Arising Fate

VI

Lily was lost and just beginning to realize how helpless her situation looked. Still she ran, faster than she ever thought possible. Her breathing was ragged and hoarse, throat aching from the putrid water that had scorched its way down and then up her windpipe. But still she fled, her legs moving at an unreasonable pace through the dense forest.

The moon light had vanished, leaving her alone in perpetual twilight. Her eyes helplessly tried to adjust to the plunging darkness that lay before her. There were noises too, sounds that hauntingly echoed around her. Screams. Cackles. Hissing. She could feel eyes prying into her skin from beneath the thick folds of shadow and foliage.

After she had escaped into the woods, a low tempo had begun to pulse across the earth. She could feel it beneath her bare feet now. It was as if the land was alive, blood throbbing through its veins. Visions of her dreams swept through her mind. Was she being chased? Hunted? Were they following her, toiling with her, only to stab her in the back?

No! Her mind commanded. No she wouldn't let them get to her. She wouldn't fall prey to them, or to the twisted thoughts that had corrupted her mind telling her that she wouldn't survive the night.

She wouldn't die.

So her only option was to keep running. To twist her way through the maze of trees, branches, vines, past deep streams of still water that reminded her of the creature that had tugged her down into the watery depths of her bath.

Sharp teeth. Bright eyes. It had wanted to eat her. She had seen, experienced, hunger like that before.

Trees began to blur together, everything looking familiar. Everything looking the same. Had she not passed that still pool of water before? What about the poisonous red flowers that grew from the dead trunk of a rotting tree? She had seen them all before. She was going in circles.

Lily stopped, digging her heels into the moist earth. Her breath came out harsh and fast. She clutched her chest, bending over. Her heart hammered against its restraints, beating so loudly she could hear its pounding in her ears as it matched the beat of the earth. Crouching down low to the ground, Lily let out a frustrated roar of anger, tears slipping uncontrollably from her eyes, soaking her cheeks as her body shook.

I want to go home, she thought. I want to be in my own bed. I want to see Braydon. I want to smell the streets of Chicago. She would have never believed, before today, that those thoughts would have flooded her mind. That she had considered Chicago her home. But at this moment, it was the only thing that gave her any sense of comfort.

Standing up, wiping the tears from her eyes, everything around her had gone silent.

Dangerous.

It wasn't a peaceful silence but rather an unnerving, supernatural silence that slinked itself across the forest floor, up the large warped trees, filling Lily with a heavy sense of dread.

They couldn't have found me already, she thought. But she already knew the answer to that. A predator was watching her from the shadows.

Suddenly, a light trill of laughter danced through the silent woods, causing Lily to jump. The laughter continued to echo around her, ricocheting off the trees, swaying with the chilled wind that had suddenly picked up. It grew louder, bolder and more outrageous. Lily knew she should have kept running. But her feet refused to move.

Her first mistake was turning her back on the creature hunting her.

Pivoting on her feet, Lily made a move to disappear back into the depths of the forest when a swirling noise shot through the air behind her. Gliding past her hips at lightning speed, a silver arrow plunged itself into the side of her ragged nightgown, pinning her body to the tree in front of her.