“Day 3,” Lauré sighed into her voice recorder as she sat by a small campfire she had set up. “And I still haven’t found her.” The wood that the red panda had gathered for the fire cracked and snapped as the flames chewed through them hungrily. The fire managed to light up the small open area she had set up camp, overlaying everything within its radius in a soft orange.

“I told her not to leave, to stay put, but she didn’t listen to me… She never does..” The red panda put a hand over her furrowed brow and let her chin fall. Her eyes closed shut as she used her fingers to massage her temple lightly.

She grunted, “She should have stayed put... It was safe... But the infection was spreading, she wasn’t going to listen to me. She was going to get hungry; she was going to want to feed.”

Pulling her head back up, the panda opened up her eyes again, staring into the flickering flames as she held the voice recorder in her shaky, yet death-gripping hand. She got teary-eyed, and visibly grit her teeth to try and stop herself from crying out audibly.

It worked for a while, but eventually, sobs came through. After the first few, she wasn’t able to stop herself very much.

“I should have put the restraints on her, I should have!” She slammed a fist into the dirt, making a fist-sized hole in the semi-soft dirt.

“But I couldn’t.”