Chapter Text
She fled.
The forest around her seemed to loom over her and leer at her pitiful attempts at escaping the inescapable. She tried anyway, as there was nothing else for her to do. He knew, unfortunately, he watched her as she brokenly stumbled away, but there was only so far a girl can go without the backs of her ankles ,and one of her heels. Her fingers were broken from two days of screaming and scratching at the walls of her prison, and her arms were bloody from crawling through thorns.
She fell and screamed with pain, her voice devoured easily by the shadows of the forest and the downpour of the endless rain. Tears pricked at her eyes and she dragged herself forward using her elbows only, teeth gritted so hard her mouth began to ache. There was no real point in keeping silent now, she knew that he was after her, stalking her like he stalked the others. He would follow her through the cold, miserable rain and drag her back. She could almost sense him lurking in the shadows between the trees, watching her with cold, evil amusement as she struggled for safety. Unable to help herself, she bit her lip again, but found no relief from the burst of pain and the taste of blood. Nothing would release her from this nightmare.
Oh god, they’re all dead, aren’t they? Why didn’t she listen? ,You warned her.
Forward, she dragged herself through three inches of mud, sticks, and fallen leaves. Her legs were useless, but she couldn’t stop. She was so close. So close, she could feel it in her heart. Was that not w,hat she was told to look out for?
Suddenly, there it was, like an answered prayer from a god who had long been silent. A door of white light opened a good twenty feet from her, and she started gasping for breath as she dragged her ruined body as fast as her elbows could take her.
“Please.” She begged. Fifteen feet now.
A rumble of thunder nearly drowned out the sounds of heavy footsteps squelching into the mud not far behind her. She felt ,ill with fear.
“Please,” she said again, louder and more desperately this time. Eyes wild, she reached feverishly for her only salvation.
Five feet. Something scratched lightly down the back of her legs.
The door was so close. Salvation, sanity, and everything she had ever known, it was right there. She just had to reach further and she’d be safe. She could ,see it just beyond her fingertips.
A deep, resonating laugh burst from above her and a hand closed around the pitiful remains of her foot. Her howls of sheer, petrified pain and horror echoed briefly through the forest, but then faded to nothing.
All that was left of her was her silence.