Jenny's feet slammed the ground behind me. We could see now, with her spell shining again, but I still ran in front to watch for roots and stumps.

"ESKIR!" I shouted. I'd been shouting for quite some time, but there was no response.

Running headfirst, and I could barely see two steps ahead of me. My body also obstructed Jenny's light, making it even harder to see. Every breath, I thought I would slam headfirst into a tree. I almost did, for a few of them. Before, the forest had been thick, but now it was thinner, and dense shrubbery and trees were replaced by a soft mossy floor.

I hoped Eskir had made it there. I hoped the shades hadn't ripped him apart, but if he'd somehow survived, I wanted it to be where we were running. I wanted it to be anywhere, because he had to be alive. He wasn't allowed to die, not as long as I still needed answers.

"Eskir!" called Jenny. There was a heavy heaving in her voice, and her shout was dampened in the oppressing dark, even though she was only just behind me.

"Root!" I called out, leaping over a protruding tendril. Jenny leapt as well, just barely avoiding it. I could hear the exhaustion in her breathing.

It was always such a shocking reminder, to hear humans wheezing for air. Kindred aren't any tougher, not without magic. Our skin tears the same. But at least we had endurance. We'd only been running for only a few minutes, and I was slowing to a human speed for her too, but she was nearly spent, every muscle in her body wanting to collapse in on itself.

Her light was the problem. Shades were fast, almost faster than humans, but they still had their limit. I could have picked Jenny up, tossed her over my shoulder, and sped away fast enough to leave them behind. But she'd hated it the last time I did it, and doing it again would probably distract her just enough to have the light vanish.

When I had asked her for permission anyway, right after we'd lost Eskir, she'd said: "Don't you FUCKING dare pick me up, or I swear I will slap you with a fish."

I reached out and snapped a branch off of a tree as we sped by, then flung it out into the dark. I heard it slap against something. A shade. Jenny's lungs were about to collapse, and I needed to do something. Hunak seemed to have no end in sight, and if—

"Liguadhf," wheezed Jenny.

"What?" I called back.

All I heard was heavy breathing. I stopped, spun, and grabbed her as she fell into me.

"Theroiasssdi....... ait."

"Jenny, speak."

She looked up at me with eyes that could melt steel, and I immediately felt a little dumber as I remembered she couldn't breathe.

"Light," she finally gasped.

I looked down. Hers hadn't gone out, it was still there, illuminating her face like candlelight.

"Light," she repeated.

If she kept talking nonsense, I would have to pick her up whether she liked it or not, and just hope she was able to keep the spell lit.

"Pick mup."

"You want me to pick you up?"

She nodded. I scooped her up and caught a glimpse of a shade behind her. I kicked at it as hard as I could, and the soft matter curved around my foot almost like a fluid. It was still there and solid, I could still hit it, but it was like kicking a cloud. It went flying back into a tree or a boulder. Something hard, at least. I heard the squelch of the shade slapping against the surface and drew myself backwards.

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"Light," gasped Jenny.

I looked around and saw it. Finally, we both must have thought. It wasn't far off, either. I didn't know how I'd missed it earlier. A soft glow broke through the darkness. It wasn't enough to see, and it looked so far away, but I knew it was closer. Hunak swallowed all light. Even Jenny's spell could only light up our faces and a little bit of the ground ahead, when it should have been able to do so much more. The light we saw couldn't have been far ahead.

And that's when the shades caught up. False claws and teeth tore into my skin, tearing away hair and skin from my arms. I swatted at my arm, where most of the pain was concentrated, but my hands brushed through air and the gnawing continued. They were coming at my legs, my arms, my throat, every part of my body. Jenny started screaming, and it was all I could do to keep running with her over my shoulder. Every bone in my body wanted to stop and tear them away from her, but if I did, we'd both die.

The light was still there, and brighter now. What terrified me most was how thin it seemed. I expected the end of Hunak to stretch across the horizon, but instead it was just a small pocket of light, almost like Jenny's spell. The shades kept tearing at us, and then one of them caught my leg. I fell, sending Jenny flying far ahead. I heard a thunk, and her screaming stopped.

"Jenny!" I shouted, but one of the shades slammed my head into the ground, pinning me down. It was so soft, so formless, that my instincts barely registered it as a threat. But those claws were still there, those fangs still dug into me.

Another two shades grabbed each of my arms. At least two, it could have been more. I couldn't move them.

I was going to be eaten alive by the shades, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

"XERA!"

I tried to look up. That was Jenny's voice, as clear as day, not muffled at all by the dark. But I was still surrounded by it, I could tell that much. The shades were still on top of me.

I tried to say "help," but it just came out as a hoarse scream. The pain was too much. Have you ever had your flesh peeled from your bones? I was only just then learning exactly what it was like, and I will remember that sensation until the day I die. Probably long after.

A light broke out the darkness, scattering the depths of that sea and beaming out a beacon of the dawn.

I looked up, my head now unhindered by shades. They had been scattered with the dark too. They were as formless as it was.

My skin was not torn from my bones.

My arms were not split open and infested with feasting shades.

The mossy forest floor was not soaked in my blood.

I was covered in bite marks, and my skin ached like it had just been ripped apart from the inside out, but the devastation hadn't yet been actualised. I wasn't completely dead.

I touched my arms in amazement. My more severe injuries may have been made real if the dark had persisted for much longer, where their falsehood could have tricked the world under the cover of darkness if they'd only had more time.

And by some miracle of light, this dawn had saved me.

"HEY AIRHEAD!"

I looked up. Jenny was standing on the edge of a small pocket of proper light. It was her spell that had cleared away the shades hanging over my head, and she was waving at me from beside a moss-covered kinstone.

"Jenny!" I shouted back, elated that she was alive.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!"

I startled, then quickly realised what was happening. The dark was sweeping back in, covering the forest she had illuminated. Her spell must have worked properly from her spot in the light, but it wasn't permanent. Hunak was still there, caking the forest in that soul-crushing void.

I bolted in Jenny's direction. The dark flowed in faster than I could move, and closed in on me before I could reach her. She was clear enough to see now, as she started struggling with another spell, but nearly fainted in the attempt. The magic had sapped a lot from her, but she still tried.

The shades returned, climbing all over me with their eager deprived hunger, desperate to finish their meal.

With three more steps, I cleared the threshold of the light and broke through to the glade of light. The air hit me like a nice breeze on a sweltering hot day, clearing away the foul and entrenched stick of the dark. I took a deep breath in, appreciating for a moment the relief of freedom.

Nobody wants to be eaten alive, alone and buried where nobody would ever find them.

I would have vanished in that ocean.

Instead, I was alive.