricane that had blown away its neighboring trees.

The hurricane. Soap pushed the thought out of her mind. It was over now, and she had recovered. Her family had recovered.

Deciding to go inside, she strode across the yard and into the seemingly warm house. She stopped in the small kitchen, one of the coziest spots in her wooden house. She scanned the lopsided yellow counter and the out-of-date electric stove. Even though her family lacked the modern kitchen utilities, she liked the cooking area the same.

Soap heard the rain drum on the roof. With the woods, she loved rain also. She liked the idea that the water came from the sky, the one place that man couldn’t corrupt unless he was in an airplane or something of the sort. Soap could remember the times when she would stand in the rain, face to the clouds. The rain drops would dive to the ground around her, but the droplets that were directly above her would take their time, as if they were in slow motion. They were tiny crystals, splashing their way down, down, down to earth.