Each footstep sent sharp pain up the boy’s legs, his bare feet torn from his sprint through the woods. Every breath was ragged as he pushed himself faster, faster. He could hear them, even over the wind and the pounding of his heart; thundering paws and gnashing teeth, their breath hot on his ankles.

The vines and branches whipped and tore at him, like the arms of a beast reached out to drag him down. He couldn’t pause to question why the leaves and fruits glowed iridescent colours, giving light even though the moon stayed hidden behind the clouds. All he knew was they were in his way.

Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look...

Pushing himself through branch after branch of glowing foliage, he heard the snap of jaws just inches behind his head. In front of him, out of the darkness that even the glowing plants couldn’t push back, the form of a large boulder appeared. He leaped, and heard the thing from behind crash headfirst into the rock. Having cleared it by the skin of his teeth, he landed already back in a sprint, lungs heaving even heavier and legs screaming even louder in protest.

“Run! Don’t worry about us, just run!”

A woman’s voice called out in his mind, muddled and drowned beneath the rushing of blood to his head.

How long had he been running? Minutes? Hours? Days?

For some reason, he couldn’t remember. Nothing… he remembered nothing before the fear. Nothing before the running.

He desperately felt the need to just stop. His body was scratched, torn and bleeding all over. His breathing was raspy and uneven, closer to hyperventilating than anything else. Even his arms burned from the constant pumping and the collisions with branches and vines.

From behind, he could hear them, already over the boulder, already gaining, already chasing.

So, he fled. Faster than before.

“Go south, don’t slow for anything!” The voice called out again.

There was a shooting pain in the back of his head, where he could feel a trickle of blood reaching his neck.

He ignored it.

No time to check injuries, no time to catch a breath. Only the next tree to pass, the next branch to duck.

Not yet had he begun to notice a new sound, rolling out through the forest. From somewhere just ahead, rushing and rumbling, out of place in a forest so quiet.

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He stumbled forwards as a hungry jaw snapped shut on the hem of his pant leg, inches from his skin. The ragged fabric tore almost immediately, and he barely avoided tripping. In his stumble, he felt more than heard the rushing of one of them coming for him.

A yelp pierced the night air, as his dagger carved into the thing’s flesh. He’d swung wildly, hair and blood blocking his vision, off running again before he even saw where he had cut it. It rolled on the ground, an indistinguishable mass of black fur in the underbrush. While the beast’s cries were still fresh in the air, another leaped over it to take its place.

“Don’t stop until you’re out of the forest! Find help… please!” The woman’s voice was desperate… pleading.

The boy fumbled to shove the dagger back into its sheath before feeling it slide and click into place. He didn’t have time to question where it came from. It wasn’t his, that much he was sure of… but he had no idea when or where he had gotten it.

“Don’t let them catch you, whatever you do!”

The ground was becoming softer under his feet, and the canopy above began to thin out as he ran.

“Find people, knights and soldiers… tell them what you saw! Warn them, warn everyone!”

He screamed as something finally caught up to him, and a searing pain tore through his calf as teeth messily sliced through.

“There’s no more time, please, just go, just run!”

He burst out of a thick row of bushes, barely slipping by under a thick branch, and found himself in a clearing. The sudden lack of glowing leaves was startling, and in his moment of total blindness, he finally took note of the now thunderous noise that had been growing steadily louder.

Unfortunately, it was far too late for him to slow down.

For a brief second in time, he was suspended in the open air, legs and arms still flailing, before gravity’s clutches took him again. The shock of icy cold water numbed his exhausted limbs immediately as he plunged into the river. His head submerged, he struggled to pull himself to the surface as the current dragged him quickly away.

“Don’t let them see.”

The woman’s voice no longer screamed. Instead, it was barely a whisper. Hoarse, and commanding.

He managed to break his way to the surface, and took a deep, gasping breath. Already he could barely keep himself afloat, his legs kicking weaker and weaker as the cold sucked away the last of his strength.

“Don’t let them hear.”

One of the things had fallen into the river with him. He could see it whenever he was thrown higher into the air by a bump in the current. It was floundering, fur matted down and eyes glowing a violent orange even in the total lack of moonlight.

“Don’t let them feel.”

His head went under again, and for the first time, he felt faint. His body had begun to give in, unable to keep moving.

“And most importantly…”

The river spun him around, thrashing him about like a dog with a rope. In the moments when he was above water, he sucked in breath, only for the pounding of the torrent to beat the air out of him again.

It was as he sucked in a breath that he saw it coming. Not the beast from before, but a dark shape. Tall, jutting out of the water at a steep angle, only meters in front of him. He didn’t even have time to realise what it was.

“Don’t let them take you, Matthaeus.”

With a violent heave, the river crashed him headfirst into the rock, and everything went black.