Page 2

The end, it seems, has finally come to claim me. How strange it should happen this way, seeking me out only when I wasn’t reaching for it.

My body shakes, puffs of cold air falling harshly through my parted lips. Any small fracture of light peeking through the thick branches above is stolen, shadowed by my pursuer as they make their way in front of me.

A cool cloth is brought to my face, obscuring most of my view and blocking my airway. I breathe it in, the faintest scent of something sweet curling its way into my senses.

I should fight, I know I should, but a dizzying haze sweeps through me. My captor, along with the trees surrounding him, begin to blur. Everything fogs over, the very edges of the world ebbing away as a heavy silence wraps around me, and I am pulled into the darkness…

I am weightless. Moving. Swaying.

My arms dangle at my sides. I see shadows. Shapes. Then nothing. I try to move, to speak. My body refuses to cooperate.

Something…something is holding me.

The foggy outline of a figure is all I can make out. I blink, trying to focus. Everything keeps slipping away.

Are those stars?

Where am I?

Again, I fade. In and out.

I’m still in the forest, or maybe I’m not. It’s so hard to concentrate. Sleep pulls me back.

Horns. He’s wearing horns. Two on the top. Two on the sides. Long hair. It hides his face. Metallic. Like an oil spill.

Not real. Not real. Not real…

My eyes spring open and I gasp, dragging air into my lungs like I’ve been drowning. My chest heaves as I bolt upright, looking frantically in all directions.

There is nothing. No figure. No horned creature at my side. Only the sound of my rampant heartbeat.

I stagger to my feet, the ground beneath me soft and even. Every muscle in my body feels coiled and ready to snap as I scan my surroundings.

Trees grow tall, their leaves a rich, unnatural shade of nephrite green, appearing almost blue in the blackened night. Mossy grass cushions the earth beneath me, replacing the rough terrain.

These are not the same woods I ran through.

I think back, remembering the hushed whispers that had pulled me from my room. I followed them to the trees in a sleepy haze.

But the haze had lifted and the whispers changed. Low rumbles echoed through the air, so deep I’d felt them curling around me. I remember the large figure watching me in the forest, its identity masked by the night. It chased me. Hunted me. Taken me.

And now it is gone.

The foster parents at my last home called me crazy. It’s true, I’ve never been normal. I lack emotion and often go out of my way to be hidden from the world. Even at the age of nineteen, I still haven’t figured out how to function properly in groups larger than a few people. I can’t even make it through a single night without waking up in paralyzing fear.

It’s almost tragic, the way the past grips me so tightly.

No, I’m not normal. This, though, opening my eyes to a whole new forest, it doesn’t make sense, not even to my messed-up brain.

And if I was being chased, where is my pursuer? Had I fallen and hit my head? Am I still asleep?

No. This is real. I feel the air on my cheeks. I smell the pine. It’s sweeter than normal. Crisp.

To my left, a narrow pathway shrouded in darkness seems to sink into itself, like a void waiting to devour anyone who ventures too close. It’s the same to my right. A blanket of thick trees and shadows.

Leaves scratch along the earthy floor, a noise far scarier than it should be. The sound advances closer from behind me, louder and rushed. I turn, readying to fight off my pursuer as a gust of cool wind whips past me.

I’m barely able to make out the shape of three large deer darting around me and sprinting deeper into the woods.