I ran. That’s all I could do. No specific direction, there was no way to tell the direction. The fog rested thickly across the earth, surrounding me with empty darkness. The air was heavy making my lungs work over time. The ground was soft and damp, as bare feet came into contact with it. I pushed myself to move faster- I knew something was following. I could hear them. They weren’t quiet as they ran after me.

I looked back into nothingness. It seemed to be closing in. Stumbling, I made contact with the cold earth, my foot lodged between a fallen branch. I stopped moving, didn’t dare to exhale, the silence was deafening.

Snap.

There it was. It knew I stopped. The sound of rooting, sniffing almost, filled the area. It was searching. Pain began to blossom in my ankle, the bone beginning to bend in an unnatural way. I had to move. There was a shuffling, feet, or hooves, maybe paws, drug heavily past me. Not even ten feet away. They broke into a run, hitting the ground noisily, breaking twigs and sticks as it went.

Slowly and hesitantly I reached down towards my foot. Freeing it, I jumped to my feet. I had to move, go somewhere. Somewhere safe. I flexed my foot, tested it, making sure I could walk. Then I broke into a run, opposite of where it went. I moved fast, it wouldn’t be long before it discovered which direction I had gone.

Heavy footfalls began to echo throughout the darkness. It found me. It stomped after me, barreling through the invisible foliage with force. I risked a glance back. Luminescent white eyes burned into me. Watching me. Hunting me. I looked ahead, surging forward, attempting to put distance between It and me. The thing seemed to have endless energy, an advantage over my rapidly waning energy.

In a second the terrain changed. The spongy, dewy earth turned to gritty, cold stone. It took me a minute before I stopped running, shocked at my location. I was on a road. It had to be a road. I spun around, facing It, the thing paced uneasily back and forth. It’s white eyes carefully examined the asphalt. A soft rumbling filled the space, one clearly foreign to the creature. For once it’s eyes, once filled with malice, now held fear.

I turned to run, but blinding pain spread throughout my body. I hit the concrete, maybe a few feet away, maybe where I had stood. The white eyes watched me, just before everything went black.