Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)

•15•

Feet thudding against the cold, hardened ground. Branches lashing harshly across sore limbs. Air wheezing in and out of tired lungs. Heartbeat pounding in overwhelmed ears.

This scene was so alien and yet so familiar, a wicked sense of déjà vu washing over your mind despite the panic running through your veins. It was as if you had lived through a similar experience over and over again. A vague wonder passed in your thoughts – was this the scene of those nightmares you could never quite remember, the ghost of the fear they instilled lingering longer than the memory.

The difference between what was occurring right now and the nightmares that plagued your sleeping hours, of course, was that this was no dream. You were in genuine danger, running from masked people intent on harming you.

Your ribs ached with a fire that sweltered just under your skin, untouched by the cold of the air around you. They were bruised for sure, though hopefully not cracked. You assumed if they were that you would be prone right now rather than running, left to drag your beaten body forward on your arms and legs. 

Your head throbbed painfully, especially where you were clipped in the temple. The injuries from your fight earlier were exacerbated by the various cuts and scrapes sustained from the surrounding foliage, coalescing so forcefully into a pain that made you feel more like a single large injury rather than a person.

Despite all of these compounding issues you kept running. Something possessed your muscles and your mind, urging you on past exhaustion to a place you had only heard of in terrible emergencies. Mother's lifting cars off babies. Husbands clearing rubble from their buried wife. Children saving siblings from a downed dresser. You were only saving yourself, and yet you continued on. This was without direction, mindless animal taxis from a negative stimulus.

Were the men still chasing you? Pursuing their prey?

Moving on a quick, split-second decision you ducked under a tree and it's low-hanging dead branches. You forced yourself to lay still on the bed of dried pine needles and dark earth; your body protested but sagged tiredly against the forest floor, the smell of dead leaves and growing mycelium invading your nose as you strained your ears for any sound.

Silence.

Deafening silence, besides the pounding of your heart in your ears. Maybe they were finally gone, having decided that they'd done enough to hurt you and finally let you go.

No. You couldn't trust that they were finished with terrorizing you. Without a way to judge time, there was no guarantee that they had lost interest. Perhaps they were also hiding, like a predator in the shadows, waiting for your guard to be down before striking again. Despite the danger and urgency of the situation, you felt your heartrate slow as you waited, and waited, and nothing happened.

Your body hurt so much, and the ground was so cold. Your eyelids were growing heavy. Maybe you could just... lay here. Until morning. That wouldn't be so bad, right? Hidden from the people who harmed you, curled up against the tree trunk like a small animal hibernating in its den.

Then you heard the sound of shoes pounding against the leaf litter, fast and seemingly unimpeded by the roots and rocks around them – and they were quickly coming closer to your hiding spot.

Your pulse skyrocketed again, and you fought that urge to give up and sleep. Instead, you pressed yourself tighter to the ground if that was possible.

The runner entered the area within seconds, skidding to a stop only feet from the tree you were cowering under; harsh, ragged pants of air ripped from their lungs that sounded more animal than human. Peering up through the gnarled branches, a bolt of fear ran through you as a white mask flashed on the back of your eyelids. It was one of the men!