by Joshua Brandenstein

Created on: September 08, 2010

All he could hear were the noises, oh the noises! They rang in his head even when they weren't there. The pain of running screeched at him to stop or else risk throwing up. He obeyed it and propped his back against a dead tree. The black sky stared back at him as he leaned his head back and took in multiple heavy breaths. Hopefully, whatever it was that was haunting him in the night would take longer to catch up than his lungs.

It didn't. The selfsame bloodcurdling shriek, the sound of a gargled, dying and tortured wail resounded off the trees around him. It was close... again. As he picked himself up, fear rising with him, eating away at him more than any rational fear ever could, he realized that he had not yet seen it. All he had yet seen were its eyes, eyes void of compassion and sanity. As he ran he heard a distinct and heavy panting but a few feet behind him. In an act he never thought possible, he ran even faster. It sounded as if it were right in his ear, breathing... Perhaps he was losing his mind. Perhaps it wasn't real. He ran on regardless, the thing's panting never once diminishing. It sounded so much closer with each step that reverberated up to his ears. Breathing. Panting. Whispering.

It whispered his name. At first it sounded just like a breath, a whisper, but it repeated it, over and over. It wasn't human. It wasn't animal. It knew his NAME. He could almost feel its hot and dank breath on his face now. It curled around him, it wrapped itself up in him. He was ensnared by it. Trapped. He ran faster, his lungs burning parallel to his heart now. Faster and faster he went, the beast getting closer the more he tried to outrun it. It was yelling in his ear, howling with the same voice it had screamed in. Suddenly, a root caught his foot. In a flash of searing pain he fell the ground, his ankle twisted. In the same motion, his body turned around to where he'd been running. His breath catching up to him, pounding in his chest like a hammer to an anvil. Tears soaked him even more as the glowing red eyes descended from the black forest toward its fallen prey.

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