Chapter Text
Cold, caked on, mud that shivers in tandem with her skin as the absence of warmth seeps deeper into her bones. The already pale light fades further away into the growing night, falling to the forest floor earning scratches and bruises for her fumble and gaining dried leaves sticking and being woven into her filthy hair tied in knots without remorse.
The fall didn't make her flinch so much as the noise from the tumble. The aborted gasp of pain is stifled viciously and she scoots deeper into the shadows of the roots of the tree she unmercifully had tripped over in her mad dash to flee from the approaching six legged deer bear- thing that wants to eat her.
It had been a hellish week for her, survival in this inhospitable and frankly alien terrain had left her gaunt and covered in grime she was now grateful for masking her scent, even though she had been lamenting it not even three hours prior.
She had been constantly on the verge of a panic attack and shoving it down in favor of putting her girl scouts badges to use for once in her life was all she had going for her in the past couple of days she’d spent starving. She had been gambling with every little nut and berry she could scrounge up to sustain her and so far she was still alive- but it looked like her luck had run out with this monster hunting her for its next meal.
The terror huddled up close to her chest and she held her breath as her eyes fell closed in the childish instinct reared their head in a desperate effort to keep from being found. If you can’t see them, they can’t see you. Her mind whispered and she clung to it with reckless hope even as she derided her own thoughts as naive.
The hot breath of the carnivore ghosted across her face and she didn't so much as twitch even as the images of a mouth full of fangs filled her head and she heard the near silent paw pads trembling the leaves on the ground. The stench of the animal pervaded her nose and in this moment she felt sure she would feel the rip and tear of teeth and claws on her any second now.
But it didn’t.
It moved away from her slowly as though still searching even as she knew it must have found her all but having heart palpitations underneath the scant roots and moss of the bioluminescent tree she had so foolishly chosen on gut feeling.
The flash of confusion that shot through her was enough to make her crack her eyes open and look at the beast as it stalked further away from her hiding place. The eyes of the animal shone against the glow of the tree and shock rippled through her even as she held still as a mouse for another hour until she was sure the monster was gone.
She all but collapsed in relief as her shaking limbs protested the movements, having locked up after so long of being still. It couldn’t see her because it could only see in the dark. The light blinded it.
Looks like her luck hadn’t run out quite yet